VINEYARDS

As any passionate winemaker, I have always believed that wines are born in the vineyard, and that we winemakers are simply stewards of the land. It’s all about the confuluence of soil and climate and topography, or as the French would say, ‘terroir’.

We were originally attracted the Santa Ynez Valley due to its absolutely unique transverse mountain ranges, cool coastal climate, and ancient sea-bed soils. Nowhere else in California do the coastal ranges run from west to east, as they do here in Santa Barbara. These ranges funnel cool, damp, coastal winds that leap from the Pacific Ocean around Lompoc and race towards the inland deserts of California. Daily winds are the defining feature of our microclimate, with precious breezes that moderate our daytime temps and create an ideal climate for our Rhone varieties. We are a viticultural region on the edge - our grapes are allowed a very long growing season (around the longest in the world) from mid February to mid November, which allows for greater and more concentrated flavor development. All of this adds up to richly structured, long-lived and highly drinkable wines.