Winery tour in a limo solves
designated driver problem in style

ESCAPE ARTIST / DeAnne Musolf Crouch
SANTA BARBARA NEWS-PRESS STAFF WRITER

12/3/00

When I lived in the Bay Area, I was once invited to take part in a birthday gift given to a friend -- a tour by limousine of the Napa Valley wine country for a party of eight.

And I don't use the term "party" lightly. The fantasy outing included a gourmet lunch, tastings at four Napa Valley wineries and endless carefree, responsibility-free funning with a group of adults the likes of which I hadn't experienced in years.

"But whose birthday is it?" I thought as we blithely tripped through the wine country in lavish comfort, for I was surely enjoying it as much as the birthday boy. It was truly a gift to all of us.

Recently, I tentatively checked out the possibility of giving a similar gift. It turns out that such extravagant fun doesn't require such extravagant outlay. I booked a limo for a Sunday and rounded up my buds. Eight of us -- mostly old friends of my husband's from school -- meet at a humane 11 a.m. in front of a local hotel. There, a white Super-Stretch Lincoln swoops up and out hops Huguette Winston, our driver for the day. (She's also president of Spencer's Limousine, which is known for a number of tours it offers locally.)

Huguette ushers us into the plush black leather interior of our gleaming ride. Sally and Simon cozy up in a seat behind the driver facing the rest of us like hosts at the head table; John, Katrina and Greg get comfy on a bench seat running down the side of the car; Steve, Michelle and I plop down in the very back. Huguette closes the door and takes the wheel. Before we even hit the road, several of us shell out CDs, Sally a video for the VCR (curiously, it's on aerobics). Steve and Michelle produce a Frisbee.

From the oval-shaped window into the driver's compartment, Huguette explains the rules: No standing in the sunroof (it's a law), no feet on the leather trim. And definitely no Frisbee.

However, released from the tyranny of driving, navigating, map-reading, even scheduling, this gathering of otherwise very responsible adults quickly dissolves into carefree mirth. As the limo glides onto northbound Hwy. 101 we discover chilled beverages and ice, as well as vodka, gin and scotch and real glasses in the limo wet bar. The first challenge of the morning proves to be Greg and John pouring mixed drinks in the moving vehicle. (Huguette later confides that most wine tasting groups forego the hard stuff -- but not this group. In fact, Sally finishes her first drink in quick order and asks for another. "Who's with me?" she dares. "C'mon."

Steve and Michelle set to work selecting music as we head up the coast, which -- for some reason -- looks much better, we decide, from the back of a limo. There's coffee candies and Huguette's even added a few festive helium balloons. As if the levity level of this crowd needs it.

Like investigating a James Bond-mobile, Simon discovers lighted make-up mirrors galore and lots of secret compartments. Katrina notices the mood lights -- stars on a ceiling panel and neon-type lighting strips that circle the car's interior, which fade from orange to purple to red in sync. "They go with the full-service futon," says Greg, patting the long leather bench seat appreciably.

The drive to our first stop -- Sanford Winery -- is just 45 minutes, but the group manages to throw back several cranberry and vodkas, the drink of the day -- or at least the morning. Huguette perhaps senses our quickly degrading state and passes back the lunch menu to Panino -- the gourmet sandwich and salad spot in Los Olivos where we'll pick up our lunch to eat at Sunstone. Simon takes charge and places our order on one of the myriad limo phones, then still has his head enough to have them read it back. "Splendid!" he enthuses, "Perfect!" and hangs up just as we pull off the highway.

The long drive to Sanford Winery is flanked by crimson-tinged vineyards. We emerge from the car, silenced by Sanford's bucolic setting, feeling not entirely unlike rock stars as other visitors look on. It's one of those beautiful autumnal days, without a cloud in the blue, blue sky. The cluster of Sanford's hacienda-style, tin-roofed adobe tasting rooms is bathed in a cool, golden light, for all the world a part of a remote estancia in the Argentine pampas.

Outside are pumpkins, a stone courtyard and gurgling fountains; inside the sunny tasting room, with a window overlooking the valley, the host greets us and asks us, "How many?"

"Seven tasting, and," Greg replies, patting my pregnant belly, "one spitting."

We start with Sanford's pinot noir vin gris. While our smiling host talks acidity and mouth feel, the group twirls and sniffs, sips and burbles two other pinots, three chardonnays and Sanford's sauvignon blanc; I sip and spit a select few. We debate synthetic versus real cork like real connoisseurs; Michelle decides it's an aesthetic thing. Eyes connect over glasses, heads nod in unison, purchases are made.

