Mountain Travel in Santa Barbara in the 1950s was a center of bohemian lifestyle, influenced in part, by Jack Kerouac’s ‘On the Road’. Positioned in, what was then, an isolated area in the mountains earlier mentioned Montecito, a wealthy enclave then as now, and due to the fact of its then isolation, of inexpensive land – $1,000.- $two,000 an acre. Nearly all Mountain Drivers built their possess properties with the help of their buddies and neighbors and often with no the reward of strategies or permits.
Several, if not most, had working day work but in the evenings and weekends they grew to become accurate bohemians residing their iconoclastic fantasies. They celebrated almost everything well worth celebrating, Robert Burns Birthday, Bastille Working day, Twelfth Night, the summer season and winter equinox, sunset and earlier mentioned all the grape harvest. Wine was the social lubricant in an age exactly where the dry martini reigned, and the wine of desire was Zinfandel from a tiny household winery in San Luis Obispo.
A Hollywood motion picture Seconds starring Rock Hudson includes the wine stomp as a central portion of their narrative. Filmed on web site and with genuine Mountain Motorists as extras.
Our initial winemaker at Santa Barbara Winery was from Mountain Generate, an Optometrist by trade, but a bohemian by choice. What started out this practice of imagined is that David Lafond life in the property of what was then 1 of the principle actors on Mountain Drive. David has resuscitated, following more than twenty years absence, one of Mountain Drive’s most cherished celebrations – the Mountain Travel Wine Stomp and the picking of a Wine Queen.
These days, since of technological advancements, only youngsters are permitted to stomp. Currently being lighter they are gentler. In the good previous days the complete community obtained into the vat and preferably bare. The wine did not flip out 50 % as properly.
The bohemian spirit could have vanished, youngsters rebel against their dad and mom, and these are mostly the 2nd generation Mountain Drivers, and possibly, just maybe, sitting down on million dollar houses is inhibiting, but they nonetheless have a excellent time and the spirit is there. With any luck , the custom will endure.
Despite www.mountaindrives.com that never a component of this culture Santa Barbara Winery, and in fact, the whole wine sector in Santa Barbara County owes a financial debt to these pioneers and their adore of the grape.
There is a ebook, Mountain Drive, compiled and edited by Elias Chiacos, printed by Shoreline Push, P.O. Box 3562, Santa Barbara, CA 93130, that addresses this early background of Mountain Push with an sufficient selection of pictures.