Fess Parker's Very Small Donkey
In which I investigate the life and wine of the mid-century action hero while being eyed by a tiny equine critter with a bad attitude
The miniature donkey wasn’t happy to see us.
It was a small creature, looking like a gray horse but about the size of a labradoodle with bigger ears. It didn’t appear to be all that welcoming of our three horses navigating the trails around the 700-acre Fess Parker Winery property in Santa Ynez Valley, California, about two hours north of L.A.
It took its place along the path, looking downright menacing. Once we passed, it followed us warily until we were off its turf.
“They keep coyotes and predators away,” explained our guide, a young woman named Athena. “They scare them with their calls. They can be very territorial and protective.” The donkeys are there to safeguard Fess Parker’s herd of 250 wagyu cattle, about two dozen of whom were ruminating in the shade of a spreading oak about 100 feet away.
The tiny donkey is just one of several surprises we encountered while sampling the hospitality of Fess Parker. Not the man, of course, who died in 2010. The mid-century action hero, star of Walt Disney’s Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone franchises, exchanged his coonskin cap for a vintner’s hat after the Hollywood gig ran its course.
A Parker Family Business
Today the Fess Parker companies include the vineyard and winery, the cattle farm, a popular luxury inn a few miles down the road in the town of Los Olivos, and a separate boutique winery. It’s still a family business, now in its third generation of stewardship.
During our ride we prowled various trails through grassland. We skimmed the edge of Neverland, the (by strange coincidence) adjacent property where the late Michael Jackson infamously operated an amusement park to entertain young children.
We clomped past Rodney’s Vineyard, named after Parker’s late son-in-law. There, at an elevation of about 1,200 feet, a wide variety of Rhone-varietal grapes are grown. We rode past several acres of meticulously tended vines of Syrah, Grenache, Sangiovese, Viognier, and others that produce some of Parker’s premium wines.
The Pinots and Rhones of Santa Ynez Valley
Ah, yes, the wine. After the acting thing ran its course (it seems an aging action hero didn’t have market appeal in the ‘70s), Fess bought the huge ranch as a family legacy, thinking he’d do some sort of agriculture with it. But his wife and business partner Marcy, an enthusiast of Burgundy wines, which is to say Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays, convinced him to give wine a go. In 1989 they planted their first vines.
Over the years the operation has grown from being seen as a lark of one of California’s first celebrity winemakers to a well-regarded producer of award-winning bottles, in both Burgundy and Rhone styles.
In 2010 the hard-to-please critic Robert Parker of the Wine Advocate awarded a Fess Parker Pinot 94 points; in 2016 a Chardonnay hit 95 points from Wine Enthusiast.
Don’t Drink from the Spit Bucket
Fess Parker Winery famously appeared, disguised under the pseudonym Frass Canyon, in the classic 2004 wine travel buddy movie Sideways.
In that film Miles, a failing writer, is visiting Parker’s tasting room when he learns his novel will not be published. Thwarted by a pourer who refuses to over-serve him, he grabs the tasting room’s spit bucket, chugs from it, and pours it down his shirt.
“Fortunately, nobody’s actually tried to do that since then,” laughed Tim Snider, president of the Fess Parker enterprise and husband of Fess’ daughter Ashley. He was standing out on the winery’s generous patio, where most tastings take place today, beneath a canopy of sinuous fabric shades.
Our server said three people had actually tried to drink from the buckets. I made no attempt to reconcile the two versions of events, preferring to hope the latter is true.
The tasting room, depicted as an overwrought tourist trap 20 years ago, has been remade into an elegant space, all polished wood and native stone. “It’s a new look for us,” Snider said, “but we think it represents the brand well.”
In 2024, the 100th anniversary of Fess’ birth, the front porch displayed a series of panels telling the story of his life: At 6’6”, Parker was too tall to be a Navy pilot. The future player of historical characters earned a history degree under the GI Bill.
The Davy Crockett miniseries and three seasons of Daniel Boone catapulted him into massive action hero stardom in the era of three-channel, family-dominated television. In 1985 the Republican Party courted him to run for U.S. Senate in California. (Unlike fellow Santa Barbara County ranch owner Ronald Reagan, Fess decided to stay out of politics.)
Pinots Noirs distinguish the wines of the Santa Ynez Valley, the chunk of Santa Barbara County where about a hundred other wineries are located. Due to a geographic anomaly, the mountains run east and west in that sliver of California, creating alleyways for ocean breezes that cool the hills and valleys closest to the coast. This makes parts of the valley ideal for Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and other cool-weather grapes.
During our visit we got the Enhanced Tasting Flight, sampling the wonderfully fruit-forward 2022 Ashley’s Pinot, a single-vineyard, estate bottling. We also had a 2020 Syrah from Rodney’s Vineyard, which won 95 points from Wine Enthusiast.
But most memorably, when I revealed my interest in it being the 20th anniversary of the movie Sideways in 2024 the staff briefly conferred and brought out a 2005, a wine nearly as old as the one Miles might have dumped down his shirt.
It was a lovely way to top off a visit. But let’s just say not all Pinots age well for 19 years.
Chez Fess
During our visit to the Santa Ynez Valley, the Fess Parker Wine Country Inn & Spa, located in the town of Los Olivos proper, was fully booked for a wedding. The inn is well-known as the finest accommodation in Santa Barbara wine country, favored by the platinum card set driving up from L.A. for the weekend.
Happily there was availability in one of the properties’ two cabins located just down the street, accessed via an alley that runs behind the inn.
They’re operated under the increasingly common “passive hospitality” method, meaning you skip check-in and are given a code for the door to let yourself in. One of the cabins, referred to as “World Headquarters,” is where Fess himself kept his office to tend to his business affairs.
The cabins are a mix of rustic, comfortable, and quirky.
Ours was named “Chateau Relaxeau.” My wife and I found it a fine place to relaxeau, though when we pulled up the shades covering the doors leading out the rear of the unit we were surprised to see a courtyard full of people drinking wine. It turns out the property is shared with the tasting room of Excalibur, Fess Parker’s boutique wine brand, operated by Fess’ son Eli.
The Los Olivos area is a good base for exploring the area’s wine country. The Foxen Canyon Wine Trail includes about a dozen wineries, including the well-regarded Firestone Vineyard and Andrew Murray Vineyards.
In small and dusty downtown Los Olivos, there are a dozen tasting rooms and a few good restaurants.
Eateries include Los Olivos Wine Merchant Cafe, a California-fresh bistro that’s another Sideways touchstone. Just outside the restaurant is where Miles famously declares to his friend Jack: “I’m not drinking any fucking Merlot!” It’s said that this one throwaway line tanked Merlot sales in the U.S. (Inside, we found a bottle for sale labeled “F’ing Merlot.”)
But our most distinctive meal was at Nella, the restaurant attached to none other than the Fess Parker inn. The food was elevated and elegant, and the wine list full of selections from the area, as well as from farther afield.
The best dish, presented beneath a layer of crisp frisee salad, was a serving of perfectly tender wagyu beef -- a meal that put me in mind of some peculiar miniature donkeys just a few miles up the road.
Eat This Tip
You can find Fess Parker wines in places like Total Wine. But the staff let on that it’s produced in bulk and not very good. To get the best stuff, you have to visit the winery or join the club.