Whenever I travel, near or far, I like to bring home a little taste of the place I will inevitably leave behind.
This morning, I opened a small glass jar of tea I purchased during a quick zip to Santa Ynez Valley a few weeks ago. I inhaled deeply, wistfully. The flavors — sweet and earthy mixed with a peppery bite that some might consider a bit risky — carried me back to the memories my husband, teen son, mother-in-law and I created in just a day-and-a-half visit to Santa Barbara County’s parcel of the Central Coast.
As we drove north on the 101, I played my mother-in-law’s favorite artist, Smokey Robinson, who is still performing, hip gyrations and all, at 84 (sweet, earthy, risky), and tried to teach the teen a thing or two about the music legend. Sitting in the backseat with his grandmother, Sol hummed along politely (or placatingly), but when I glanced back a few moments later, he had slipped his headphones on, listening to the music of his choice.
That’s all right, I thought. We’ll find a way to bridge our three generations — and our different tastes and interests — over the weekend.
‘Sideways’ legacy
We rolled into the Santa Ynez Valley just as rain clouds were rolling out, and we cheered over a weekend forecast of clear skies. But even though we Californians are “sick of all the rain,” the constant deluges have left us with verdant hills and vineyards that gleam like emeralds in the sun.
And while Napa Valley is always the popular kid of California wine country, a little time in the Santa Ynez Mountains quickly uncovers why it’s considered the “hidden treasure of world wineries.” “The hills are so lush and green right now that it reminds you of a countryside in Italy or Ireland,” my husband, Marcus, said as he drove. With my cell, I captured some of the greenery as we zoomed past.
Santa Ynez envelops the towns of Danish-inspired Solvang, Ballard, Buellton, Los Alamos, Los Olivos and Santa Ynez, but our focal point this trip was Buellton. Located at the junction of the 101 and State Route 246, this gateway to the Santa Ynez Valley used to be a place folks just “passed through,” one of my coworkers told me, but Buellton has blossomed into a mini mecca of luxury camping, shopping, wine tastings, dining and adventure.
Long known as the “Home of Split Pea Soup,” a reference to the 100-year-old Pea Soup Andersen’s Restaurant (which closed earlier this year for redevelopment), Buellton has also had its brush with the kind of fame that only Hollywood can bring. The 2004 hit movie “Sideways” was shot in Buellton and Solvang. The film tells the story of frustrated writer and wine connoisseur Miles (Paul Giamatti), who heads to this part of wine country with his friend Jack (Thomas Haden Church) for a male-bonding trip before Jack’s wedding. A wine snob, in one scene Miles uplifts pinot noir as the quintessential red while lambasting merlot, and this swift moment in the film led to what became known as the “Sideways Effect.” After the film, merlot sales plummeted while pinot noir sales skyrocketed.
Whatever your wine tastes are, it’s fun to see cultural references to “Sideways” throughout the area.
A fancy RV park
It was inching toward dinnertime when we arrived at Flying Flags RV Resort & Campground, a Highway West Vacations properties dotted with an eclectic mix of accommodations —modern RVs, vintage campers, glam safari tents and 52 charming cottages named after wines and horse breeds.
Named after the elegant Hanoverian horse, our cottage came with a furnished porch, a patio featuring a barbecue grill, a full kitchen that opens to a generous-sized living room, a loft bedroom, bathroom and a master bedroom with a hearty barn door. Across from this home-away-from-home was a swimming pool and Jacuzzi, and around the corner: a recreational area with bocce, a basketball court, meeting rooms and a playground.
Another perk of staying at Flying Flags is that its sister property, Sideways Inn, a Scandinavian-style hotel, sits right next to the campgrounds. I grabbed a coffee from the well-stocked coffee bar in the hotel’s lobby, caught up on emails, then got in a quick workout inside the chic Sideways gym. If you’re staying at Flying Flags, you can exchange your driver’s license for a key to the gym.
Back at the cottage, we hashed out who would sleep where and which movie we would watch after dinner. I surrendered to a blockbuster number that was a far cry from my cup of tea, but some give and take on family vacay is par for the course.
