A Very Good Day! A Santa Ynez Wine Country Tour

By Olaf G. Wolff
AllAboutBikes.com Sr. Staff Writer

Editor’s Note: This is the first installment in a three-part series of Wolff’s travels.

Occasionally I’ll ride in a group, but it’s either because my job requires it, or because I got pressured. Job-related rides are pretty much all good; everyone is experienced, there’s no guesswork, and no whining. On the other kind of group rides perhaps not so much.

I’m old school when it comes to riding – for me it’s a very personal, verging on a religious kind of thing. I’m at peace hearing the wind whistling around my helmet and I find bliss with the intense, bracing, visceral focus on the moment that motorcycling demands. It’s time-out, private time – why mess it up?

Recently, my wife was in Colorado, visiting her best friend, and I had friend with a birthday coming up. He’d hinted relentlessly about a particular kind of Merlot. Left to my own devices, my plans for my Saturday were a no-brainer – Santa Ynez wine country here I come.
 
Destination Santa Ynez Valley

Santa Ynez is a mere 65-mile jaunt north from my home in Ventura, California; it’s located in the idyllic golden hills just above Santa Barbara. The most direct route to Santa Barbara is the Ventura Freeway 101/Highway 1, but I was in no hurry and opted to ride my V-Storm leisurely along Highway 192, snaking the back roads through Carpinteria, Montecito and into Santa Barbara. Highway 192 runs directly into State Highway 154, or San Marcos Pass as it’s commonly known, which climbs up into the hills headed towards Santa Ynez at a fast clip – there’s no lollygagging here.

The San Marcos Pass has some interesting history; it was the stagecoach route Gen. John C. Fremont took en-route to the capture of the city of Santa Barbara in 1848.
The pass was the shortest most direct route over the Santa Ynez Mountains from the north and quickly became the preferred route of travel. And, it remains a preferred route, with wide open mountain scenery and an engaging, ever altering view of Lake Cachuma.

"Tilting at windmills" and Danish Pastry 

Twenty minutes north of Santa Barbara, Highway 154 crosses Route 246 (Mission Dr.), eight miles later Route 246 arrives in Solvang, and this is where I officially started my wine country tour. Solvang is a Danish word meaning "sunny field" and it was founded in 1911 on 9,000 acres of a former Spanish land grant in what is now the Santa Ynez Valley.

In 1936, on Solvang's 25th birthday, the future Danish king and queen visited, sparking interest in the local colony and when The Saturday Evening Post featured Solvang in a 1946 article, tourists came, attracted by the setting, the customs, and the serene lifestyle. Shops, galleries, restaurants, and hotels soon sprouted, all of them reflecting the area's Danish architectural heritage.

I started my ride early that day; by mid-morning the temperature was 77 degrees and would later peak at 82 – this was damn-near perfect riding weather. At a small Solvang bakery I met up with a group of riders visiting from the San Luis Obispo area, we exchanged road-tales over coffee and Danish pastries, then rode our separate ways.

Solvang, for me, is the gateway to visiting the more than 70 world-class wineries and tasting rooms throughout the entire valley, but I was here for a single bottle of Merlot – leaving plenty of time for riding on this faultless chamber of commerce type day. Next stop was the artistic community of Los Olivos, ten minutes down the road.

Located at the intersection of Highway 154 and Grand Avenue, the community of Los Olivos offers an authentic helping of Americana with numerous art galleries, boutiques, more than a dozen wine-tasting rooms, a top-notch inn and cafés from casual to gourmet. From this point on the pace of touring and stopping is only determined by my frame of mind.