Sanford Winery – Tasting High End Pinot Noir and Chardonnay – Santa Barbara Urban Wine Trail #20

Another 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!

Sanford Winery is one I have been looking forward to visiting since I started my Santa Barbara Wine Trail project. They are well known for their delicious Pinot Noirs from Santa Rita Hills. My expectations were high and Sanford did not disappoint.

I visited Sanford Winery's tasting room on a crowded Saturday afternoon. Sanford is located in downtown Santa Barbara's beautiful La Arcada area. It is the only tasting room in the La Arcada section of the Urban Wine Trail, but the Presidio area is just a few blocks away were 7 more wineries are located.

The Sanford tasting room is classically beautiful with dark wood and a leather topped bar. Their many wines along with photos from the vineyards decorate the walls. As I said it was a Saturday afternoon so the room was very busy with people continually flowing through as I slowly made my way through my wine tasting.

I found a spot at the beautiful bar top and let Rachelle, the tasting room lead, know I was going to be tasting with my Urban Wine Trail membership. Sanford lets you choose which of their two main tastings you prefer: the Classic Flight or the Reserve Flight. Of course I picked the Reserve Flight, with its Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs that Sanford is famous for. (Bonus - Sanford now offers a sparkling wine flight on Fridays and Saturdays, which is also an option for the Santa Barbara Urban Wine Trail membership card.)

The Reserve Flight started with two 2014 chardonnays from two neighboring Sanford vineyards. First was the La Entrada Chardonnay. This was a butter bomb that was light on fruit and high on those malolactic fermentation flavors. This was a not a chardonnay to sip on by its self, it is definitely meant to drink with food: white cheeses, creamy pasta or saucy salmon dishes.

Next up was the Vista al Rincon Chardonnay. This wine had a much more active smell profile with fresh fruits and heavy oak notes. I even smelled a bit of candied fruit, kinda like peaches. It was a very flavorful and balanced wine full of fruit and oak flavors. I thought that the Rincon Chardonnay was very good and is the one you want if you are just drinking a wine by itself, not that it wouldn't go well with foods that are typically paired with Chardonnays. My only critique with this wine was that it had a bit of a harsh alcohol feel on the mouth. This was pretty standard across all of Sanford's wines that I tasted as they were all around 14.5%, but this was more notable among this wine and the 2014 La Rinconado Pinot Noir which I tasted next.

I found the 2014 La Rinconado Pinot Noir to be nothing special. It tasted fine, which is not the adjective you really want for a $70 bottle of wine. It had tart fruit flavors, with high tannins and nice oak spices. It was an intensely flavorful Pinot, but had that alcohol finish that I am not a fan of with Pinot Noirs.

Next was the 2014 Sanford and Benedict Pinot Noir. It smelled smokey and of sweet wet earth. I even caught a bit of a taffy smell. It was a really smooth tasting wine and had delicious fresh berry flavors with subtle chocolate and baking spices from its time on French Oak. I really enjoyed sipping on this wine.

Last up on the Reserve Flight was the 2015 Loma Alta Pinot Noir. Coming in at $88 per bottle, this should be the best wine of the flight, and gosh darn it was! This wine had an amazingly smooth smell of dark berries and heavy oak. This was the most complex tasting wine I have drank in Santa Barbara so far. It was well balanced between acidity and tannins. Its fruit was subtle but it was still sweet. I even noticed a bit of a meaty flavor like you would find with a Petit Verdot. If I was tasting this wine blind I would swear it was a blended wine, but Rachelle assured me it was just a really nice Pinot Noir.

While my official tasting was over, Rachelle was kind enough to let me try the Syrah they were offering on the Classic Flight as well. I heard someone next to me talking about how much they liked it so I wanted to give it a try too! It was a 2014 Syrah with the grapes sourced from Santa Maria Valley. It was another good smelling wine, with rose, oak and berry notes. It had a very intense flavor, as you would expect from a Syrah, and made me want to eat some steak with blue cheese as I drank it. The Syrah had nice peppery and spicy flavors and I thought it was very tasty.

My overall tasting experience at Sanford was great. Even though they were very busy that day, Rachelle was super nice and did a great job explaining the wines to me and even brought out a little map to explain where the different wines were sourced from. Sanford does a nice job making the tasting experience interactive if you want it, by also providing a tasting menu with note areas and pens to jot down ideas.

I highly recommend a visit to Sanford Winery. The tasting room is very nice and the service was super kind and helpful. To top it off they make very high quality and delicious wines. While they may be out of my price range for personal everyday consumption, the Sanford Reserve wines are fun to taste and I'd say their high quality matches their high end prices. If either Pinot Noir or Chardonnay is your thing or if you have heard about Santa Barbara's reputation concerning these wines, then Sanford Winery needs to be on your Santa Barbara wine tasting bucket list!

-Visited on October 13, 2018.