What's Worth Doing In Santa Ynez This August

By mid-August the tourist writeups start to blur. Wine country, oak-shaded patios, sunset over the vines. If you already live here, none of that is news. The interesting thing about August in Santa Ynez is not that the calendar is full. It is that the calendar tightens around a small handful of weekends worth actually planning your month around, while the dining rooms you thought you knew have quietly changed hands, chefs, and menus in the past two years.

This is a guide for people who have been meaning to sit down at The Victor for a year and keep forgetting it exists. It is also a case for treating one specific weekend in the Sta. Rita Hills as the anchor of your month.

The weekend to block off

If you only clear one stretch of August, make it the middle one. Wine & Fire runs August 13 through 16 in the Sta. Rita Hills, celebrating the region's wineries and vineyards over four days. The reason it earns the block is that the format is not a single crowded pour. It is spread across venues, and each night rewards a different mood.

Here is the shape of it:

1. Thursday, Aug 13 — The weekend opens with the Barn Party.
2. Friday, Aug 14 — A La Paulée-style dinner honoring the Vintners of the Year.
3. Saturday, Aug 15 — A Speed Tasting with a Winemaker in the morning, then the Grand Tasting against the backdrop of La Purisima Mission that evening.
4. Sunday, Aug 16 — Sunday Funday experiences hosted by participating wineries.

The Grand Tasting at La Purisima is the piece worth arranging a designated driver for. The mission grounds at dusk are the kind of setting you would fly people in for, and you live twenty minutes away.

What the dining room looks like right now

If it has been a minute since you sat down for a proper dinner in town, the reservation list has shifted. The one to put on your calendar is The Victor, on the grounds of The Genevieve, led by Executive Chef Beto Huizar with a live-fire menu drawing from land and sea. At the center of the kitchen is a Josper charcoal oven imported from Barcelona, paired with a traditional Santa Maria grill for smoking, roasting, and grilling. The address is 3631 Sagunto Street, with dinner Wednesday through Sunday and weekend brunch from 10 to 2. If you have people in town for Wine & Fire, this is the walk-in-from-the-inn dinner that makes them think you had a plan the whole time.

The old anchors are still doing what they do. Brothers Restaurant at the Red Barn has been the Nichols brothers' Santa Ynez outpost since 2013, leaning on scratch cooking and hospitality that keeps regulars in the rotation. And the Tavern side of Mattei's continues to be the neighborhood living room. The bar is the historic gathering spot, with a roaring fireplace and fixtures dating to its 1886 origins, pouring local craft beer, wine, amber cocktails and a snacks menu that runs from small bites to a burger. If you have visitors who want the "we live here" version of a night out, that room is the one.

Locals stop noticing the places they take for granted. August is the month to actually book the reservation.

Mid-August, off the highway

The middle of the month is when the smaller programming gets interesting. Koehler Winery on Foxen Canyon Road sits on a property with mature vines and picnic views, minutes from Los Olivos and a cluster of other tasting rooms. On August 15, Art Spot on Wheels is running Painting in the Vineyard at Koehler at 5360 Foxen Canyon Road, Los Olivos. It is a low-stakes way to pull a group together on a Saturday afternoon that does not involve driving into Solvang.

Over at Rideau, a Viognier Festival pairs a six-wine vertical of estate Viognier across four vintages with all-you-can-eat oysters pulled fresh from Morro Bay and shucked on-site by Shucks Oyster Company. Whether or not Viognier is your grape, the Morro Bay oyster piece is the tell. That is not a wine event with food. That is a food event with wine attached.

The evergreen options are still the evergreen options. Chumash Casino and the Solvang Festival Theater run programming through the summer, and it is worth actually checking the calendars in the same browser tab. Most residents I know default to one venue and forget the other exists for six months at a time.

The dining shorthand, in one place

Because the map in your head is probably out of date:

• The Victor — Sagunto Street, live-fire menu, Josper oven, weekend brunch.
• Brothers at the Red Barn — the from-scratch dinner in the historic barn.
• S.Y. Kitchen — fresh, modern Italian in a setting locals have been leaning on for years.
• Mattei's Tavern bar — the Valley's social hub, a California ranch-inspired kitchen with produce from Mattei's on-site garden and surrounding farms.

Not one of these needs a special occasion. Which is the point. The mistake is saving them for one.

What is already stacking up for early fall

If August is the shoulder, early October is the wall. October 1 through 4 brings the third annual Taste of the Santa Ynez Valley, a food-and-wine weekend spread across Los Alamos, Santa Ynez, Los Olivos, Solvang, Ballard and Buellton. Reservations for the marquee dinners are the ones that go first.

The interesting structural change this year is on Friday night. The Los Olivos and Santa Ynez towns are combining their dinner and moving it to the Santa Ynez Ranch, the former home of Bridlewood Winery. Shelby Sim, the CEO of Visit the Santa Ynez Valley, described the venue in the Independent as a legendary and exclusive location not open to the public any longer. If you have driven past the old Bridlewood gates for years wondering what was behind them, this is the night that answers the question.

The Saturday side is stacked too. The Solvang dinner returns to Second Street, preceded by a wine tasting in the Festival Theater garden, with a new afterparty on the stage of the theater itself, deejay, light show, and drinks from Rock12 Distillery. If your teenagers still think Solvang is boring, this is one of the more legitimately strange things the town has ever done. Party on the actual theater stage.

For the daytime, Friday morning gives you the choice between horseback riding with Vino Vaqueros at Demetria Estate or a three-farm tour with Heritage Farmland & Flavors. Saturday adds rides and hay wagons and a cowboy breakfast at Alisal Ranch, ziplining with Highline Adventures, a vineyard tour with Keith Saarloos of Saarloos & Sons, and the Franc & Blanc tasting of the Valley's top cab francs and chenin and sauvignon blancs.

The reason to note this in an August post is simple. The dinners sell out. If you wait until September to look at the schedule, you will be reading the recap instead of the menu.

The case for staying put this month

Every August, some version of the same conversation happens. Everyone talks about getting out of town, and the people who actually stay end up having the better month. The Sta. Rita Hills weekend is a legitimate reason not to leave. The Victor is a legitimate reason to stop treating dinner as an afterthought. And the fact that early October is already crowding the calendar is a reason to use August for the low-key stuff. The Saturday afternoon at Koehler. The Friday oysters at Rideau. The Tuesday burger at Mattei's bar.

The version of Santa Ynez that shows up in travel writeups is a place people come to. The version residents actually live in is a place that rewards paying attention to the calendar for about six specific weekends a year. This is one of them.

If you are thinking about the neighborhood in a longer way this summer, whether that is settling deeper into where you already are or helping someone in your circle who has been asking about the Valley, Cheylin Mackahan is glad to talk. Let's Connect.