Meanwhile, Sally (a crack photographer whose work is featured in the "Insider's Guide to Santa Barbara") tries to get me to pose with my full-term belly next to a very fat man also there for a tasting. She assures me that someday this will all be amusing. I'm not so sure the fat man would agree, but before we can pull off a good profile shot without his knowing it, Huguette whisks us off to Panino.

Panino's patio is crowded with Sunday lunchers, enjoying Los Olivos''singular cow-town atmosphere and warm sunshine. We pick up our boxed salads (English Stilton, Asian pear and chopped walnuts; greens with feta, dried cranberries and apricots with pine nuts) and sandwiches (grilled chicken with prosciutto; tuna, artichoke and black olive) and stash them in the trunk. As we drive out of Los Olivos, there's an unsubstantiated Fess Parker sighting by one member of our group who -- like many tourists, we discover -- is Fess-merized; the rest of us have our sights set on Sunstone wines and environs.

There our group tasting is conducted in the barrel room by Ashley Rice, part of the Sunstone family who lives right here on the property. To start, she pours us a very tropical viognier -- "my favorite of the Rhone varietals," she says. She explains that the warmer climate here at the 8-year-old winery (as opposed to those wineries closer to Buellton and Lompoc) more closely approximates that of the Rhone Valley and makes it ideal for growing merlot, syrah and viognier grapes. The winery purchases chardonnay and sauvignon grapes, which thrive in cooler climes.

For Sunstone's reserve merlot, we move into the wine cellar. A serious cave in the truest sense of the word, the arched stone tunnel, lined with high stacks of fragrant wine barrels, is fully underground. "That means the temperature only fluctuates 4 degrees between summer and winter," says Ashley, and that makes the wine very happy. These environs also make attendees at special events very happy; lots of weddings, corporate parties and wine-maker dinners are also held here. We return to the candle-lit barrel room for the final tasting, a syrah, "which goes great with chocolate," asserts Ashley, though she confesses that her father's favorite combination is syrah with French fries.

We relax for a leisurely lunch under the oaks in Sunstone's private courtyard where Huguette arranged to have a table -- complete with linen tablecloth -- reserved for our group. Other groups lunch around the picturesque grounds overlooking the Santa Ynez River. Huguette produces a picnic basket with cutlery, plates and napkins and our lunches, and Simon uncorks a bottle of Sunstone chardonnay for us as we dig in.

More wine is purchased and stowed in the capacious limo trunk; Katrina scores some biscotti nuggets (John dubs them the rich man's malted milk balls) and passes them around as we head for a tasting of wines and dipping sauces at Rideau. The group is becoming clear fans of the limo wine tasting, but no less of the traveling wet bar. Steve is now comparing the nose of the different bottled waters. The more they drink, they more they are fascinated with the mood lights.

At Rideau (a former inn on the stagecoach route, which has been restored to now house the winery) there's more sniffing and sipping. Photos are snapped of Michelle, Katrina and Sally posing like Charlie's Angels on the lawn. From there, we essentially head across the street to Foley Estates Vineyard and Winery's pavilion-style group tasting room, where Michael Kohne pours us a sauvignon blanc, two chardonnays, a merlot and a cabernet sauvignon, while answering our increasingly dumb questions. It culminates with someone asking, "How many grapes in each glass of wine?"

For this, Kohne calls upon the winemaker, Alan Phillips, who rattles off a series of equations that make our eyes pop: "... which means there's 4 pounds of grapes in a bottle and four glasses to a bottle," he sums it up, "so that's a pound of grapes to a glass."

We stare at him in silenced awe. Then Sally pipes up "But how many glasses until I get drunk?"

Before anyone need comment on the obvious, we're ushered back to the limousine. As we're delivered home -- via amazing coastal sunset -- we don't want it to end. The hilarity level hits a crescendo and we all decide it was one of the greatest outings ever.

But there's also Brander, "and Bridlewood," someone chimes in. "And Buttonwood."

"And Beckman."

"And that's just the B's!" says Sally.

Simon asks the cost. "Seventy dollars an hour?" He's gob-smacked. "That's less than ten dollars a person -- that can't be right. But if it is, we should do it again. We should do it quarterly!"

"What do you mean, Ôquarterly?''" says Greg. "We should do it for every holiday!"

Everyone drinks to that.

And so a great gift-giving tradition is born.

DeAnne Musolf Crouch is a Santa Barbara-based free-lance writer.

Spencer's Limousine offers Wine Tasting Tour Gift Certificates. Each wine tour is customized (and reservations made) as per the client's wine preferences.

For reservations and more information, call Spencer's Limousine at 884-9700.

Back to our Homepage