Watch your back, Santa Barbara. Goleta isn’t the sleepy neighbor town it used to be.
With five craft breweries, new restaurants popping up in Old Town and attractive annual events, Goleta has become a place to explore and taste.
Soon there will be a new reason to visit Goleta, and it’s putting out the call to all serious oenophiles and those wanting to learn more about the local wine industry.
Samsara will be Goleta’s first and only winery, but no doubt more are sure to follow.
Joan and Dave Szkutak purchased Samsara from Chad and Mary Melville in 2002, after their longtime club membership and frequent trips to Santa Barbara County’s wine country. Soon after, they snagged the talented Matt Brady, former co-winemaker at Jaffurs, to be at the helm of their winery.
With passion and talent like this, it’s no wonder these wines shine.
Samsara practices whole cluster fermentation, notably in its red varietals, which brings about a striking balance of earth and fruit that lingers midpalate.
It’s currently selling the 2014 vintage and has no plans to rush the two-year-plus aging process. Because as the old saying goes: You can’t rush greatness.
I’m a particularly big fan of its various single vineyard pinot noirs. In my opinion, banking on a single vineyard to produce good fruit each year is a major gamble, but Samsara seems to be quite lucky year over year.
Samsara’s flagship tasting room is located in the heart of downtown Los Olivos, but as of next month there will be two locations where visitors can enjoy and explore some of the Santa Ynez Valley’s finest.
The new tasting room will feature windows that peek into the winery itself, showcasing the many steps that go from grape to bottle while keeping sippers entertained.
There also will be offerings of winery tours and customized private room tasting experiences in the near future.
“It won’t be just a private tasting in (this) room,” Joan Szkutak said. “We want to be about a guided winery experience that includes tasting.”
Szkutak’s vision is to bring the winery into the tasting room, aiming to educate patrons as well as taking them through a tasting experience.
Those who are curious are encouraged to stop by the winery now to see the current goings-on of harvest before the tasting room officially opens in early November.
In the meantime, a visit to Samsara’s Los Olivos tasting room would be time well spent.
As head winemaker, Brady says, “The wines of Samsara represent the road less traveled,” which coincidentally is mirrored in the decision to open a second tasting room in Goleta.
But I have a hunch the road that leads to Goleta won’t be quiet for long.
Samsara Wine Co. is located at 2446 Alamo Pintado Ave. in Los Olivos and at 6485 Calle Real, Suite 4, in Goleta, just off the North Los Carneros Road exit of Highway 101, near Captain Fatty’s.
— Tara Jones Haaf leads Eat This, Shoot That! and welcomes reader tips and ideas for future columns. She can be reached at tara@eatthisshootthat.com. Click here for previous columns. The opinions expressed are her own.