Feathers, fires, farms and fantastic food
One activity the four of us can all always agree on is indulging in some good food. Since the cottage kitchens are stocked with cookware and utensils, you could whip up your own meal, but whenever I can take a night off from my kitchen, I grab it.
For our first grub, we walked over to Feather & Fire, an onsite outdoor restaurant. Under the string lights, a guitarist was serenading diners with country songs, which launched my family into a discussion about Beyonce’s new “Cowboy Carter” album.
We envied the people who’d arrived early enough to gather around the big fire in a circular brick pit, but since they let us pet their dogs, we forgave them. We ordered half of a rotisserie chicken, brick-oven pizza with truffle oil (sweet tooths might want to try the s’mores pizza) and roasted vegetables. Charmaine (my mother-in-law) and I rounded off the flavors with cocktails: the “Buellton Sunrise” and “Santa Ynez Sangria.”
The next morning, we fired up our adrenaline for a first-time adventure (more on that later), and that revved up our appetites again. With each crunch of our car’s tires over the rocky path leading to Vega Vineyard & Farm, I anticipated the first bites of fresh farm food we’d soon sample.
Vega, which includes a winery, restaurant, farm animals, a historic adobe you can rent on Airbnb and even a market and clothing shop, is a place I could imagine staying forever — or at least for a few weekends out of the year. Established as Rancho de Vega in 1853, the 208-acre property is surrounded by the Los Padres National Forest Range. In a wide-open meadow, the restaurant’s rustic wooden tables are spread out far enough that it feels like each family is having its own little private picnic while gazing out at the rows and rows of vineyards.
We sat under an olive tree, where Demetrios “Jimmy” Loizides (who bought the farm with his wife Karen two years ago) joined us. Loizides has owned multiple restaurants (and a country bar), including four Greek restaurants in Long Beach, but he sold most of those businesses to invest in this ranch that reminds him of his ancestry rooted in the grape-growing village of Kathikas, Cyprus, as well as the place in which he spent most of his childhood, Bulawayo, Zimbabwe.
“My dream was always to do something that felt European, or that reminded me of where I grew up in Zimbabwe,” Loizides said. “This place does that for me. We first moved to the area 11 years ago, and we love it.”
Instead of just putting some “red wagons all over the place” as her husband had envisioned, Karen designed it like a spread you’d find in an interior design magazine.
The couple hired Christopher Rossi as the executive chef and Steve Clifton as the winemaker to lead Vega’s tasting experiences.
As we relished the first forkful of the roasted golden and red beet salad, Loizides said, “This truly is a farm-to-table experience.” The salad was a masterful medley, with the sweetness of the maple vinaigrette accentuating the beets, the arugula adding a peppery bite, the toasted pistachios a nutty crunch and the goat cheese a creamy, tangy finish, all coming together for a delightful symphony of flavors and textures.
In between bites, Sol inscribed the inside cover of a new Moleskine journal. Loizides asked him what he was writing. “This is going to be for my book of soliloquies,” Sol answered, and the lunch conversation turned philosophical. We four adults were dazzled by the 16-year-old’s reflections on the modern and ancient philosophers he’s been reading on his own, by his thoughts about his generation and by his expressions of how he uncovered his dormant leader self while working at Moonwater Farm as a junior counselor the past two summers.
“You should apply to UC Santa Barbara and come work for me,” Loizides told him.
I’m not sure Sol’s future is in agriculture or the culinary arts, but it’s always a joy hearing him express his innermost self as he continues to uncover who and how he wants to be in the world. Away from the hustle and bustle of our regular routine, he was chatty, relaxed and (as we all were) delighted by the food that kept coming — Hamachi crudo, deviled farm eggs stuffed with lush chunks of blue crab, grilled jumbo shrimp with Israeli couscous, a perfect bowl of cacio e pepe…
From the day’s flight of wines, I most enjoyed the local Barbera; low in tannins, it leaves a velvety slip of dark cherries on the tongue.
Ostriches and Hitching Post wine
When our bellies could stretch no more, we followed Loizides to feed the farm animals and then sauntered into the market to buy olive oil the color of liquid gold and hailing from Mani, Greece.
