WENDY THIES SELL

Purple cauliflower, golden beets, green beans, red strawberries, white onions, peach peaches, yellow lemons, rainbow chard; I discovered a kaleidoscopic variety of fresh, locally grown produce at the new farmers market at the Santa Maria Town Center. Growers and artisans sell their produce and products from 9:30 a.m. until 1:30 p.m. every Saturday. Four years […]

For two indelible weeks in the fall of 2006, my husband Michael and I ate and drank our way through Italy. We still reminisce about the marvelous locals-filled mozzarella bar in Rome; the exceptionally fresh seafood platters on the Cinque Terre coast; snacking on saffron gelato in San Gimignano; sipping Prosecco overlooking Venice’s Grand Canal, […]

When Presqu’ile Winery opens its doors to the public on Thursday, June 20, so begins an exciting new chapter in the story of Santa Maria Valley wine country. One can only expect that serious wine connoisseurs, day-tripping winery hoppers, modern architecture buffs, and the entire community for that matter, will soon be making a pilgrimage […]

Have you tasted Santa Barbara County chardonnay lately? You should! The cooler microclimates of the county are producing some really lovely, food-friendly chards. I’ve been especially impressed with newly released chardonnays from the Santa Maria Valley and the Sta. Rita Hills appellations in particular, from producers such as La Fenêtre, Solomon Hills, Deovlet, Presqu’ile, Riverbench, […]

You’d be hard pressed to find someone more passionate about wine than Jerry Fiore. At one time, he and his wife Liz were members of more than 20 high-end California wine clubs. They moved to Santa Ynez nearly a decade ago and decided to start their own unique wine club—turning their beautiful five-acre property on […]

Every time I visit Wine Country Orcutt with my husband, Mike, he comments, “This is the best deal in town!” He might be right. From a $9 dollar flight of bubbly to a 10-buck trio of Ports, I can’t believe there isn’t a slew of eager customers lining up outside the door wanting to “take […]

You can see, there are a lot of Valley oak trees in the vineyard,” Chumash winemaker Tara Gomez pointed out as we walked through the tribe’s Camp 4 Vineyard in Santa Ynez on a warm summer morning last August. The Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians was inspired by the historic trees when naming its […]

When I worked evenings in San Luis Obispo, my colleagues and I ordered dinner from Cugini’s in the Marigold Center more times than I can count. We liked the pastas—especially the butternut squash ravioli—wood-fired pizzas, and salads.  So when I heard that Cugini’s was expanding to Santa Maria, I eagerly visited within a week of […]

A Santa Maria man born in Communist Poland 45 years ago, who immigrated to North America with not much more than the shirt on his back, has become one of California’s most respected winemakers. Paul Lato has taken the long and winding road—leaving his birthplace seeking freedom to fulfill his dreams, discovering wine, completing college […]

One of the most popular restaurants in Santa Maria hasn’t advertised since it opened six years ago; it’s situated in an industrial park next to the airport district, and yet hundreds of people pack the dining room daily. Owners Keith and Ruth Moles bought the Sunset Ridge Golf Center 13 years ago, always planning to […]

As KSBY-TV’s former anchor and wine reporter, I had the pleasure of visiting nearly every winery in the Paso Robles wine region and interviewing dozens of winemakers over the course of many years. Since moving to the Santa Maria Valley a few years ago, I have stayed closer to home lately, exploring Santa Barbara County’s […]

A decade after Sideways, the wine road-trip indie flick, was filmed in Santa Barbara County, “The Sideways Effect” is still coming to light. Turns out, one of the millions of moviegoers who saw it was a young film-school graduate from New Zealand living in England. Little did Angela Osborne know at the time that her […]