Santa Barbara’s Rugged Beauty: Photographer George Rose Turns His Lens to Wine Country

Santa Barbara’s Rugged Beauty: Photographer George Rose Turns His Lens to Wine Country, from the Spring/Summer 2020 issue of Touring & Tasting.

One of the things about Santa Barbara County’s wine country that is so unique is the western feeling, says George Rose, whose new large format photography coffee table book, “Wine Country Santa Barbara County,” showcases this bewitching California coastal wine landscape to perfection.

A longtime wine and travel photojournalist, Rose, whose most recent coffee table book was “Vineyard Sonoma County,” has photographed the Santa Barbara region for decades.

“When you get over into the Santa Ynez Valley where the grapes are grown in Santa Barbara County, the mood is very western and in the summertime it’s a little dusty and considerably warmer than on the coast. I just love the attitude, from Santa Maria barbecue to all of the crazy Danish memorabilia and architecture in Solvang,” Rose says. “It’s a lot of fun and I think it comes through in the book, which I divided up by trails or regions of the county.”

Also unique to the region: just about every wine grape variety known to the modern American consumer is grown in Santa Barbara County. A veteran photographer whose work has been featured in Time, Newsweek and Rolling Stone, as well as throughout the wine and travel world, Rose captures Santa Barbara’s beauty with sections on the various AVAs and wine trails, as well as chapters that spotlight people enjoying the wines in urban tasting rooms in downtown Santa Barbara and Solvang, and the all-important harvest.

“These people who toil out in the vineyards all year long really are the key and the linchpin of this whole business,” says Rose, who explains that his approach was kind of “National Geographic-style photojournalism.”

Indeed, the sumptuous landscapes and the intimate lifestyle shots are both truly a work of art — and an eight-year labor of love to compile and shoot. The book is handcrafted, hand stitched and each sheet was hand fed into a Heidelberg press, says Rose.

“Wine Country Santa Barbara County” is available at featured wineries, as well as georgerose.com.

Originally published in the spring/summer 2020 issue of Touring & Tasting. Click here to read this story and more! TT-SP20.digital