Full Belly Files | Off to Bolivia — for Wine?!?!

The Ride for a Reason team rolls into a Bolivian village.

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Tomorrow night I board the 1:47 a.m. flight from LAX down to Panama City, and then hop on another nearly six-hour flight to Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia, where I’ll be reporting on the country’s wine grape harvest from the Cinti Valley. (That, of course, requires another series of short flights and a three-hour car ride to reach.)

It will be my first experience witnessing a grape harvest from south-of-the-equator, and the first international assignment I’ve ever landed in my job at Wine Enthusiast magazine — which isn’t that surprising, since my coverage zone for the past decade has just been our own Central Coast Coast and SoCal.

The reason is that I’m tagging along with Santa Barbara’s own Alejandro Medina, the proprietor of Bibi Ji on State Street, which serves modernized Indian cuisine with a vast selection of intriguing wines that he’s gathered from around the world. Medina comes from Bolivian roots, and he started a wine project with his dad years ago down there called Bitoque.

His dad unfortunately died before the first wines were released. But Alejandro has kept the project alive, even while recently moving Bibi Ji up the street to the Granada block and attracting new and old crowds to the much brighter location.

To be honest, I don’t really know what to expect. I’ve had a few of Alejandro’s wines, and that’s about where my Bolivian wine palate ends. He’s got a full lineup for our adventure, so I’m very curious what we’ll find, and especially excited to see how vines that may be 200 years old are trained up into the pink peppercorn trees in the Cinti Valley. You can follow my daily visual highlights as usual via Instagram at @mattkettmann.

It won’t, however, be my first time in Bolivia. Early in my journalism career, back in 2003, I embarked on what I still consider the most impactful trip of my life.

On the “Ride for a Reason” fundraising mission to benefit Amazonian health clinics, I joined a brave group of students (and a few of their parents and teachers) from Santa Barbara Middle School to ride mountain bikes from the tips of the Andes — around 14,000 feet — down into the depths of the Amazon.

It sounds downhill, but it was decidedly not, as we went down, and up and down, and up and down for six days of rather grueling pedaling. Aside from the first day’s ride, which is advertised to tourists in La Paz as being down the “World’s Most Dangerous Road” — and it was super sketchy, with a bus going over the 400-foot cliffs the day after we rode it — our route had never been biked before, so far as anyone knew. We were chased by wild dogs, ogled by Bolivian villagers who’d never seen Americans, and slept on the ground in abandoned schoolhouses and buggy fields surrounded by thick jungle and coffee farms.

S.B. Middle School student Annie stands atop a massive Bolivian cliff.

Then, upon reaching the Rio Beni region where we were delivering the aid — a Direct Relief–supported effort founded by the late Santa Ynez Valley doctor Lou Netzer — we received the most heartfelt and gracious welcomes you could ever imagine. And by the time we reached the riverside town of Rurrenabaque, I’d scratched my eye due to contact lens issues, meaning that I required treatment from the very clinics we were supporting.

All told, it was the most physically, psychologically, and emotionally engaging adventure of my life, and I’ve been blessed enough to have quite a few. I wrote a cover story for the Santa Barbara Independent with all the details of the mission back in 2003, though I don’t have a digital copy of it handy. (I’ve found it and lost it multiple times over the years.)

I’m expecting this trip to be a little less grueling and a touch more delicious. Stay tuned.

Coffee farmers drying beans on the school playground in Bolivia.

SBIFF x Daou x Timothée

DAOU Vineyards at the Arlington Artist of The Year Award Honoring Timothée Chalamet | Credit: 40th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival

I used to cover the Santa Barbara International Film Festival with a fierce vengeance, previewing more than four dozen films and interviewing as many filmmakers in years past. There were a few years where I published an entire series of mini-magazines featuring Q&As with directors, actors, writers, and producers that we then hand-distributed to theaters all around town.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that, after more than a decade of such intense attention, I burned out on SBIFF a bit. I still love it and think it’s one of the coolest things that happens in Santa Barbara every year, but I no longer feel the need to be the expert or attend everything I possibly can.

These days, I try to catch a few films — usually when my mom and our close friends are in town — and then maybe one celebrity tribute each year. This year, I tallied five films, two between-movie lunches (Blue Owl and L’Antica Pizzeria da Michele), and then one of the best tributes I’ve ever watched.

That was this past Tuesday night, when Timothée Chalamet was interviewed by fellow actor Josh Brolin at the Arlington Theatre. Because of their relationship, the evening was filled with both light-hearted ribbing and insightful self-analysis, revealing the young Chalamet to truly be a shining, hard-working star. His pee break pre-award acceptance was the hilarious cherry on top.

Timothée Chalamet with Josh Brolin at SBIFF’s Arlington Artist of the Year Award sponsored by DAOU Vineyards | Credit: 40th Annual Santa Barbara International Film Festival

Before and after the film, I supported my own patrons for the night, DAOU Vineyards, by swirling down glasses of merlot and their flagship cab. blend Soul of a Lion. (I know the wine well, as you may recall from this report on a 10-year vertical I did last year.) DAOU, which the Daou brothers sold to Treasury Wine Estates for $1 billion in 2023, invited me to attend the pre- and post-parties that they were sponsoring during SBIFF this year.

Chalamet nearly came to enjoy some DAOU as well, getting as close as the front door to the party. But then he decided to bail, leaving us to enjoy the rest of the Paso Robles–grown wine into the wee hours.

Wine Fun Calendar

Here are a few wine events that I’ll be missing but you can certainly attend:

Municipal Winemakers is now open in Ventura, and they’re hosting a weekend-long party from February 14 to 16 to celebrate the three-years-in-the-making location. I interviewed Dave Potter about the new spot here, and you can click here for details on the music, food, and fun.
Ever wanted to try older vintages? Carr Winery is hosting a “Cellar Raid” event on Saturday, February 15, noon-6 p.m. in which Ryan and Jessica Carr will be uncorking a decade of wines from 2006-2016. Guests will enjoy special flat rate pricing on 3, 6, and 12 packs of wine, with as much as 80 percent savings on some bottles. Click here for details.
The Sideways phenomenon carries on, now in the pages of a new book by Kirk and Mira Advani Honeycutt called Sideways Uncorked: The Perfect Pairing of Film and Wine. They’ll be at Chaucer’s Books for a chat and signing on Sunday, February 16, 3 p.m.
Down in the Presidio Neighborhood, the brand new Lou Bud tasting room is joining established El Paseo neighbors Grassini Family Vineyards and Happy Canyon Vineyard for the “Courtyard x Crossover” event on Thursday, February 20 4:30-7 p.m. It’s an industry-only gathering, aimed at fostering more attention and collaboration across the various businesses in the area.

From Our Table

Municipal Winemakers new space in Ventura | Photo: Courtesy

Here are some stories you may have missed:

I mentioned this one above, but here’s my interview with Dave Potter of Municipal Winemakers about his expansion to Ventura.
In this profile of Capuno’s Lutong Bahay in Santa Maria, I explain my early connection to Filipino foods and what took so long for this fascinating cuisine to hit the restaurant scene.
The five-year-old effort to launch a business improvement district across Santa Barbara County wine country finally became reality this past Tuesday, when the Board of Supervisors unanimously and enthusiastically approved a 1 percent fee on all winery sales, with the expected $1.5 million in assessments going toward regional marketing efforts.