While you’re feeding bellies other than your own, be sure to include a visit to Ostrichland USA when you’re in Buellton. The ostriches, the world’s tallest and heaviest birds, were curious and full of personality, even when they didn’t feel like pecking at the bowls of feed we offered them. More than 100 ostriches and emus roam this prairie-like space that’s similar to the savannas of their native habitats in Africa.
By dinner time, I was still stuffed, which was a shame since we had reservations for a wine tasting and meal at the popular Hitching Post 2, where the author of the novel “Sideways,” Rex Pickett, used to hang out and where, later, the filmmakers of the movie adaptation filmed several scenes. Today, the Hitching Post winery produces about 17,000 cases of wine a year.
While my family sliced their steaks, I spent most of my time with a glass of Hitching Post’s flagship wine, a pinot noir called Highliner, and thought back to the “Sideways” character Miles’ words about the flavors: “…they’re just the most haunting and brilliant and thrilling and subtle and ancient on the planet.”
You only live once
The crème de la crème of our trip had nothing to do with food or wine. On a late Saturday morning, our stomachs were somersaulting for another reason: We — Baby Boomer, Gen X and Gen Z — were zip lining for the first time.
That wasn’t the plan when we arrived at Highline Adventures, which features some of the longest and fastest zip lines in California and an adventure park course with more than 80 tree-high challenges.
The plan was for Marcus and his mother to hang out and enjoy nature while Sol and I rode the zip lines. And, truth be told, I was more than a little nervous about letting my child, no matter how “grown” he thinks he is, join me in the sky. But as we checked in at the basecamp, I could see a glint growing in Marcus’ eyes. We had reservations for two, but a Highline Adventures staffer told us they had room for two more zip riders that morning.
“You should go, Son,” Charmaine told Marcus.
“I can’t leave you down here by yourself, Mama,” he said. But his little boy and long-grown man selves were shoving against each other. While his words were supporting his mother, his body kept turning toward the check-in desk.
“You could go, too,” I told Charmaine. “You only live once.” I was only half serious. Besides riding in airplanes, my mother-in-law is not one to “let her feet leave the ground.”
She let out a hysterical laugh. “Ok, you’re right,” she said. “I’ll go!”
“Oh my God, what?” I sputtered. “Are you sure you’ll be OK?”
“You’re the one who said, ‘You only live once.’ If I die, I’ll blame you.”
“Well,” Marcus drawled, “since you only live once, I don’t think that’ll be possible.”
We all laughed. Hysterically.
We hiked up a short hill to a station where our guides discreetly weighed us (required weight range: 75-275 pounds), gave careful instructions and helped us pull on our gear. Helmets are optional, but since the guides were required to wear them, I told a slightly resistant Sol, “We’re wearing them, too.”
He smirked. “If we fall, how do you think the helmets are gonna help?”
I swallowed and looked away.
We hopped in the Highline Adventures Hummer, which carried us up 1,000 vertical feet and to the first zip line station. Since I had at least gone (tandem) skydiving before, I urged Sol and Marcus to go first so I could take a video of their (double zip line) launch. “There go my babies,” I yelled as my husband and son shot off and into the sky until they were tiny dots…and then invisible to us.
I looked at Charmaine as we strapped ourselves into place. She pulled on the overhead bar. “And you’re sure everything is sturdy?” she asked Sarah, our guide.
“Yes,” Sarah said. “You’re all set.” She counted “Launching in 3, 2, 1,” and then, we, too, were off — sailing over robust hills as green as any I’ve ever seen, ending in a burst of orange and red that are the South African protea flower fields. To the right of me, I heard deep and guttural screams I didn’t know my mother-in-law’s small body could make.
We rode two more zip lines after that, and while Charmaine’s screams spilled out with each one, she was, in the end, glad to get her feet off the ground.
“Boy, I would’ve regretted it if I hadn’t gotten on that zip line with you all,” she said on our drive back to L.A. “It’s an experience I’ll never forget.”
Look at her. At 74, she’s sweet, earthy and a little risky.
Cassandra Lane is Editor-in-Chief of L.A. Parent.
