Find Your SoCal Wine Tour Adventure!

Experience the gorgeous SoCal vineyards!

Southern California is not only home to our headquarters, but is the frontier of the California wine country and often disregarded compared to Northern California, but truth to be told, the beautiful rolling hills of the SoCal vineyards are not only less crowded but more unspoiled - and sunny for sure - than most vineyards in the world. 

The L.A. area is not only home to the lovely inland wineries, vineyards, and tasting venues of the Santa Ynez Valley in Santa Barbara County (i.e. Santa Ynez, Los Olivos, Buellton, Ballard, Solvang), but also the beautiful miles of rolling green hills with the ocean breeze in the Malibu Canyons. L. A. County’s City of Malibu may be the very last wine country to be developed in California but is also uniquely nestled in the gorgeous canyons, and the doors here aren’t run-down by thousands of visitors a day, unlike Northern California's Sonoma- and Napa counties.

Malibu and Malibu Canyons

Vineyards in the Malibu Canyons.

The City of Angels was once the top winemaker in California but has long lost that title to areas of Northern California. Despite that, there are now more than fifty winemakers located in the Malibu region, most in the Santa Monica Mountains, which stretches from Runyon Canyon in L.A. to Point Mugu by Malibu. The most popular tasting and touring destination for our LA limo services is the Rosenthal Malibu Estate Wines, a tasting venue located just across the Pacific in the City of Malibu itself. 

In the gorgeous Malibu Canyons is where we find the wineries and vineyards of Dolin Malibu Estate Vineyards, Cornell Winery & Tasting Room, Hoyt Family Vineyards, Sip Malibu Cielo Wine Bar, Church Estate, Malibu & Vine, Malibu Solstice, Malibu Family Wines, Casa Dumetz and Ladyface Alehouse. All of these offers wine-tasting rooms and food is served on some occasions, such as Rosenthal, Ladyface Alehouse, and Malibu Family Wines. The most popular grapes grown in the L. A. region and Malibu are Muscat, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Viognier, Grenache, and Merlot. LA County is locally said to be experiencing a new wine renaissance along with the recent discovery of the Santa Monica Mountains’ fertile and ideal grape-growing soil. It’s just a matter of time before these great tasting- and touring destinations get as popular and much visited as other California vineyard regions. We invite you to experience the Southern California wine renaissance while it’s still hot, and not overcrowded or too pricey as those elsewhere, unfortunately, have become.

Malibu Family Wines is one of the favorite destinations in Malibu.

Among the most frequently visited by LA wine tour clientele is the Rosenthal Tasting Room. This particular tasting venue is located along the Pacific Coast Highway in Malibu proper and offers great tasting opportunities along with the beautiful scenery of beach waves hitting the shore. On warm summer days, we get lots of calls from people interested in checking out the Rosenthal Tasting Room by luxury limos for rent. 

Their vineyards are located three miles inland from the beach, by Kanan Road in the Malibu Canyons. The most popular for our customers however is the Malibu Family Wines, which is an outdoor tasting area, nestled ideally amid their vineyard canyon. It includes a huge picnic area and lounging around on the grass. During summertime, Malibu Family Wines offers outdoor screenings of movies, musical performers, and stand-up comedy shows. During popular events, there is usually also a food truck here serving people everything from pizzas and hamburgers to Mexican cuisine. Remember to ask the family behind Malibu Wines about their shuttle to the safari area where wild animals such as zebras and camels are kept. Also run by the Malibu Family Wines is Malibu & Vine, which is an outdoor tasting bar situated at the Malibu Golf Club.

Cornell Winery & Tasting Room is located in a barn-like building in a forested area surrounded by wild peacocks and other birds and wildlife. Here you can taste Malibu-made varietals found nowhere else on their beautiful lawn outdoors. Cornell Winery & Tasting Room is also a great destination to buy bottles to bring home. SIP Malibu Cielo Wine Bar serves wines made at the Cielo Malibu Estate Vineyard as well as wines from Northern California. Make sure to ask for the Malibu Estate wines, which include all their wines locally made in the county. SIP Malibu also serves beer. Casa Dumetz Wines offers some great local wines, also available through their online store, while the Ladyface Alehouse (named after Ladyface Mountain) offers great food-, beer-, and tasting. We are proud to be the premier and top-rated service for exploring Southern California vineyards by LA limo services.

Santa Ynez

Wine touring can have so many different sceneries; ask us
about a tasting event or venue that fits your preferences.

