BACKGROUNDER
Contacts: William Ostedt/Stefan Pollack
The Pollack PR Marketing Group
( 310) 556-4443
The Santa Barbara Wine Country
Santa Barbara County has over 200 years of winemaking and winegrape growing under it’s belt. Dating back from the Mission Era of early California through the Ranchero and Pueblo Era, Santa Barbara County continues to combine traditional, hand-made techniques, with the latest cutting-edge innovations in grape-growing and winemaking.
The unique, transverse nature of the valleys of Santa Barbara Wine Country provides a wide array of microclimates and terrains, resulting in one of the most diverse grapegrowing regions in the country. This allows the Santa Barbara Wine Country to have a longer growing season than any other wine region.
Appellation
The wineries included by the Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association are primarily located in three distinct growing regions (Santa Maria Valley, Santa Ynez Valley, Los Alamos Valley.) Located within these three growing regions are three designated American Viticulture Areas (AVA), all of which have superior grape growing characteristics becuase of their singular combination of geology, climate and soil, unmatched anywhere in the world. The three AVA includes (Santa Maria Valley, Santa Ynez Valley, and Santa Rita Hills.) Due to the San Andreas fault the local mountains were rearranged into a east-west configuration, opening up wide portals to cool pacific air. The 50-mile ease west traverse of shoreline causes the region to be one of the coolest viticulture areas in California, while the warm day proves to be an ideal temperature for growing wine grapes. The varied soil types (sand, clay and gravel) allow for variation of grape types
Quality of Wines
The climate particular to Santa Barbara County produces a remarkable quality of varietal grapes which the region’s daring new breed of adventurous, innovative vintners have crafted into wines unmatched in taste, freshness and vibrancy–recognized worldwide by heads of state as well as the most renown critics. Unlike other California Wine regions, Santa Barbara County wines are produced by handcrafted wineries, resulting in blends unique to Santa Barbara County. The wineries and vineyards are mostly family-owned and winemakers are not bound by traditions and methodologies of some of the older wine-producing areas of California. The unique microclimate enables vineyards to grow grapes suited to the right locations resulting in wines being knows for fruitiness and freshness as well as have the advantage of tasting well both young and aged.
Travel & Tourism
Being only 90 miles from the Los Angeles metropolitan area, Santa Barbara provides Southern California with its own wine country. Santa Barbara County’s wine region is an oasis for those looking for an easily accessible getaway from the congestion of city life. Being a world-class tourism destination, renowned for beautiful beaches and quaint western towns amidst the golden countryside, Santa Barbara has some of the world’s greatest vineyards producing world-class wines. The region’s microclimates create comfortable mild temperatures for traveling all year round, as well as the proximity to LA makes for an easy day trip. While Santa Barbara is often claimed to be the “young and hip” place to be it also has some of the cleanest beaches in California. The Santa Barbara Wine County’s vineyards offer a pretentious free atmosphere, and gladly welcome both first timers and experienced wine tasters.
Economic Impact
The wine industry has become the largest and most important agricultural business in the Santa Barbara County. Vineyards and wineries afford Santa Barbara Country a high value-added industry while preserving the agrarian and scenic qualities of its agricultural base. The allure of its wineries has enhanced the county’s attractiveness to the most discerning niche travel market. The Santa Barbara Wine County has more then doubled in acreage since 1996 and more then 300,000 people visit the tasting rooms annually. Furthermore, the wine industry alone in 2000 directly contributed $360 million to Santa Barbaras’s economy. While the grape crop is the 2ed most valuable agricultural crop in Santa Barbara, and the #1 finished agricultural crop, the wine industry has become vital to the restaurant, hotel, catering, and transportation industries.
The Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association
The Vintners’ association is a non-profit organization founded in 1983 to support and promote Santa Barbara County as a premium wine producing and wine grape growing region. The Vintners’ Association produces festivals, seminars, and tastings and provides information to consumers and the wine and travel media. The annual Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Festivals attracts wine lovers from near and far for an opportunity to meet vintners and staff from the member wineries, and to taste their wines. The Celebration of Harvest festival is held in October during the excitement of the wine grape harvest. As well as the Festivals themselves, these weekends are filled with open houses, winemaker dinners, special tastings and other unique events. For more information visit www.sbcountywines.com.
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Brianna Bro's 