California Central Coast Wine Country – Painting Number 9

A warm cheerful sun ushered in the day and California’s Central Coast wine country beckoned!  Rolling hills, tumbled like waves, softly and casually, nestled in among barren mountains softened by millions of years of wind and water erosion. Rows upon rows of vineyards formed faint parallel lines along the sunny valleys molding to the canvas, Big Rich and I but a tiny moving dot as we zig-zagged across the map.

The Central Coast boasts a picturesque, romantic coast, country roads, rustic artistic towns, historic ranch lands and plenty of grapes! Top vintners have transformed the Central Coast into one of the country’s premier wine regions, with hundreds of wineries to visit. When people talk about California wines, the Napa and Sonoma regions north of San Francisco usually come to mind. However, wine lovers are becoming increasingly aware of quality vintages hailing from the sun-drenched valleys of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties.

This area is the oldest of California’s wine-growing regions. The old Franciscan missions strung along the coast attest to the area’s heritage when early Spanish settlers planted grapevines and olive trees. Unfortunately, the area’s wine production went into decline during Prohibition. After it was repealed, Napa and Sonoma valleys shot ahead as the leading and best-known producers.

Over the past ten years, Big Rich and I have made a gallant effort exploring the Central Coast Wine Country in search of award winning Pinot Noir and French Rhône -style vintages. The Central Coast is a large encompassing American Viticultural Area (AVA) that extends from the south of San Francisco all the way to Santa Barbara, California. The region contains 40 AVAs including Paso Robles, Santa Cruz Mountains, Monterey, and Santa Barbara and each of these sub-regions specializes in different types and expressions of wine. Indeed, Big Rich and I are in need of another ten years of exploring.

You may recall the Oscar winning movie, Sideways, staring Paul Giamatti, which put the Santa Ynez wine area (in the county of Santa Barbara) on the map.  People suddenly became curious about Pinot Noir and set out to discover what the area had to offer.  Since then, it has grown exponentially.   As this area is easily a day trip for us from L.A., we visit frequently.  Otherwise, we carve out a few three day weekends to travel further north up the central coast to the San Luis Obispo and Monterey areas to experience fabulous French Rhône varietals.

On these road trips, our escape from the city, we are pleasantly reminded that we are part of nature, not apart from it. The landscape is beautiful, any time of year.  Even in the depth of the drought years, there remains a tapestry of woven contour lines etching out the rolling hills and mountains of the area.  In recent years of more rain, the landscape has grown more lush and deep in color.  The countryside lies before us like a unique fingerprint; no two parts exactly the same. The land flows in infinity as if time and space are one.

I see not so much the detail of the landscape, but rather its form.  I am drawn to the curving threadlike contour lines that define the region.  They lie in neat sets of parallel lines, not met to intersect, some shimmering as they reflect the late afternoon sun. And then, a welcome light bulb moment gives me clarity. It’s time to create and capture my own rendition of the Central Coast contour landscape.   Voilà, painting number nine of 2019.