A Perfect Day for Vino and Flatbread

It's been well documented how much Christine and I love our meandering journeys through Santa Ynez's wine country, with its sunny hay-colored rolling hills and majestic oaks along smooth highways and cool breezes. We set out a few months ago after Keith Saarloos invited us to the Tasting House for a family-and-friend gatherings on a scorchingly hot day. The sun might've been blasting through an empty sky but it didn't deter us from feasting upon dry-rubbed ribs and delicious corn salsa while lounging around in the shade. We stopped at our now de-rigeur spots, Santa Barbara Farmer's Market and La Super Rica before driving the leisurely 1.5 hours to Los Olivos.



There's a singer guy whom I could only wish to be, wearing shades while wiping sweat from his brow, belting tunes only Christine could identify (the human reverse-jukebox she is at knowing every imaginable song ever made). There are massive quarter-pieces of Grana Padana, shaved off and eaten with warm, ripe grapes (the eating kind). The grill has fall-off tender baby back ribs, sweet-glazed halibut chunks, and enough quesadilla to make Chef Ludo Lefebvre and Rick Bayless spar on an adobe rooftop. Christine and I are happy as clams, or perhaps tamales on this bucolic Californian countryside.



Keith shows us the special back room where they store a slew of magnums and the #1 bottles of each wine available in their second "vintage". The room, designed by his wife, couldn't be any more pleasant, lovely, and inviting. It just begs you to linger, sip wine, eat cupcakes, and just let the hours pass.



Before going up to Los Alamos for Full of Life Flatbread's highly lauded pizzas, Keith gives us the OK to stop by one of the vineyards, located on a flat area nearby the highway entrance. The plants are lush, but the air is warm like a sauna. Christine and I waste an hour or so underneath a towering tree, sipping a bottle of chilled Daughters Chardonnay.



Saarloos & Sons
2971 Grand Ave, Los Olivos, CA
saarloosandsons.com

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Formerly "American Flatbread", Full of Life Flatbread resides in a wooden structure along the dusty mainstreet of Los Alamos, a town with more antique shops and old buildings than people. We stepped into the back room, brightly lit as half the dining room opened up to the patio. The sun was waning and we were hungry for some piping hot flatbread straight from the wood burning oven. We started out the meal with a couple of cold beers and the highly lauded heirloom tomato salad. The tomatoes seem warm, freshly picked from the fields though the included burrata wasn't up to the standard we'd had in LA. It didn't matter, we chomped through this dish in minutes.



If you ever saw Christine and I order, we're radically different in our approach. Christine likes to maximize the experience by making sure she's checked over EVERY single item on the menu in complete detail, to make sure that we're getting the best dish. Then when push comes to shove, she will be adamant in asking the server what his or her favorite dish is, often going with the suggestion. On the other hand, I usually gear my eyes toward three or four dishes that catch my fancy and pick one that I'm confident with A) best reflect the restaurant's approach/ingredients/strengths and B) be something I happen to want that evening. What you won't find at Mozza is Flatbread's wonderful accmmodation, where we ordered half Pepperoni & Peppers (with poblano chilis) and Mushroom & Caramelized Onions. The best of both worlds.





The crust is thin but not achingly so like many New York pies, the warm baked dough puffy on the edges and emiting delicious wafts of the wood-fired oven. The bottom is just crispy enough to give a crunch while the fresh toppings make it a joy to eat. The mini-slices make it easier to share amongst the two of us, as even an odd number of slices would result in either a game of rock-paper-scissors or just me conceding the last bit to Christine.



Dessert was a beautiful apricot tarte, baked in the oven and capped with a small mountain of whipped cream. The flavor was rustic and simple, the perfect cap to this day in wine country.



Note: Flatbread is only open 5-10PM on Fridays and Saturdays, with a prix fixe supper on Sundays from 4-8PM.

Full of Life Flatbread
225 West Bell Street
Los Alamos, California
(805) 344-4400

Saarloos & Sons: Wines for the Soul

By now our idyllic day in Santa Barbara wine country is well documented on Christine's blog. It's not only a day that resonates in my memory, but it's literally chockfull of moments that scream with remarkable pleasure. Not the "OMG" or "WOWmomWOW" type that one might experience at a chic molecular gastronomy playground, but rather the sunsoaked countryside jaunt that every urbanite dreams of when the concrete starts to choke our dreams.

And oh, was this dream a nice one. We'd started out at the Santa Barbara Farmer's Market, easily one of the best that I'd ever been to. I appreciated its size and breadth of produce, with obscure vegetables and fruits that were still warm from the fields. Christine and I attacked a juicy cherimoya that was so ripened that we could taste the faint alcohol in the fermentation. It was slight, but the juice and sweetness were overwhelmingly delicious.

