Just an hour and a half’s drive from Los Angeles, Santa Barbara encompasses a delightful span of California’s central coast that is surprisingly underdeveloped particularly given its location and what it offers visitors: beautiful beaches lined with palm trees, fantastic restaurants, and easy access to a truly unique wine region producing world-class wines.
Tableau, the restaurant at the Loden Hotel in downtown Vancouver, is the latest offshoot of the uber-successful Homer Street Café. Serving classically prepared French bistro cuisine with a modern twist, it is all you could ask for in a dining experience: delicious food, friendly, helpful servers, cool ambience and scene, and fair prices.
Iron Horse Vineyards is the love and labour of Californians Audrey and Barry Sterling. In 1976 they drove along the one lane road just outside of the town of Occidental in the Russian River Valley of Sonoma County, through the fog and misty rain to find this beautiful vineyard, which they bought, pretty much on the spot. The location is beautiful, often shrouded by the fog that gets held by its rolling hills, and is very remote. Almost 30 years later to the day, we drove along that same road, in similar weather conditions to find their beautiful property and taste their exquisite wines.
Although the alcohol laws of Utah are amongst the most restrictive in the United States, they haven’t managed to deter winemakers from producing wines of note or keep breweries and distilleries from thriving.
Living on the west coast of Canada, there’s a certain pleasure we take in teasing our eastern counterparts: that it’s not only possible, but a very common practice, to ski and golf in the same day due to our climate and beautiful surroundings. But these boasts pale in comparison to our most recent trip which had us skiing, mountain biking and hiking our way through Utah over the course of one unforgettable week.
One of the great things about travelling to wine country is the accommodations. Wine’s agricultural roots mean small cozy towns, wide open spaces, rolling hills and usually proximity to water. The hotels, B&Bs and rental houses more often than not reflect their surroundings with their own wine country charm. On our recent trip to Paso Robles we had a terrific stay at the Olive Cottage B&B at the Alta Cresta Olive Orchard.
As you can probably tell from our blog, we love to travel. But despite our desire to search out new hidden gems, we are fully aware of how lucky we are to live in a place as beautiful as British Columbia. As a result, we always make a point to explore our own backyard just as often as we do someone else’s. And while we don’t take our proximity to this beauty for granted, we are often happily reminded of it when we get a chance to visit places like Rockwater Secret Cove Resort.
Spain is one of the world’s important wine growing countries and has a number of wine growing regions. The best known regions are Priorat, near the Mediterranean Coast and known for Garnacha, the Spanish term for Grenache and in the North are Rioja and Ribera del Duero, known for Tempranillo. These better-known regions have earned their reputations, and having been producing wines that have captured the praises of the wine press for decades. But there is a newcomer on the scene that is just starting to gather attention and that is the region of Toro.
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