Santa Ynez and the greater Santa Ynez Valley offer the most desired and picturesque scenic vineyards. The Santa Ynez Valley is home to more than a hundred wineries and 5,000 acres of vineyards! The tiny town of Santa Ynez is easily walkable in a few minutes and is recognized as the gateway to the Santa Barbara County wine country. Our customers often decide to spend the night in this lovely old town. 

There are really only three options for lodging: the Chumash Resort, the Edison Street Inn, and the most popular for our clientele, the Santa Ynez Inn. A short drive from here you will run into thousands of acres of vineyards and wineries, but there are also several great tasting venues in town. The Oscar- and Golden Globe award-winning movie Sideways was filmed entirely in the Santa Ynez Valley and many local businesses in the industry experienced a 20-30 % sales increase following its release in 2004. Each year in May, the town of Santa Ynez holds its annual Wine Country Half Marathon, where individuals and teams run a thirteen miles long marathon through the vineyards. It starts at Sagunto Street and goes through Los Olivos, and Ballard Canyon, and ends in Solvang, CA. After the race, there is a festival that includes tastings. This trail, either by car, limousine, or on foot, offers some amazingly scenic and gorgeous views of the Southern California vineyards.

Bridlewood Estate Winery.

Rusack Vineyard is situated in Ballard Canyon, a quiet canyon of scenic vineyards. Here you can hang out under the old oak trees, bring your food and hang out on the deck, and if you look carefully, maybe you will spot one of the many bison roaming the nearby hills. Rusack Vineyard is mostly known for their Bordeaux Anacapa as well as Sauvignon blanc, Pinot noir, and Sangiovese. Sunstone Winery and Kalyra Winery are only a mile apart. Kalyra Winery is famous for its huge role in the film Sideways (2004) and the deck here offers some wonderful views of mountains and the valley. Sunstone Winery has a Spanish Tuscan feel, while the Kalyra Winery is Australian-inspired. Sunstone grows the most Merlot but is also recognized for other varieties such as Chardonnay, Viognier, and Syrah along with two great white wines, Sauvignon blanc, and Viognier.

Los Olivos

Rolling green hills of Santa Ynez Valley.

The pretty little village of Los Olivos is home to numerous tasting vendors, vineyards, antique stores, and art galleries, and is among the most popular tasting destinations for customers riding with our Los Angeles limousine company. This village is renowned for its wineries and wine-tasting offers. 

Despite having a population of barely a thousand people, Los Olivos has been home to celebrities such as David Crosby, Steven Seagal, David Hasselhoff, and more. While Ronald Reagan lived at Sky Ranch nine miles to the south, Michael Jackson lived at the Neverland Ranch five miles north of Los Olivos. The village is known for its iconic Victorian homes and as the heart of Santa Barbara County- and Santa Ynez Valley’s vineyard region, served often by clients reserving our Santa Barbara- or Malibu wine tour options. 

Los Olivos is conveniently located less than four miles from the town of Santa Ynez and is surrounded by green rolling hills filled with vineyards. The most popular places for tasting in Los Olivos, amongst our Los Angeles limousine clientele, are the Koehler Winery, the Zaca Mesa Winery, and the Brander Vineyard. Other popular tasting destinations in Los Olivos include the Beckmen Vineyards, Carhartt Vineyard, Carina Cellars, Stolpman Vineyards, Daniel Gehrs Wines, Rick Langoria Wines, Scott Cellars, Curtis Winery, Lafond Winery and Vineyards, Alma Rosa Winery, and the Firestone Vineyard.

The areas surrounding Los Olivos are incredibly beautiful
and increasingly popular for tasting tours.

Koehler Winery has long been among the most frequently visited in Los Olivos. It offers a beautiful setting along the hillside, removed from the main road. Koehler is mostly known for their Sauvignon blanc, Cabernet sauvignon, Syrah, Pinot noir, and Viognier. Zaca Mesa Winery is an ideal spot to have a picnic and is surrounded by nature in the Foxen Canyon. 

This winery has been amongst the most desired for our L.A. wine tour customers for years now and is known for its quiet setting and for having been the first winery in SoCal to make Syrah. Along with their phenomenal Syrah, try out their Chardonnay, Grenache, Viognier, Mourvedre, or Roussane. Both the Zaca Mesa- and Koehler Wineries are located in Foxen Canyon, which is recognized by the huge amount of wineries and vineyards, as well as ranches and farms, and numerous oak trees. It has abundant wildlife of mule deer, condors, eagles, and hawks. The Brander Vineyard reminds of a European château situated amongst wildflower, redwood- and cottonwood trees. Brander is world-known for its Sauvignon Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon, while other year-round wines here include Merlot, Syrah, and Chardonnay.

