SANTA BARBARA WINE TOURS & URBAN WINE TRAIL SERVICE!
By: AMERICAN LUXURY LIMOUSINE
Santa Barbara is about an hour and fifteen minutes up the 101 from our Thousand Oaks office, and it is really two different wine days. One never leaves the city. The other goes over the pass into the valley. We run both, and which suits you comes down to how much of the day you want to spend in a vehicle.
The Urban Wine Trail is the one most people do not know about. Eighteen member tasting rooms sit inside the city itself, clustered in the Funk Zone, the Presidio blocks off State Street, and midtown. A group can be dropped in the Funk Zone and walk the whole cluster without the vehicle moving once. There is a practical reason to charter rather than drive yourselves: the city’s code bars any vehicle over thirty-three feet from the waterfront lots, and the Harbor lot caps at twenty-two, so a bus has nowhere to park. A chauffeur who drops you and waits solves a problem that parking cannot.
The valley day runs over San Marcos Pass on the 154 to Los Olivos, where thirty-odd tasting rooms sit in a few walkable blocks on Grand Avenue and Alamo Pintado, and on into Ballard Canyon and Happy Canyon. Those three combine comfortably in one day. Sta. Rita Hills, out toward Lompoc, is a separate run west rather than an extra stop, and Santa Maria Valley is a day of its own at the north end of the county.
Two operational details worth knowing before you book, because they change the shape of the day. Sunstone in Santa Ynez does not admit limousines or buses after three in the afternoon, so that stop goes early or not at all. Fess Parker takes groups of ten to forty with forty-eight hours’ notice, which makes it one of the few properties genuinely built for a full bus.
On routing, the 154 over the pass carries no length or bus restriction — the only posted limit on that stretch is a hazardous-materials ban, which has nothing to do with passengers. It is winding, so some groups would rather take the 101 through Gaviota for a smoother ride; tell us which you prefer and we will run it. Wine tours are $199 an hour with a three-hour minimum; otherwise sedans and SUVs at $85 an hour, stretch limousines at $199, SUV limousines at $229, and party and limo buses at $249. Coaches are quoted per trip, and every quote is written and all-in.