The film Sideways turns 20 this year, but it’s still as fresh as a cold glass of Chablis. In it, antiheroes Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Haden Church) leave in middle age for California wine country and end up in a psychodrama of bars and sexual encounters.
Although the film was associated with San Francisco’s better-known Napa Valley, it was actually set in the funkier Santa Ynez Valley, closer to Los Angeles.
The three-hour climb to Santa Ynez from Los Angeles reveals a glorious landscape of hills and sagebrush.
My ears pop as we pass Montecito, near Harry and Meghan’s lair, and 3,000 feet above the smog of Los Angeles, I enter The Inn At Mattei’s Tavern.
A century ago, canvas-covered cars parked in front of this bar; Now it’s all about artisanal food and wine. I warm up with a glass of local Strange Family Vineyards pinot noir; pinot was a Sideways favorite.
Oliver Bennett travels to the Santa Ynez Valley in California, where the movie Sideways was set 20 years ago
Miles (Paul Giamatti) and Jack (Thomas Haden Church) enjoying a drink at Sideways
If Napa is grand dame, then Santa Ynez is hipster with wineries run by high-living Los Angeles exiles. It now has more than 170 vineyards and farmers markets in chi-chi villages.
Take Los Olivos, for example, a few hundred meters from Mattei’s. This is where Miles and Jack went to drink at Sideways and is now a town with no less than 30 wineries offering all varieties.
I remember Miles’ advice about wine: “Put your nose in it.” Don’t be shy, really stick your nose in there’ and get to work. Consider it done.
I look around at other places of interest in the area. Solvang is a Danish-American curiosity with windmills and candy stores, Los Alamos is like stepping into a Sergio Leone movie, and time seems to have stopped in Santa Ynez.
Solvang (above) in Santa Ynez is a “Danish-American curiosity with windmills and candy stores”
In good taste: the endless vineyards of Napa Valley: a great lady according to Oliver
Oliver visits Inglenook, Napa’s most famous winery, founded in 1879 and purchased with profits from the movie The Godfather by its wine-loving director Francis Ford Coppola.
But Napa is calling, via a short flight to San Francisco.
An hour after landing, I meet local guide Mike Ward in a white limousine (license plate WINE 82) who reminds me that two devastating fires, in 2017 and 2020, knocked Napa, well, on its side. But that’s California, where problems become opportunities.
The Stanly Ranch resort opened two years ago: part Paltrow, part Wild West, with double-denim button-downs and a meditation cushion in every room. Soon I’ll be drinking Pride Mountain merlot and listening to tree frogs croak.
I continue along Highway 29 in Napa and arrive at Inglenook, the most famous winery in the region, founded in 1879 and purchased with the profits from the movie The Godfather by its wine-loving director Francis Ford Coppola. Its reputation has dipped and dipped over the years, but it’s still a must-visit in Napa, and one drink later I’m in spa-rich Calistoga, with Napa’s holy trinity of mud, water and wine. . Both Napa and Santa Ynez are showing that wine tourism is in poor health.
As Dean Martin’s chorus went in Little Ole Wine Drinker Me: “I’m praying for rain in California.” This way the grapes can grow and more wine can be produced.’
With you there, Deano.
