A Winter Sun Weekend in Santa Barbara - Visiting Foxen Canyon

We had an adventurous day in both tasting wines and eating. Our day started with wine tasting along Foxen Canyon. We had gotten the tip about the Fess Parker Winery from the hotel and started tasting there at 11. That might seem a little early for wine tasting to many people, but we were far from alone. There were at least a dozen others at every tasting room we went to. Foxen Canyon is not quite Napa Valley, but it is the best concentration of wineries in the region. There are over a dozen located on this one country road. Here is a link that lists all the wineries on the Foxen Canyon Wine Trail.

The Fess Parker is probably the biggest since the name is so well known.

The interior has two large wine tasting bars and a large gift shop where you can by the book on the legend himself..

The back area had a band going and was a great area to eat or hang out while tasting.

And of course, you can buy a Coon Skin Cap

Further down the road we stopped at the Zaca Mesa Winery. Tastings were $15, but we got $10 off with a $50 total purchase so that’s not a bad deal.

Photo courtesy of Zacamesa.com

The tasting room was packed. The Foxen Valley wineries seem to attract a lot of Bachelorette Parties and we ran into one at almost every stop. This made it kind of crowded, but the staff saw us and cleared a spot at the bar.

Yours truly with a couple bottles of their wine and a jar of Apricot Habanero Jelly. Might sound weird, but it’s pretty good. It is always fun discovering the non-wine unique items you can find when wine tasting.

One last winery is Andrew Murray, which is actually the first winery you will run into on the Foxen Canyon road. They have a new tasting room and we really liked a varietal that we were unfamiliar with, Grenache. They explained that it is usually used as a blending wine, but we liked it on its own.