Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara AVA

Cachuma Lake is a reservoir in the Santa Ynez Valley of central Santa Barbara County, California on the Santa Ynez River adjoining the north side of California State Route 154. The artificial lake was created by the construction of Bradbury Dam, a 201 ft (61 m) earth-fill structure built by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in 1953. Its surface area covers 3,100 acres (1,300 ha), with a maximum design capacity of 205,000 acre⋅ft (253,000,000 m3), but it is currently limited to 188,000 acre⋅ft (232,000,000 m3) due to sediment accumulation. The late-December 2022 and early-January 2023 storms dramatically raised the water level in the lake, from an average of 33% full to 100% full for the first time in 12 years.

Bradbury Dam is an earthen dam across the Santa Ynez River in central Santa Barbara County, California. The dam forms Lake Cachuma, which provides the majority of water supplies within the county. Although the Santa Ynez can reach massive flows in the winter, it usually dries up for several months of the year in the summer. A large storage facility to catch winter floodwaters for use in the summer and autumn was desperately needed by the growing population of the region, especially that of south coast cities like Santa Barbara and Carpinteria. Even before Bradbury Dam was considered, the Gibraltar Dam was built upstream to divert water through a tunnel to the city of Santa Barbara. However, that dam was plagued by siltation and was unable to fully serve the water requirements of the city.Construction on Bradbury Dam started in 1950 as part of a U.S. Bureau of Reclamation scheme called the Cachuma Project, intended to provide long-term water storage and delivery to Santa Barbara and other cities throughout the region as well as provide water for irrigation. Originally named the Cachuma Dam upon completion in 1953, the name was changed in 1971 to honor C. W. "Brad" Bradbury, a local water supply proponent.

Rancho Lomas de la Purificacion was a 13,341-acre (53.99 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Santa Barbara County, California given in 1844 by Governor Manuel Micheltorena to Agustín Janssens. The name refers to the hills of Mission La Purísima Concepción. The grant extended between the Santa Ynez Mountains and the south bank of the Santa Ynez River opposite Rancho Cañada de los Pinos, and south east of Mission Santa Inés and present day Santa Ynez, in the Santa Ynez Valley.

Rancho Tequepis was a 8,919-acre (36.09 km2) Mexican land grant in the upper Santa Ynez Valley of present-day Santa Barbara County, California. The grant extended along both sides of the Santa Ynez River at the mouth of Cachuma Creek east of present-day Santa Ynez and north/below San Marco Pass. Much of the grant is now under the waters of Lake Cachuma which was formed in 1953.It was given in 1845 by Governor Pio Pico to Joaquin Villa.

The Whittier Fire was a wildfire in the Santa Ynez Mountains, south of Lake Cachuma, along Highway 154 in Santa Barbara County, California in the United States. The fire was reported on July 8, 2017, at 1:43 pm. Upon containment on July 28, the fire had burned a total of 18,430 acres (75 km2) and destroyed 16 homes.

Rancho Cañada de los Pinos or College Rancho was a 35,499-acre (143.66 km2) Mexican land grant in present-day Santa Barbara County, California. The grant extended along the north bank of the Santa Ynez River opposite Rancho Lomas de la Purificacion and encompassed Mission Santa Inés and present-day Santa Ynez, in the Santa Ynez Valley.

Sedgwick Reserve is a 5,896-acre (2,386 ha) nature reserve in Santa Barbara County, California, United States. It is located in the San Rafael Mountains, 35 miles north of Santa Barbara near the town of Santa Ynez. The reserve is used for natural science research and education as it includes a wide range of native ecosystems, such as vernal pools, chaparral, and coastal sage scrub. Administered by the University of California, Santa Barbara, it is a unit of the University of California Natural Reserve System.The reserve was included in the Prescribed Fire Training Exchange (TREX) held November 12-19, 2022 with a controlled fire by firefighters to clear away dead undergrowth and other debris. The training on how to safely conduct prescribed burns, seminars on local fire ecology, and tribal burning included Santa Barbara County Fire Department, employees of the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Indians, The Nature Conservancy, University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, Vandenberg Space Force Base, scientists, ranchers, students, researchers, and land managers.

Santa Ynez Airport (Kunkle Field) (IATA: SQA, ICAO: KIZA, FAA LID: IZA) is a public airport located one mile (2 km) southeast of the central business district of Santa Ynez, in the Santa Ynez Valley of Santa Barbara County, California, United States. The airport covers 125 acres (51 ha) and has one runway (08/26), measuring 2,804 x 75 ft. (854 x 23 m). The airport does not have a control tower but does offer some services, including 24-hour access to both 100LL and Jet A self-service fuel and tie-downs for transient aircraft. Santa Ynez Airport is classified as a regional general aviation airport, and averaged 83 aircraft operations per day in 2015: 55% transient general aviation, 43% local general aviation, 1% air taxi, and <1% military. There are 112 aircraft based at the airport, including 15 gliders and 6 ultra-lights; the remaining aircraft are helicopters (5), single-engine airplanes (78), and the remaining 8 aircraft are multi-engine. There are no jets based at the airport.

Santa Barbara County, officially the County of Santa Barbara (Spanish: Condado de Santa Bárbara), is located in Southern California. As of the 2020 census, the population was 448,229. The county seat is Santa Barbara, and the largest city is Santa Maria. Santa Barbara County comprises the Santa Maria-Santa Barbara, CA Metropolitan Statistical Area. Most of the county is part of the California Central Coast. Mainstays of the county's economy include engineering, resource extraction (particularly petroleum extraction and diatomaceous earth mining), winemaking, agriculture, and education. The software development and tourism industries are important employers in the southern part of the county. Southern Santa Barbara County is sometimes considered the cultural boundary of Southern California/Northern California.

The Chumash Casino Resort is owned and operated by the Santa Ynez Band of Chumash Mission Indians. Chumash is located near Santa Ynez Airport, in the Santa Ynez Indian Reservation, about 5 miles (8.0 km) east of Solvang, California.

Santa Ynez (; Spanish for "St. Agnes") is a census-designated place (CDP) in the Santa Ynez Valley of Santa Barbara County, California. The town of Santa Ynez is one of the communities of the Santa Ynez Valley. It features the Santa Ynez Airport for general aviation, with a paved 2,804 by 75 feet (855 m × 23 m) runway. The population was 4,505 at the 2020 census, up from 4,418 at the 2010 census. Santa Ynez is the archaic spelling of Santa Inés in the Spanish, meaning Saint Agnes.

Los Olivos District AVA is an American Viticultural Area located in Santa Barbara County, California established on January 20, 2016, by the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (TTB). It straddles the Santa Ynez Valley, formed by the Santa Ynez River, between the Purisima Hills above Solvang. The area encompasses the townships of Los Olivos, Ballard, Santa Ynez and Solvang. State Route 154, known locally as the San Marcos Pass Road or Chumash Highway, bisects the region accessing many of the wineries and vineyards as it traverses toward its destination in Santa Barbara. The Los Olivos District stretches over 35.66 square miles (22,820 acres) where approximately twelve bonded wineries and forty-seven commercially-producing vineyards cultivate 1,120 acres (450 ha). The district shares its western boundary with the eastern border of the Ballard Canyon AVA and its eastern boundary flanks the western perimeter of Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara AVA while not overlapping either AVA. It is located within the Santa Ynez Valley viticultural area and the larger, multi-county Central Coast viticultural area. The USDA plant hardiness zone for the AVA is 9b.