For a small town…
Santa Barbara has a very robust local food and wine scene. This post is part 1 of getting to know the local Santa Barbara Food and Wine scene. I read the other day that there are 58 new establishments opening over the next year in Santa Barbara County. Let’s get to know this local food and wine scene that Santa Barbara has to offer.
We are going to start with The Funk Zone and explore some wine and beer and food…
Margerum Wines
While having a lot of great wines, I find myself often reaching for a (screw off) bottle of Riviera Rose. Easy to drink, easy to open, easy to gift. Don’t just take my word for it, try it for yourself. Margerum moved from a small tasting room in El Paseo to a HUGE amd beautiful tasting room in the Funk Zone with a kitchen, so this is one of the few wine tasting rooms that you can order a variety of different foods to go with your wine. They also have a beautiful outdoor seating area.
Fess Parker Winery
You may have heard of Fess Parker, the man. He is best known for his acting role as Davey Crockett & Daniel Boone in the 1950’s and 1960’s. He decided to step away from the spotlight and purchase 714 acres of land in Foxen Canyon in 1988 & maybe open a small tasting room. They had planned to run cattle and plan some grapes has been doing wine for over 32 years.
Fast forward, they have a large presence in Los Olivos with a wine tasting room, beautiful Inn, Nella Kitchen & Bar and a tasting room im the Funk Zone. They have a couple of different wine labels in additional to Fess Parker, Epiphany, Festivvity Wines, Addendum.
They also make bubbly….
Speaking of bubbly…
If bubbles are your thing, you have to check out Riverbench. You can also purchase bottles covered in GLITTER. But watch out, the bottles do sometimes shed glitter. If you have to shed, maybe that isn’t the worst way to do so?!
Third Window Brewery & Potek Winery
The family also owns a brewery in Santa Barbara (it happens to be one of my favorites) – Third Window Brewery also with awesome food inside The Haley Street Corridor.
Third Window Kitchen offers a variety of different foods, one of my personal faves is their smash burgers. I have waited a long time in line for one of these babies. Most everyone who works there is super nice and they are pretty darn patient with the plethora of small kids that are running around. Third window offers wine, but there is also a local winery Potek Winery. Wines are made by local winery Municipal Winery (in the Funk Zone).
Inside Waterline…
There is also the very cool Waterline & inside there is: Fox Wines (fun fact, the wine maker is also the wine maker at Fess Parker).
Local brewery, Topa Topa Brewery, Llama Dog which is a mix of beer, wine, cider, etc. and you get your food from The Nook. Who also recently opened up a pizza window!
There is so much to explore, so stay tuned for the next edition of exploring the food and wine scene in SB and the Funk Zone specifically.
While, we don’t offer public facing tours in the Funk Zone, we do offer private and corporate tours there. So book your private Funk Zone tour today!