We ate at La Super Rica, a revelation of a Mexican stand that was frequented by the queen of food television herself - Julia Child. Gorging on the freshest and most delicious Mexican fare we'd had in a while, we skipped over to Los Olivos for our highly recommended visit (from Matthew Kaner at Silver Lake Wine) to Saarloos & Sons.

Located on the main drag of Los Olivos and nestled among various wineries and tasting rooms, Saarloos & Sons occupies a stately brown bungalow with a spacious lawn, wide porch, and double-wide entrance into the tasting room. Upon entering, your eyes will be fixated on the cupcake counter to the right, which was recently recognized as having some of the best in Santa Barbara.



Then you just stand there in on the worn wood floors investigating the bright space, bathed in sunlight and cloaked with various ornaments and appointments that beg you to observe. Along the left is a massive countertop made with the wood of three grand pianos, knicked and threadbare from years of use. It's a high counter, maybe 4.5 feet tall that gives one the impression that she's in Alice's Wonderland.

Wide mirrors and a sleek LCD television reflect images and colors that nearly mesmerize while the wines laced along the walls stand pat like cordial butlers in their dark garb.



Keith Saarloos, a casual fellow, stately on his own with a commanding presence behind the counter, beckons visitors were tastes, generous ounces of wine that's been produced on his family's vineyards. He pours six wines ranging from a spirited Chardonnary named Daughters up to a prime California pinot noir named Extended Family.

Keith begins his tasting with a quick summary of his family and their approach to wine. Every wine he's made has a story, a song that it sings about Saarloos's history. We taste the crisp, refreshing Daughters Chardonnay that's unoaked but combined with a levity that begs for cheese or a tartine. Next is Purper Hart, named after an uncle who perished in second Great War. It's a dense syrah with gentle tannin that could improve the wine over a half-decade.



Purper Hart and Daughters are available at Silver Lake Wine, and only Silver Lake Wine, unless you're at this tasting room. The rest of the wines are only available here so we enjoy as best as we can.



194Five The Union is a two-grape blend of Syrah and Cabernet that embraces a bold masculine and a subtle feminine element. I'll leave it Keith's own words: "As in any marriage you look for a complementing partner to enhance who you are. In a successful marriage you seek to compliment your partner and emphasize the best traits in the other person as we have in the blending of these veritals. In 194Five you find we have paired our bold expressive Syrah with a beautiful organically grown Cabernet Sauvignon.

When this wine began to name itself, we found that the pairing of these veritals coming from two family vineyards was truly a marriage. As they say you do not marry the person you marry the family."

This explanation made so much sense that Christine and I knew exactly what we wanted to do with this wine (I'll leave that up to your imagination).

Next was Ring Effie Unk, 85% Merlot, 10% Cabernet Sauv, and %5 Cab Franc. I've had one good Bordeaux from St. Emillion and a handful of cult wines from California and this one was up there with them. Jammy but coupled with enough structure to prevent it from being characterized as fruity, it was delicious, plain and simple. Go ahead and throw in opulent as another word to describe it. This wine is named after three family members that lived together many years ago.

0 &nd 2 is a baseball term for the pitcher's best position (I used to be one so I'd know). It's also the "secret" prohibition kind of password that Saarloos was looking for in this larger reserve syrah, a bigger brother to Purper Hart. Produced on the estate vineyards, this was another great wine that characterizes Saarloos' commitment to quality. I love how they put the optimal date of consumption on the bottle, because I often wonder how well certain wines can age. I like ageable wines because it means I can save it for later. It means I can put my own time-value into the wine and reap the fruits of its rest.



Last wine was Extended Family, served in a playful decanter that poured out in a tiny stream. This is Saarloos' small production Pinot Noir, with only 40 cases made! It burst with the ideal elegance of a pinot noir. I'd consider it one of my favorites of the day, and possibly ever, even with the amount of Burgundy I've tried in the past year. I could get used to this.




Keith makes it a point to educate each taster that visits, showing them how to swirl and smell each wine. But he never tells you what to look for - he wants each person to come the conclusion on their own. He's the opposite of snobby - all he wants to do is share his family's passion, which is making some of the best wines in California. For that, we not only plan to visit again, but we happily enlisted on their mailing list so that we could get a quarterly shipment of these beautiful wines.

Did we love that they were playing Radiohead non-stop in the tasting room? Yes! Delicious syrah chocolate cupcakes to pair with our wines? Bring it! Beautiful tasting room on a perfect Saturday with some of the best wines from California? You can find it at Saarloos & Sons.

Saarloos & Sons Wines and Vineyards
2971 Grand Ave, Los Olivos, CA