Music and wine have an uncanny approach of bringing individuals of various walks of life into the identical room for a shared expertise. And whereas it’s not unusual to seek out each round native tasting rooms throughout Santa Barbara, you’re much less more likely to discover an expertise that mixes a curated wine and music pairing by way of native classic wines. This transcendental wine-tasting expertise is exactly what SAMsARA’s Goleta tasting-room group would love friends to take pleasure in by way of their curated wine and music pairings. This month’s theme: wines from SAMsARA’s 2013 harvest to the tune of Led Zeppelin’s “Ten Years Gone.”
Tasting current-release wine is the norm at most locations, however tasting classic wine provides the distinctive alternative to develop a deeper understanding of the wine. Tasting classic wine just isn’t so widespread in Santa Barbara, particularly in comparison with areas similar to Burgundy or Bordeaux, the place archeological proof dates viticulture practices again to the Roman period and generally even older. Santa Barbara wine nation, which was first designated within the ’80s with the Santa Maria AVA, adopted by Santa Ynez Valley, Sta. Rita Hills, and Ballard Canyon AVA, is comparatively younger. There simply isn’t a lot “outdated” wine to style. That is a part of the explanation most tasting rooms follow pouring present releases for his or her tasting flights whereas reserving their classic wines for membership members’ shipments solely.
SAMsARA Wine Co.’s winemaker, Matt Brady, believes providing library wines is a part of what makes their tasting-room expertise particular, and his ardour for music from artists similar to Grateful Useless and Led Zeppelin helped to create a really one-of-a-kind tasting expertise. In truth, this can be the one time you’ve the chance to expertise this specific retrospective lineup, as solely about 5 instances of this wine stay in existence.
“We will certainly promote out,” says tasting room supervisor Christopher Skrabut. Shortage of the wine is one motive why a library tasting is one thing to experience. “You don’t see library tastings usually, however our tasting room is off the overwhelmed path. We’re the one one in Goleta, so we regularly host the neighborhood people who’re regulars. We would like to have the ability to provide one thing completely different for them every time they arrive in that’s not like the standard draw of day ingesting one would possibly discover within the Funk Zone. Because of this we preemptively save wines from every classic to supply completely different retrospective tastings to our friends each month.”
The music turns into one other approach to improve the expertise. Brady and Skrabut are sometimes working or hanging collectively within the tasting room, and opening up a bottle that has been aged and correctly saved for an prolonged time period permits one to find a preserved snapshot of the yr’s local weather. Merely put, tasting classic wines is one approach to perceive and actually respect a area and the wine’s means to develop over a time period.
The yr 2013 was a heat classic for Santa Barbara, which Brady remembers nicely: “2013 was a strong classic, so ingesting these wines throughout their unique launch would have made them appear daring and tannic, which is exactly what made them nice candidates for having fun with 10 years down the road.” Tasting by way of these wines is one approach to uncover Sta. Rita Hills pinot and syrah with the added enjoyment of complexity and taste from time spent within the bottle.
The “Ten Years Gone” tasting is a particular flight of ’13 pinot noirs from Cargasacchi and Las Hermanas, syrahs from Melville and Zotovich, and grenache from Larner.
6485 Calle Actual, Ste. E, Goleta; (805) 845-8001; samsarawine.com