“Winemakers are like artists, and who is the most famous artist ever?” asks record producer-turned-wine merchant Doug Trantow. “Van Gogh, the brilliant painter who died penniless. Nobody had ever heard of him.”
Attracting attention for artisan vintners while they’re still alive is just one reason that the Santa Barbara local returned to his hometown this summer after 30 years in Los Angeles to open Good Land Wine Shop. Located on State Street near the Highway 154 intersection, close to where Santa Barbara’s cityscape slips into the suburbs of Goleta, Trantow’s shop focuses on smaller wineries from across the Central Coast, with a special emphasis on the Santa Ynez Valley and Paso Robles. He sees that as a change of pace from the other premium wine shops in town, where the regional selections can be overwhelmed by international imports.
“In this day and age, we can’t be piling up thousands of cases of wine on a boat from Australia and bringing it here,” said Trantow. “That’s going to have to come to an end, and we have great wine right here! The fact that there was no local wine shop here in town where you could go and taste the thousands of wines that are made right over the hill just didn’t make sense to me. That’s why I opened the shop.”