March 21, 2025 – The game plan is in place. Then long-held passions get in the way. And everything gets that much better.
The plan: Santa Cruz appreciation, coastal mountain vineyard version.
The strategy: Make an overdue visit to a tasting room whose vineyard is participating in the upcoming Wines of the Santa Cruz Mountains Grand Wine Tasting, and ask a question.
The Grand Wine Tasting flows 12:30-4pm March 30 at the historic Mountain Winery in Saratoga, with an educational seminar that traces local wine roots all the way back to the 1800s, and a deep roster of 40 superb wineries sharing tastes.
Those include Beauregard and Birichino, Common Thread and Cooper Garrod, Lago Lomita and Left Bend, Madson, Muns and Mount Eden. (Scroll to the bottom of the piece for a full list, and follow EMB‘s wine whisperer Laura Ness‘ Grape Escapes for comprehensive intel.)
The attending hosts also include Big Basin Vineyards, where I ask the question: Are Santa Cruz Mountain wines still underrated?
Laurie Dahl, who as tasting room point guard helps cultivate a welcoming arena of wine, art and food, looks at me like I’m asking a rhetorical question.
“They’re still not recognized in the way that they should be,” she says.
The flights on offer at Big Basin help emphasize that truth, and allow for some choose-your-own-adventure action, pending taste tendencies and/or price points, with industry discounts in play.
(Turbo tasting notes: Their Pet Nat works as a superlative entry to the category; the 2021 Pinot blend behaves like a delicate and floral best friend; the GSM proves why it’s popular.)
But that all buries the lede that tasting space on Pacific Avenue does a lot more than pour wine.
Two clues to that end smacked me right in my weak spots.
A sign on the door to the industrial-chic expanse did it directly: empanadas and a glass of estate wine run the floor for $19 on Santa Cruz Warriors game days, just a few court lengths down the street from Kaiser Permanente Arena where the SeaDubs play.
Regular readers will identify my personal passions: empanadas and Warriors basketball.
And not just any empanadas, but baked-to-order masterpuffs by a native of their rightful birthplace, and the same city where I ate them multiple times a week for a year straight, Buenos Aires.
Chef Juan Garay crafts a spot-on authentic Argentine-seasoned ground beef with green olive and chives and ham-and-cheese empanadas with angelic crust and moist interior, with street-cred-ready-heavy-herb chimichurri.
He also does 1) things like house pinza Romana (the airy, crispy-crusted, long-fermented style of pizza) and his own smoked sardines, mackerel and octopus; 2) helps pair wines with the menu, which also includes items like smoked trout salad (recommended pairing: 2021 Kimari Chardonnay) and tortilla de papa Española (2017 Coastview Grenache); and 3) teams up with partners like…the Santa Cruz Warriors.
Big Basin now posts up at Warriors games, giving fans a taste of local teamwork that parallels what’s happening on the court.
By the way, the red-hot “SeaDubs” wrap up their regular season next week, revving up on a 6-game win streak that positions them for the playoffs, wrapping their regular season March 28 and 29 at home at the arena not far from Big Basin.
Around a decade back, the Warriors were summarized as potential unrealized. That’s no longer the case.
The realization settles in that the wine and the empanadas, while memorable, might just be context for the something else.
That’s when you know you have a proper modern Santa Cruz tasting room in your glass.
Is it an art studio?
Is it an empanada shop with a hunger for wine?
Is it a boutique to buy bougie foodie goodies when you forgot to hook the sister-in-law up with a birthday gift?
All that’s happening here.
What happens when multiple players of a team overachieve?
Does anyone notice the little things? The deflection that led to results, the hustle that no one noticed, the patience in listening amid the huddle?
It translates.
The rundown for Wines of the Santa Cruz Mountains’ 9th annual Grand Wine Tasting:
Alfaro Family Vineyards
Aptos Vineyard
Bargetto Winery
Beauregard Vineyards
Big Basin Vineyards
Birichino Wines
Bottle Jack Wines
Burrell School Vineyards
Charmant Vineyards
Common Thread Wines
Cooper Garrod Estate Vineyards
David Bruce Winery
Domaine Eden
Gali Vineyards
House Family Vineyards
Integrity Wines
Kathryn Kennedy Winery
Kings Mountain Vineyards
Kissed By An Angel Wines
Lago Lomita Vineyards
Left Bend Winery
Lester Estate Wines
Lexington Wine Company
Madson Wines
Maison Areion
Martin Ranch Winery
Mount Eden Vineyards
Muns Vineyard
Neely Wine
Rexford Winery
Ridge Vineyards
Roberts Ranch Vineyards
Samuel Louis Wines
Sandar & Hem Wines
Santa Cruz Mountain Vineyard
Sante Arcangeli Family Wines
Silver Mountain Vineyards
Stockwell Cellars
Storrs Winery & Vineyards
The Mountain Winery
Thomas Fogarty Winery
Vidovich Vineyards
Wargin Wines
Windy Oaks Estate Winery
Woodside Vineyards
Wrights Station Winery
About the author
Mark C. Anderson, Edible Monterey Bay's managing editor, appears on "Friday Found Treasures" via KRML 94.7 every week, a little after 12pm noon. Reach him via mark@ediblemontereybay.com.
