There’s a wide variety of wine tasting experiences that one can experience. They include from quiet, almost meditational tastings in ancient facilities. Others are like a night out or a visit to a family home. And some just seem dedicated to fun, however one defines that word. Brick Barn, in our opinion, fits into that latter category.
One of the patios at Brick Barn, showing the Spanish influence on the architecture.
The winery sits in Buellton, nestled in the Santa Rita Hills. It is a new operation, founded in 2018. The winery itself is a handsome, Spanish mission-inspired building, with a very large capacity for tasting visitors. That size, and the variety of venues at Brick Barn define the wine tasting experience there.
The bar area at Brick Barn.
Let us describe several different experiences to be had at Brick Barn. The first is a rather traditional. There’s a tasting room with a bar, where you can enjoy a selection of their recent bottlings. The selection of wines is quite varied, about which more later. The tasting room itself is beautiful, with a large bar decorated in tiles reflecting both Spanish and Native American heritage. The chandeliers and the assortment of interesting shopping add to the pleasure of the room.
The lounge area.
Visitors can have their wines served in another large room, decorated to resemble a private club. It invites consideration of what’s in the glass and low-voiced conversation about it. We have reason to believe that there is no rule of silence, however.
Tasting, picnicking, trees and views.
Then there are the three patios outside. Here you can sit under umbrellas and spreading trees, admiring the views of Brick Barn’s vineyards and the Santa Ynez mountains beyond them. (The parking lot in between doesn’t spoil the pleasure. After all, the cars have to go somewhere.) Visitors are invited to bring picnics, enjoy their tastings of a buy a bottle, and simply relax. If that’s your idea of fun (and it is ours) Brick Barn is the place for it.
Finally, there’s party time. Brick Barn is open most days from 11:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. In other words, it is the place to go for tourists and locals alike at the end of the day. Happy hour can be very happy there and the tasting facilities can become a bit crowded. There’s live music on weekdays and we’re told that the joint rocks until closing time. It’s not our thing, but if it is yours, party hardy.
Brick Barn makes an enormous variety of wines: ten whites, two rosés, four sparkling wines and eight reds, plus four that they consider their top-tier wines, which they call Fatalist. (In our opinion, that’s not the most alluring name for a wine.) This variety is both a strength and a weakness. It pretty much assures that any visitor will find a type of wine that they enjoy. But, as we have said before about other areas of Wine Country, making too many types of wine often undercuts the ability to make anything particularly well.
We fear that that’s the case at Brick Barn. Their wines aren’t to our taste, but that’s unimportant. We write about the tasting experience, which is excellent there. We’re not wine critics and evidently many people like the wines there. So, if you’re in the Santa Rita Hills, you can have fun at Brick Barn.