SIDEWAYS

Sunday was easily one of the best 3 days I've had thus far in California. Kat, BNasser, and GLee and I drove out to Santa Barbara to drink wine all afternoon and into evening. The night before, I did some research and pretty much came up with a nice long list of vineyards that we needed to check out in Buellton, Santa Ynez, and Los Olivos, three of which were featured in SIDEWAYS. I didn't really care which ones we ended up visiting as long as we grabbed chow at The Hitching Post ---the restaurant where Virginia Madsen's character waited tables. The three lovely lassies came over @ 10AM ---Brooke brought over some leftover wedding cake from the previous night's catering gig (my third wedding cake this month and the best)---and we hopped into my car and sped along 101N for 2 hours. LA's pretty great when you can get away from it and find yourself in some beautiful country just a short carpool away.
We started drinking around 12:30 and didn't stop till 10. We visited 3 vineyards---Sunstone, Kalyra, Sanford---and one tasting room in Solvang which is an old Dutch town renovated to look like something straight out of Epcot. I'm no wine buff but I so doubt that people can actually taste all the little things you're supposed to taste in wine. I think it was the Sunstone Syrah Reserve that did it for me. In addition to the stewed plum and blueberry, I was also supposed to taste cigar wrapper. I concentrated real hard, but I did not taste cigar wrapper. I mean, do they mean the tobacco leaf or the plastic wrap? Why not just cigar? What's with the specificity? Stewed plum? After the tenth tasting or so, I couldn't make out red from white. All in all, we tried @ 2 dozen different wines, most delicious.
At dinner, we took some pretty lewd photographs. Lots of tongue kissing. Same sex tongue kissing. Or was it just licking? Memory's hazy and the photographs are a little muddled (NOT!). The Hitching Post is a great steakhouse and their Pinot is as good as Miles made it sound in the movie.
I'll post pictures soon.
The drive back, everyone was happy and buzzed. I pumped up the Santa Barbara mix CDs and we sang along at the top of our lungs to OASIS, THE STROKES, THE BEACH BOYS, BIGGIE, and some other karaoke worthy vanguards.

LOVE
ALEX