Santa Barbara
Wine Country

Santa Barbara Wine Country is one of the hot wine travel destinations for 2012, says the Wine Enthusiast magazine and website. Santa Barbara’s wineries and vineyards rate alongside those of Napa Valley as an exciting wine destination to visit. 

Three USA wine destinations make the Top Ten list, the other one alongside Santa Barbara and Napa Valley being Virginia, on the east coast. The other top seven destinations around the world are:

• The Champagne Region in France (of course!)
• The Veneto Region in Italy, taking in Venice
• The Central Otago Wine Region in New Zealand, Famous for its Pinot Noirs
• The Colchagua Valley in Chile
• Priorat-Cambrils in Spain
• Tokaj-Hegyalja in Hungary
• The Mosel Valley in Germany

Well, as a list we’d say that is far from being the Usual Suspects. In the United States you might expect to find places like Sonoma, Paso Robles and Oregon ahead of wines from Santa Barbara and Virginia. You might also expect to find more than one wine travel region from France, in addition to Champagne - and why is there nowhere from Australia? Well, lists like this are meant to stir up publicity, especially for whoever produces the list, but they do also make you think - and its certainly good news for the vineyards and wineries of Santa Barbara.

Santa Barbara Wine Country 

So why is Santa Barbara such a great place to visit for the wine traveler? “That’s thanks in equal parts to its Hollywood-style glamour, palm tree-fringed sandy beaches, fashionable resorts, great cuisine, endless shopping and one of the most beautiful wine regions in California,” says Wine Enthusiast magazine.

Tour of Santa Barbara Wine Country

Right in the heart of downtown Santa Barbara you can tour this Santa Barbara Urban Wine Trail.

Santa Barbara Wine Country Wine Varieties

Wine Enthusiast says that these are the prominent wine varieties that are the best wines to look for in Santa Barbara: “Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah feature in the cool parts of the valley, while Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc and Rhône varieties dominate the warm areas.”

If you want to read what Wine Enthusiast has to say about Santa Barbara wine country, click here. 

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Our PCH Hotels Guide

To help you in choosing your Pacific Coast Highway hotel, guesthouse, inn, bed-and-breakfast, resort, motel or other accommodations, we've prepared our Pacific Coast Highway Hotels Guide. In it we do mini-reviews of accommodations along the Highway, from Seattle to San Diego, through Washington, Oregon, and California.

In all there are over 200 hotels listed, complete with 8 pages of color maps showing the towns where our recommended hotels can be found. There are both alphabetical and geographical indexes, helping you plan your journey.

We also include color photos of all the hotels that are our Personal Favorites. Here's the link to read more about our ebook guide to Pacific Coast Highway hotels.

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