A map of the Santa Ynez Valley.

Also worth a visit in Los Olivos is Firestone Vineyard. This vineyard is among the few to produce Gewürztraminer but is also known for its Merlot, Chardonnay, Syrah, and Riesling, as well as the beautiful scenery of the valley from its outdoor tasting rooms. 

Another popular tastings destination is the Daniel Gehrs Wine-Tasting Room. The building itself dates back to the early 1900s and was a doctor’s office and residence long before it became a winery. There are numerous tasting rooms and a beautiful outdoor patio. The most commonly sipped wines here include Port, Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Sangiovese. 

Another popular one is the Carhartt Vineyard & Wine-Tasting Room, which is the smallest of all the tasting rooms in the Santa Ynez Valley and holds a maximum of only six people at the time, but it also has a backyard for wine-sipping. They’re mostly known for their Pinot Noir, Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc, Merlot, Petite Syrah, and Sangiovese. Carina Cellars is conveniently located in Downtown Los Olivos and includes two tasting bars indoors. Carina Cellars is particularly known for its Colsen Canyon Syrah but offers other wines such as Petite Sirah, Viognier, and Rhône red-wine blends. 

Curtis Vineyard in Foxen Canyon offers great views of their vineyards across the road and is generally speaking a more low-key and relaxed place than most other tasting locations in the area. They are known for their Rhone varieties, including Mourvedre, Roussanne, Grenache, Syrah, and Viognier. Stolpman Vineyards Wine-Tasting Room is situated in a late 1800s building and offers also their own estate olive oil. There are two tasting rooms here, where the focus is on Syrah and Syrah blends, but they also serve Malbec, Sangiovese, and various Rhone white varieties. Rick Langoria Wines and Scott Cellars are both known for their tasty Chardonnay, Pinot noir, Pinot Gris, and Tempranillo. For trip options to Los Olivos, ask us about recommendations for the season you’re planning a trip.

Santa Barbara and Solvang

We offer Santa Barbara- and Malibu wine tour options to
tasting venues along the Pacific Ocean in several SoCal cities.

Santa Barbara- and the larger Santa Barbara County might very well be the richest American wine country, which brags more than fifty grapes in Santa Barbara County alone, due to the number of diverse microclimates found in the area. Not all tasting finds place out in the countryside of Santa Ynez and Los Olivos, the Santa Barbara Urban Wine Trail offers great tastings of the county’s greatest wines even without seeing a vine. At the Lower State Street of Downtown Santa Barbara, there are also more than six tasting rooms, offering samples of everything from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay to Dolcetto and Cabernet franc. 

For our LA wine tours customers, the most popular tasting venues in Santa Barbara include the Kalyra Winery, Santa Barbara Winery, Oreana Winery, Kunin Wines & Westerly Vineyards, Municipal Winemakers, Carr Winery, Jaffurs Wine Cellars, and Wine Cask Tasting Room. You’ll know when you’ve reached the small community of Solvang by the sudden change of architecture from being Spanish-inspired brick buildings to Scandinavian windmills and timber buildings. The community was founded as a Danish town in the early 1900s, in fact among the first Danish colonies in America, and the town still has a majority population who can trace their ancestry to Denmark and the pioneer Danes who helped established the community. 

Many looking for limos for rent in Solvang head to the Rideau Vineyard and the Rusack Vineyards, both located in the Santa Ynez Valley. There are few actual vineyards within the Solvang city limits, but its many tasting rooms within walking distance from one another lead nonetheless to a big amount of wine enthusiasts visiting from Los Angeles and elsewhere. Start off by checking out Presidio Winery, Mandolina, or Sort This Out Cellars, which are all located on Copenhagen Drive. Other tasting rooms in Solvang include the D’Alfonso-Curran Wine Group, Shoestring Winery, Alma Rosa Winery, and the Lafond Winery and Vineyards. Some exceptional Pinot noir is served at the Lafond Winery and Vineyards, while the Alma Rosa Winery serves amazing Chardonnay.

Our options also include destinations such as the Santa Maria Valley, Goleta, Lompoc, and Temecula. For more information about these LA wine tours and what tasting rooms to choose from, feel free to give us a call any day and any time. Also, be sure to check out our great YELP reviews!

Southern California's vineyards are waiting to be explored, plan your trip today!

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About Nicolai Edgar Andersen

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