The Long Play
A Lo-Fi Wines paired dinner inside our newly renovated Grand Room, with 70s funk in every detail and a curry that stole the show.
The first dinner in our Spring Winemaker Series landed in the newly renovated Grand Room with a soundtrack you could taste. We called it The Long Play, and we built the night around Lo-Fi Wines, the Los Alamos label known for low-intervention bottles with serious personality. If you have been searching for a Lo-Fi Wines dinner in Santa Barbara County or a winemaker dinner worth the drive into the Santa Ynez Valley, this is the kind of evening guests find at the Union.
A welcome that set the tempo
Guests arrived in the lobby for a welcome pour of Lo-Fi's 2024 Sparkling Chenin Blanc, and the room got loud in the best way. While they sipped, they made wine charms to take home and posed for polaroids that doubled as their place cards once seated. Small touch, big impact. It also gave people a reason to meet each other before dinner started.
The Grand Room, fully reimagined
This was our first big winemaker night in the newly renovated Grand Room, and the space delivered. We leaned into a 70s funk undertone across every detail. Brown table linens with antique lace overlays. Taper candles melting down empty wine bottles. Centerpieces built from hand-grown blooms cut from the valley, tucked into halved oranges, grapefruits, and lemons pulled straight from our neighborhood gardens. Even the menus carried the funk, set in a typeface that felt pulled from a vintage record sleeve.
The food, the wine, the standout
Executive Chef Noban Shahid built a four-course menu that ran with Lo-Fi the whole way through.
STARTER
Chenin Blanc
Poached cod / Lemongrass curry
GARDEN
Riesling
Sesame ginger dressed greens / Shallots
MAIN
Malbec
Braised short rib / Potato / Peppercorn sauce
DESSERT
Chilled Cab Franc
Lemon-thyme panna cotta / Balsamic
The lemongrass curry was the night's culinary star. Bright, layered, warming, and the kind of dish that pulled guests out of conversation to take another bite. The wine kept flowing like the music, and so did the room.
The afterparty in the Saloon
We sent the night home in our historic Saloon with live music and more Lo-Fi pours. Late curfew, original 1880 architecture, and a bar that still feels like the stagecoach stop it used to be.
Bring your group into the Union
The Grand Room holds up to 150 standing or 80 seated and works for everything from a corporate event dinner and team offsite to a milestone celebration or rehearsal dinner. We sit 45 minutes north of Santa Barbara and 35 minutes south of San Luis Obispo, in the heart of Santa Ynez Valley wine country.
