Following a tour of the property, including a stop at the sorting table as freshly harvested grapes were being sorted and a visit to the barrel room, we entered a private tasting room.
We also tried their Puppy Love, a blend of Grenache Noir and Alicante Bouschet, the 100% Alicante Bouschet, Cabernet Franc and Eglantine, a Cab Franc, Malbec, Cab Sauv and Merlot blend.
Susanne Sapier and her husband Jacques run this charming winery, named after her son Grant and her father James as a way of thanking them for their hard work in getting the winery open. She said there should actually be about 200 names on the label.
It's a lovely hillside property with lush green grass, Norton grape vines, chickens and what I thought were cows. I later learned they were enormous sheep!
A fun appetizer on the menu is the Green Deviled Eggs and Ham, a green deviled egg with a ham croquette. When it came time to order our main course, I couldn’t resist the Pan Seared Shrimp & Grits. Delicious!
Susan comes from a cattle ranching background, and when her parents bought the restaurant, their aim was to entertain people the same way they did at the ranch.
The Palace Grill has been a downtown Santa Barbara fixture for more than 25 years, serving a wide array of food choices, but with a focus on Creole and Cajun. We started with a Cajun martini, marinated with jalapeño and served with cherry peppers in a Mason jar.
He put that idea on the back burner until he lost his job in 2004 and thought to himself 'what the hell?' Starting with $78,000 and a naive stubbornness, M2 was born.