If Chris Burroughs didn't exist, the creators of the movie "Sideways" might have had to invent him. There's the way he looks, for one thing: With his everyday uniform of cowboy boots, battered Stetson and salt-and-pepper hair that flows way past his shoulders, Burroughs is a costumer's dream.

Then there's his considerable wine-country cred: After nearly a decade of pouring chardonnays and pinot noirs in the dairy barn turned tasting room at Sanford Winery & Vineyards in Buellton, Burroughs is such a local fixture that he is mentioned by name both in Rex Pickett's novel "Sideways" and in the Academy Award-nominated screenplay it inspired.

"I guess I do add a certain authenticity to the proceedings," said Burroughs, who plays himself in a scene early in the film about two buddies on a weeklong, wine-soaked visit to northern Santa Barbara County. In it, wine-geek Miles (Paul Giamatti) tries to teach Jack (Thomas Haden Church) how to swirl-and-sniff his glass of Sanford pinot noir vin gris -- only to have Jack ask, "When do we drink?"

Now, as tourists and news crews from CBS and CNN make the pilgrimage up the long gravel drive to Sanford's tasting room, it becomes clear that Burroughs adds something else to "Sideways." Thanks to his on-screen time and easy-going accessibility, he has become a sort of human "must-see," a touchstone for those taking the self-guided "Sideways" tour.

Visitors ask him to pose for pictures and to sign their bottles of pinot noir. Even when they don't know his name, they recognize his bearded face. "Hey! You're that guy from that movie" has become a common greeting.

But there is more to Burroughs than meets the eye.

Food and wine

Aside from knowing a lot about wine, Burroughs, 51, is a former surfer who while in high school sang in a rock band that covered songs by Cream and The Doors.

He speaks Spanish and knows a little pidgin. He so enjoys gardening that he sometimes can be found wandering the same Santa Rosa Road shown in "Sideways," looking for interesting seed heads to shake out and plant in his yard.

And he's into food. Or, to be more specific, cooking. You can tell by the ease with which he drops menu suggestions into the conversation.

"This is good with everything; I had it with kung pao lamb last night," Burroughs said Friday as he poured some 2001 Sanford Santa Rita Hills pinot noir for patrons bellied up to the tasting-room counter.

"The one failure I've experienced with pinot noir (is) with tomato-based sauces," he added. "I think the tomato acids and the pinot acids just collide. So I would shift over to a sangiovese."

It is apparent, too, in the recipes he creates in the kitchen of the Santa Ynez home he shares with wife, Ginny Burroughs. Chris Burroughs deals with ingredient measurements in much the same way he doles out his 11/2-ounce, give-or-take-a-drop, tasting-room pours: He eyeballs them.

"I was standing in the kitchen one night, thinking, 'I need a nice sauce.' I had shallots, butter, a friend had given me a huge bag of chipotle peppers, and there were some fresh figs on the counter. So I went to work," Burroughs said, describing the inspiration for what he now calls his Chipotle-Fig Reduction Sauce, or "nouvelle mole."

Once perfected, Burroughs' recipes are photocopied onto Sanford letterhead stationery and packed into shipments destined for members of the winery's wine club. Burroughs pairs each batch of recipes to the bottles of wine in the box.

"So that's a perk to joining the club," he said. Then, dropping his voice to a whisper, he added, "But, basically, I'll give a copy to anyone who asks."

'Real Men Cook' for a cause

Some of Burroughs' home-grown creations make their way to Real Men Cook, a fund-raiser for Arts Outreach, a program that brings arts programming into area schools.

The culinary festival and competition takes place every October at Flag is Up Farms, the Buellton equine center owned and operated by "The Man Who Listens to Horses" author Monty Roberts. To the winner in each category goes a de facto trophy that looks remarkably like a chef's paper toque blanche -- because it is.

Last fall, Burroughs took home the towering paper hat after winning the side-dish competition with his red chili pesto on polenta triangles made with Parmesan and mascarpone cheeses. Scattered on top were minced cilantro and kernels of griddle-sauteed corn.

The win put him in good company. In the past, fellow competitors have included Richard A. Harris, who won an Academy Award for co-editing the movie "Titanic."

"I hear he keeps his 'Titanic' Oscar and his paper chef's hat on the same shelf," Burroughs said, laughing.

Recipe for life

Born on March Air Force Base in Riverside County, Burroughs grew up in Manhattan Beach with brother Mike Burroughs, now a senior agent with Classic Travel in Ventura. He cites "good cooking" by their parents, who now live near Solvang, as an early culinary inspiration.

There was an early connection to wine, too: One of Chris Burroughs' after-school jobs was in the Redondo Beach tasting room of San Antonio Winery, where he washed glasses and stocked shelves.

After graduation, Burroughs studied creative writing at the University of California at Santa Cruz. The atmosphere was great, the food terrible. When he mentioned this fact to administrators, they responded by turning an unoccupied dorm room into a kitchen.

"I made a lot of terrible errors in cooking there," Burroughs said. Among them: assuming that a group of vegetarian friends visiting from Berkeley would be OK with eating fish for dinner. He bought some sole at the wharf, brought it back to the dorm-room kitchen and got to work. Alas, he discovered that the friends were no-fish vegetarians and that, "sole, if you don't handle it the right way, quickly becomes scrambled fish."

Later, Burroughs' love of surfing took him to Mexico, where he led tourist expeditions, and to Hawaii, where he decided to become a vegetarian for reasons philosophical and financial. "I was poor, so I would forage whatever was native. If I saw a papaya tree growing wild, I'd make a mental note to go back and check it when the fruit would be happening."

Today, he is an enthusiastic omnivore. "I eat wherever I go, tasting the flavors and the style of the place."

Moving 'Sideways'

Burroughs moved to Santa Ynez in the late 1980s, and early in his stay worked at home as the mainland connection for a business operated by some friends who had turned Tavarua Island in Fiji into a vacation and surfing resort. Eager to get out of the house, he began answering want ads in the local paper. "I moonlighted and skylarked all over the place: at the bookstore in town, this winery, that winery. ..."

One of those wineries was Sanford, where the sustainable vineyard practices and Eastern philosophy studies of the owner, Richard Sanford, mirrored Burroughs' own interests in things organic and peaceful. Conversely, Sanford liked the down-to-earth way in which Burroughs described his wines, which since 1983 have been overseen by winemaker Bruno D'Alfonso.

On Friday, Burroughs poured a sauvignon blanc he called "categorically awesome with seafood dishes." Then he moved on to two chardonnays, paraphrasing D'Alfonso as he described the first, Sanford's Santa Rita Hills chardonnay, as a "lean runway model" and the second, Sanford's La Rinconada Vineyard chardonnay, as "more Rubenesque, with a creamy richness."

"Wine isn't some mystical thing that needs to be put on a pedestal," said Burroughs. Even when fame and the Oscars are involved.

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