{"id":1947,"date":"2021-09-28T14:31:09","date_gmt":"2021-09-28T14:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1947"},"modified":"2021-09-28T15:00:15","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T15:00:15","slug":"kunin-wines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=1947","title":{"rendered":"Kunin Wines"},"content":{"rendered":"

From a wine tasting perspective, Santa Barbara has a split personality.\u00a0 Uptown is all elegant hotels, fine restaurants and well-appointed tasting rooms.\u00a0 Downtown, near the Pacific Ocean, is what they call the Funk Zone<\/a>, which is all, well, funk.\u00a0 This is not to say that there isn\u2019t good wine to be had in the Funk Zone, just that the overall ambiance is not quite like anywhere else we have ever seen in Wine Country.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The Kunin tasting room in Santa Barbara\u2019s Funk Zone.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of hotelcalifornian.com.<\/em><\/p>\n

Right in the middle of the Funk Zone is Kunin Wines, which has identity crisis of its own.\u00a0 Not a crisis, really; Kunin seems to be quite comfortable with its identity.\u00a0 But it\u2019s a little different than other Santa Barbara wineries.\u00a0 For one thing, perhaps the most important, there\u2019s the wine.\u00a0 Santa Barbara is Pinot Noir and Chardonnay country.\u00a0 Kunin primarily makes Rh\u00f4ne-style wines from grapes as diverse as Grenache (red and white), Syrah, Viognier, Mourv\u00e8dre, Cinsault, Roussanne and Counoise.\u00a0 That\u2019s quite a selection for an American-owned winery in southern California.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>A quiet time at the bar at the Kunin tasting room.\u00a0 Photo courtesy of Keepin\u2019 It Kind.<\/em><\/p>\n

We\u2019ve found that the servers are quite liberal with offering a variety of tastes if you show genuine interest, not just a desire for alcohol.\u00a0 But then there\u2019s the matter of Kunin\u2019s identity crisis.\u00a0 Up until around the lunch hour, visitors can sit at the bar, taste, discuss and enjoy in a thoughtful and unhurried manner.\u00a0 But once the afternoon arrives, so do the partiers.\u00a0 And we do mean PAR-TEE.<\/p>\n

The tasting room is in a building of no particular architectural interest.\u00a0 But there\u2019s a long front porch, a wide-open door and a large rectangular bar.\u00a0\u00a0 Just perfect for wine tasting near the beach.\u00a0 And so later in the day it becomes packed \u2013 bar, porch and street front and the crowd didn\u2019t seem to be involved in a conversation on the relative merits of real Rh\u00f4ne wines and California varietals.<\/p>\n

Now we have nothing against parties.\u00a0 Who doesn\u2019t like a good party?\u00a0 It\u2019s just that when we drink wine at a party, we expect it to be cold, wet and alcoholic, nothing more.\u00a0 But Kunin makes serious wine and it\u2019s a shame not to enjoy it on its own terms.\u00a0 Don\u2019t misunderstand; these are California Rh\u00f4ne-style wines, not imitation anything.\u00a0 They cannot be confused with wine made in the south of France, nor should they be.<\/p>\n

For example, Kunin makes two wines they call Pape Star and Pape Star Blonde.\u00a0 They\u2019re meant to be a \u201cversatile take on France\u2019s Ch\u00e2teauneuf-du-Pape\u201d.\u00a0 A take, perhaps, but hardly to be confused with the real thing.\u00a0 From our point of view, they would be better off calling these wines simply California Rh\u00f4ne Blends, both red and white.\u00a0 Drinkers should appreciate them for what they are, not what they aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n

We were several decades older than any other people in the tasting room and so maybe younger people will experience Kunin differently than we did.\u00a0 Whatever your age, Kunin is worth a visit.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From a wine tasting perspective, Santa Barbara has a split personality.\u00a0 Uptown is all elegant hotels, fine restaurants and well-appointed tasting rooms.\u00a0 Downtown, near the Pacific Ocean, is what they call the Funk Zone, which is all, well, funk.\u00a0 This is not to say that there isn\u2019t good wine to be had in the Funk … Continue reading Kunin Wines<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1947"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1947"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1947\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1952,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1947\/revisions\/1952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1947"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1947"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1947"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}