Santa Barbara County is home to dozens of lovely vineyard estates in the rolling Santa Rita Hills and the Santa Ynez Valley. But real estate here is expensive, and, according to a few wine insiders we met on our trip, many consider the fancy vineyards to be the vanity projects of billionaires.

Even so, many wineries are well worth a visit, including the four we wrote about after our last exploration of the area. This time, we focused on tasting rooms set up by small-scale producers.

The tiny town of Los Olivos squeezes more than 40 tasting rooms into a three-block radius. We discovered two excellent winemakers there before making stops in Los Alamos and Santa Barbara.