Santa Barbara's Rhône Obsession in Hotel Form
Downtown Santa Barbara · Santa Barbara · Wine Bar / Tasting Room · Visit Website ↗
Reviewed September 10, 2026 · How we review
RagingWine reviewed Margerum Wine Company Tasting Room at Hotel Californian’s wine list and gave it The Wild Card — RagingWine’s Vibe-Check rating. How RagingWine reviews wine lists →
Wingman Metrics
You walk into a tasting room attached to a boutique hotel and expect the usual tourist trap — overpriced pours and a staff that's just reading from a script. Instead, you get a tightly curated 29-label list built almost entirely around one producer's vision, and that vision turns out to be pretty interesting. Margerum is doing things with Rhône varieties and cool-climate Santa Barbara fruit that most California wine drinkers haven't fully discovered yet.
This is a single-producer list — every bottle is either Margerum Wine Company or their Barden label — which is either a limitation or a feature depending on your outlook. We'd call it a feature. The range covers crisp aromatic whites like the Sybarite Sauvignon Blanc and Estate Picpoul Blanc, a Riesling that signals someone here isn't afraid of things that don't sell themselves, and a red lineup stacked with Grenache, Cinsault, Mourvèdre, and Gamay that reads more like a Loire-Rhône mashup than typical California. The Barden label adds a more restrained, single-vineyard tier — the Sanford & Benedict Chardonnay in particular is one of Santa Barbara's benchmark sites. Gaps are minimal given the focused format; if you want a Cabernet or Pinot Noir showcase, you're at the wrong address.
By-the-glass specifics weren't available at time of review, but with 29 bottles priced between $26 and $125, the program is clearly designed to move bottles in a tasting room format — flights and full pours are the likely structure. We'd expect most of the entry-tier bottles (Riviera Rosé, M5 Red, Sybarite) to be available by the glass or in flight format, which is standard for a producer tasting room. Confirm with staff before you sit down.
Margerum M5 Red Rhône-style Blend 2024 — $32
A Rhône-style blend at $32 in a hotel tasting room is legitimately good value. For a wine that's blending Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre, and friends from Santa Barbara fruit, this should drink well above its price point and gives you the full Margerum house style without committing to a $60 bottle.
Margerum Riesling 2022
Nobody comes to a Santa Barbara tasting room looking for Riesling, which is exactly why you should order it. At $32, this is the kind of off-the-radar pick that shows what the producer is actually made of — making a cool-climate variety work in California takes real intention, and the fact that it's on the list at all says something.
Margerum D Sauvignon Blanc 2025
At $50, it's the premium Sauvignon Blanc tier sitting right above the $26 Sybarite — also a Sauvignon Blanc from the same producer. Unless staff can give you a compelling reason why the D bottling is worth nearly double, start with the Sybarite and see if you feel the need to upgrade.
Margerum Estate Cinsault 2024 + Charcuterie board
Cinsault at $36 is a light-structured red with enough brightness and savory edge to cut through cured meats and fatty cheeses without steamrolling them. It's the tasting room equivalent of a perfect charcuterie wine — lower tannin, good acidity, works with everything on the board.
The Bottom Line
This is a focused, confident single-producer tasting room that earns its Wild Card badge by going deep on Rhône varieties and aromatic whites in a market that usually just wants Pinot and Chardonnay. If you're staying at Hotel Californian or exploring downtown Santa Barbara, skipping this would be a mistake.
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