Rancho Sisquoc Winery!My "Sideways" moment!

So when you're in Santa Maria Valley, you got to try Shaw's Steakhouse. Incredible tri-tip Santa Maria style barbecue. They raise it up and down over the oak fire. Shaw's Steakhouse. Check it out when you're in Santa Maria Valley. I'm so excited we're in Santa Maria Valley wine country. We're at Rancho Sisquack Winery. I'm with Rebecca Curtis. Rebecca, show us your winery. I'm Pat Patterson and I love California. Yeah, well welcome. Oh my gosh, this is so fun getting out here. We're so excited. Huge ranch. Huge ranch. We are. We definitely are a huge ranch. How big is this winery? So Rancho Sisquack is 37,000 acres. We're a big, yes, a big ranch. We're one of the biggest ranches in Santa Barbara County, privately owned by the Flood family. We're also a working cattle ranch. Tell me a little bit about what you're known for. Yeah, we're known for our reds. Our flagship wine is our Cabernet Sauvignon. We planted the cab in 1968. Another wine that we're very famous for is our Savonar. So Savonar is a white wine. Say that again. Savonar. Wow, okay, because I've never heard of that. Is that, I mean, that's a specialties? It's very unique. Yeah, there's only, it's a single varietal wine. There's only two vineyards. I love that too. You know, I can pretend I'm a wine sophisticate, but I'm not. So what do you want to pour us? Let's do the Savonar. Okay, great. So it's so unique. Yeah, great. Okay, now we got Jeff, our cameraman here, because he's the designated drinker. I've got my water. Cheers. I have to ask you, Rebecca, did Sideways come here? The movie? Everybody knows the wine movie Sideways. Paul Giamatta. They go all through this area here in Central California. I love it. What was your favorite scene? My favorite? I don't think I really have a favorite scene. Okay. I think what I really love about the movie is just like, it's about our area. So you see all the locals. Liking the locals, exactly. Yeah, well, I personally have a favorite scene and it's Paul Giamatta. Is this the dump bucket? Yes. That's my favorite. That's my favorite scene. So this is incredible. So is this where people can picnic? Yes. Yeah, this is where we do all of our experiences. We do wine tastings out here. We do by the glass, by the bottle. We also have all of our big events here, like our club pickup parties. Should Lucille Ball be inside here somewhere? Is she stomping grapes? What is this? This is a press, right? Yeah, that's actually one of our very first presses that we had in the early 70s. So how old would this be? I don't know the exact age, but I know we used it in the 70s. Okay, wow. So I'm excited. I have Steve Smith here. Give me your title again, Steve. Winemaker at Rancho Sisquatch. Wow, winemaker. So we got the main guy. We got bees all around, which is, this is such an amazing place. What are we standing in front of? This is our bureau press. It's a press, pretty much. It presses the grapes, presses the whites and the reds. In terms of being a winemaker, what's the most important role you play? Just in terms of the quality of the grape, the fermentation? Which part is kind of that? Yeah, I think it's mostly the picking decisions of looking at the grapes, seeing when the optimal time to pick is, and then kind of maintaining the fermentations throughout their ferment. And one of the amazing things about Rancho Sisquatch is the size of the property, right? So you have many little micro climates. It's a 36,000 acre ranch, about 300 acres of grapes. We grow tons of stuff. There's two vineyards, a McMurray vineyard, a flood vineyard. We pick out of both of them, so we get to pick and choose what we want. What is your favorite thing to do in Santa Maria Valley, other than making wine? What do you like about the Central California area? I think just you have everything. You have everything outdoors. You have the beach, the mountains. You can do pretty much everything you want. You can go to the lakes. You can go do anything. And not too many people. Yeah, exactly. We're from Southern California, LA. You just come up here. You can breathe. You can find a parking spot. It's incredible. It's incredible. So Steve, what are you doing here? So Charlotte's going to start. Charlotte's doing a pump over on one of our Cabernet Lots. So inside that tank, there's... I'm hearing a thump, thump, thump. What's going on? Yes, it's a diaphragm pump. So it's an air pump. What it does is sucking the juice off the screen, internal screen there, and it's pumping through it. Once you hear it, there's two diaphragms inside there, and they're shifting the wine back and forth. So like we said, it's a little like a turkey basting. Yeah. Is Lucille Ball in there? No, she's not in there. And one of the things about the best of California is that we love California-made products. I mean, it doesn't get... I mean, this is literally coming out of California ground and going through this process, and then people get to enjoy it, restaurant, home, wherever. Wow, that's incredible. Thanks again, Steve. Thank you. So you got to come visit the Syscoff Winery out here in Santa Maria Valley. Love this place. So Orchot, this is incredible. The Pizzeria Bellaforto. I had the stone fruit pizza. Jeff, our illustrious cameraman, had the three-beard knotty oak. Incredible. You got to check out this place, Orchot. So we're at Kay's Country Kitchen. We're in Orchot. I ordered the veggie omelet. Jeff got the Mediterranean scramble. I got fruit instead of hash browns. But just so I have something to look forward to, I've also got a short stack of pancakes. Great coffee. I'm an orange juice nut, so I love to check out the orange juice. Fresh orange juice. Fresh squeezed orange juice. One of my favorite things in the morning. Old Town Orchot, you got to check it out when you're here in the Santa Maria Valley. So I'm excited. I'm at my place, and I get an incredible avocado toast. This is the cowboy. It's got spinach. It's got cheese. It's got all sorts of incredible stuff, and I use a knife and fork. Don't use a knife and fork. Do this. I love that.