I used to walk up the hill to visit the Queen of the Missions on late Sunday afternoons. I would perch on her steps as the sun fell into the sea, her twin bell-towers sheltering me from the breezes rustling down Mission Canyon. I would let my gaze be swept out beyond the lawn and roses to the Spanish tiles glowing in the waning light, and finally to the rippling slate blue of the Santa Barbara Channel and the peaks of Santa Cruz Island.
Sometimes, from my viewpoint, I would think about the Santa Cruz Island Wine Company, which boasted the largest winery and vineyard in the area at the turn of the 20th century. It was said at the time that “the most romantic vineyard is out at sea.” That operation is long gone, but a few years ago, the Rusack Winery took cuttings of the few remaining Santa Cruz zinfandel and mission grape vines, still clambering up trees 100 years later on the back side of the island, and planted them in Ballard Canyon near Los Olivos. The past is not dead as long as there are dusty bottles and old vines.
I may have moved here to join the wine industry, but it didn’t take long until I found the history of Santa Barbara to be just as intoxicating as its wine. Spanish sea captain Sebastián Vizcaíno gave the modern name to the area when, tossed in violent seas in our Channel on his voyage up the California coast, he cried out to Santa Barbara for rescue on the eve of the saint’s feast day. That was December 4, 1602.