Foxen
If your New Year’s resolutions for this year included learning about Santa Barbara wine (which is a great great resolution!) then look no further than the Learn About Wine‘s "9th Annual STARS of Santa Barbara Wine.” Without actually driving to Santa Barbara, you’ll have the pleasure of tasting over 100 established and up-and-coming wines of the region, while learning about them from the owners, winemakers and winery executives themselves.

As someone who checked out Santa Barbara and the wineries a couple of months ago I will say that this list is really Ch-oice!: Alma Rosa Winery & Vineyards, Bien Nacido, Bonaccorsi Wine Company, Brewer-Clifton, Brophy Clark Cellars, Buttonwood, Byron, Cambria, Coquelicot Estate Vineyard, D'Alfonso-Curran Wines, Dragonette Cellars, Fontes & Phillips Wines, Foxen, Gioia, La Fenetre, Liquid Farms, Martian Ranch & Vineyard, Palmina, Reeves Ranch Vineyard, Riverbench, Silver Wines, Tercero Wines, Thorne Wine, William James Cellars, Zaca Mesa and they’re still adding more.

I have to say one of my absolute favorite’s (Foxen, hence the pict) is on that list and in my opinion the event is totally worth it just to sip they’re Chards and Chenin Blancs (which I did in November at their tasting room in the Santa Maria Valley during the day and then again at illustrious Seagrass Restaurant in Santa Barbara that night).

I’ve been to a couple of events hosted by Learn About Wine’s founder Ian Blackburn and he’s awesome about teaching you about wine in a way that doesn’t overwhelm you or make you feel like an idiot (which a lot of wine people do and can be such a turn off!). The last Learn About Wine event I attended opened my eyes to French varietals like a kid who gets the 128 box of Crayola crayons after working with the 4 pack for a year straight.

The discounted rate of $139 it isn’t cheap, but truthfully you get what you pay for, which is why the good stuff (like the stuff that comes from Santa Barabara) never is!

So if you’re in need of a Santa Barbara wine education look now further than the STARS of Santa Barbara!

To buy tix click HERE.
And the Deets:
9th Annual STARS of Santa Barbara
January 26th, 2012
Los Angeles
Peninsula Hotel
9882 S. Santa Monica Blvd Beverly Hills, California 90212
7:00 PM - 9:30 PM