California’s Santa Ynez Valley is the heart of Santa Barbara County wine country. It is located about 125 miles up the Pacific Ocean coast from Los Angeles and 35 miles inland from Santa Barbara’s beaches. The valley consists of six communities, one of which is Santa Ynez, whose ZIP Code 93460 has the priciest wine-country residential real estate in the U.S., according to Realtor.com. ( News Corp , owner of The Wall Street Journal, also operates Realtor.com under license from the National Association of Realtors.) Santa Ynez is a sophisticated cowboy town with a population of 4,505, according to census data.

---