Santa Barbara

Viticulture in Santa Barbara County is traceable to missionary plantings in the Milpas Valley in the late 18th century. But it wasn’t until the 1960s that commercial viticulture rebounded in the county after Prohibition effectively destroyed the winery business in the 1920’s and 30’s.

Located on California’s South Central Coast, Santa Barbara County is just south of San Luis Obispo County and north of Ventura County. The County now claims more than 60 wineries and 21,000 acres of vine, with the vast majority of the vineyards in the County’s three AVAs: Santa Maria Valley, Santa Ynez and Santa Rita Hills, each with its own distinct terroir.

Although the dominant variety is Chardonnay (over 50 percent of the planted vineyards), wine enthusiasts look to California for the distinctive Pinot and Syrahs that Santa Barbara is known for. Decades of experimenting has shown that the fickle Pinot Noir grape does best on a few precious tracts of land. One of those sweet spots is a 100 square-acre stretch of land between Lompoc and the west side of Buellton in the Santa Rita Hills AVA. Its Pinot is truly unique and expresses itself with a dark hue and darker berry notes not found in Pinot anywhere else on the planet.

Santa Rita Hills AVA is located in Santa Barbara County, just west of the intersection of Highways 101 and 246 West, 12 miles from the Pacific Ocean. Yet, Santa Barbara is generally considered too warm to grow great Pinot Noir. However the Santa Rita Hills AVA lies in a transverse valley running east-west rather than north-south, like other California wine country valleys. Traveling west from Buellton to Lompoc along Highway 246, one notices a chill in the air as the temperature drops one degree for each mile traveled from Buellton. The Pacific Ocean and its accompanying marine influence cause this temperature drop and it’s the reason that Santa Rita Hills was established as the western sub-appellation, and the reason why Pinot Noir grows so well here