Deep Sea Winery – One Of The Best Views I’ve Ever Had Wine Tasting – Santa Barbara Urban Wine Trail #12

This is a post in my Santa Barbara Urban Wine Trail Series. See the summary article here for general Wine Trail info or to read about the 27 other wineries!

Alena and I again used this Santa Barbara Urban Wine Trial experiment as an excuse for a fun date night at a local winery. We choose to visit the Deep Sea Winery, located on Stearn's Wharf, for our Saturday evening date spot. Deep Sea has on of the most beautiful wine tasting rooms I have ever been to, due to its location on the pier, you get stellar views of both the ocean and the mountains. It was a lively night, with a mix of locals and tourists out tasting wine and enjoying the great views and lovely outdoor seating.

Deep Sea Winery is part of Conway Family Wines and follows the tradition of Bordeaux chateaus with the Conway label representing their premium wines and Deep Sea acting as their second label. After tasting some of both labels, we found both collections to have approachable and tasty offerings.

As I mentioned the Deep Sea tasting room is located on Stearn's Wharf in downtown Santa Barbara. It is easy to get here and the wharf has plenty of parking, which is free for the first 90 minutes.

Being a Saturday evening, during October, the weather was great and thus the Wharf was buzzing with activity. We wondered into the upstairs tasting room after taking some sunset pictures for Alena. We were welcomed by Sarah who helped us through our tasting that evening.

Deep Sea offers two tastings, one of Deep Sea wines and one of Conway wines. With the Urban Wine Trail membership card, we were able to choose which tasting we wanted. As the Conway tasting consisted of their signature Pinot Noirs and Cabernet Sauvignons, which I tend to prefer over the sweeter whites that made up a good portion of the Deep Sea tasting flight, we went with the Conway flight. Oddly enough every wine in this tasting was from the 2013 vintage.

The tasting still started out with a Deep Sea wine, the 2013 Deep Sea Rose of Syrah. This rose was right down the middle, what you would expect from a rose at the this level. It had light berry and watermelon flavors with great minerality. A bit on the pricey side for an everyday drinking Rose, but you are partially paying to enjoy this wine in an amazing location with world class views.

One of the really fun things about the Deep Sea labels are the beautiful sea life artwork that decorates each bottle. The whole tasting room is a gorgeous place with its sea theme and gorgeous bottles lining the walls, let alone the previously mentioned views outside.

After the Rose, we were on to the Conway Pinots. Sadly they were out of the reserve Pinot Noir that night so we only were able to try the regular 2013 Conway Pinot Noir from Santa Rita Hills area. This wine was aged 12 months in French oak and had dark musty red fruit smells. I found it to have high alcohol on the mouth with tart fruit flavors and not a ton of depth. Good if you like stronger Pinots, but I like mine with a little more subtly.

To replace the missing reserve Pinot Noir we were able to pick another wine of our choice. I asked Sarah which red should would recommend and she said her favorite was Rolo's Red Blend, named after one of the winery dogs. This was a great recommendation. It had great fruit flavors and was very well balanced: sweet, medium tannin and a bit of oak. We really enjoyed Rolo's blend.

Next we moved to the two 2013 Conway Cabernet Sauvignons. I recommend tasting the regular and the reserve side by side so you can really appreciated the difference between the two. They are made from grapes from the same year and same vineyards. The difference is that the winemaker takes what they perceive to be the best barrels and separates them to be aged an additional 8 months on French oak on top of the normal 16 months the regular Cab receives.

The regular cab was a traditional big, bold cabernet with strong fruit and dark chocolate notes. It would pair great with grilled red meat dishes. The reserve cab was definitely smoother and had more oak and delicious spice notes. I thought that its extended aging took away a bit of the intense and tasty fruit that the regular cab had. Alena and I liked them both, but we both thought that the regular cab was a bit better and its $10 cheaper. The Conway Cabernet Sauvignon was the best wine we had of the tasting and was definitely a good deal price-wise at $36 before the 10% Urban Wine Trail discount you can get with the membership card.

Overall our experience at Deep Sea was really great. The wines may not have been super unique, but they were tasty and easy to drink. The service was great and super friendly. And the views you have to see to appreciate how amazing of a location Deep Sea really is. Alena is already planning a trip back with friends to share this wonderful spot.

- Visited on October 6th, 2018.