Santa Barbara County, California: Vineyard and Winemaker Cultures in Three Valleys

By Jonathan Swinchatt
August 31, 2009

 

Richard Sanford returned to California from Vietnam in 1967 feeling rejected by his native culture and unsure of his future. He sought solace in the land, searching out a way to live that would heal the rifts that he felt deep in his soul. While overseas, a visit to France had led to a Burgundian epiphany in the form of a Volnay whose velvety mouth feel is imprinted on his textural memory. He began to think that producing a wine of similar transcendent character would be a worthy lifetime achievement that would allow him to be in touch with the land, a need that reflected his growing understanding of the sacred aspects of the natural world. With this image in mind, he set about figuring out what it would take to produce, in America, Pinot Noir of great character.

            At the beginning, Sanford delved into temperature records dating back to the beginnings of the 20^st century, for Burgundy and for the western United States. He looked at Northern California, at Washington and Oregon, but he kept coming back to the Santa Barbara area and the peculiar mountain ranges that lie transverse to the grain of the coastal hills that parallel the edge of the continent. He knew that they were unique in their orientation, freaks of North American crustal nature lying east to west, bent at an angle to the trend of ranges along the coast and throughout the western states. Most importantly, he saw that these ranges north of Santa Barbara provided a corridor for cool maritime air to penetrate inland. Driving the county in his ‘59 Mercedes with a thermometer by his side, he crudely mapped out temperature variation up and down the valleys of these Western Transverse Ranges. Eventually the east-west trending valleys would prove to have the coolest climate of any potential vineyard land in California, despite the intense summer sun of latitude 34 degrees north, surprisingly close to the equator, particularly for the cool-loving Pinot Noir.

Through this painstaking research, Sanford was convinced that this land had the potential to produce the Pinot Noir of his dreams, aromatic and sensual, with the velvety texture of the Volnay of his memory and the structure and acidity that would enhance food. With perhaps more than a bit of chutzpah, hubris, or courage—more likely a passion-stirring mix of all three—together with equally-impoverished botanist Michael Benedict, he bought 700 acres of ranchland on the northern edge of the Santa Ynez Mountains, on a landslide terrace above the Santa Ynez River, facing the south slopes of the Santa Rita Hills. It was perhaps an outrageous move for these two young men with no capital and little knowledge of farming or winemaking, but they were able to convince investors — in a climate of extremely beneficial tax breaks for wine investment — that they knew what they were doing. And so began the history of Pinot Noir in Santa Barbara County.

A Unique Piece of Crust

            The year was 1971, a time of roiling politics matched, much less overtly, by the extraordinary revolution in the Earth sciences that began in the 1960s. Continents, once considered stable and fixed, were now seen to move back and forth across the globe, coming apart and then stitching themselves back together, sliding over oceanic crust in a process that crumpled rocks and raised mountains along the continental periphery. This recognition would turn the science on its head, leading to a new and vital understanding of the dynamic character of Earth’s crust, the thin surface layer on which we live. It would also explain, eventually, the unique character of the Western Transverse Ranges, the mountains and valleys that define the wine country of Santa Barbara County. The story goes something like this:

Along what is now the California coast, about 135 million years ago part of the Pacific Tectonic Plate began to slide beneath North America. The geologic geometry was complex, involving several plate fragments all moving at slightly different speeds and directions relative to one another, but the results can be simplified. As the Pacific Plate descended beneath North America, entrained water lowered the melting temperature of the rocks and friction heated them up, creating pods of magma that rose through the crust, pooling some thousands of feet below the surface. As pressure built, the crust above wheezed and cracked, ultimately exploding with volcanic fury, forming a row of volcanoes along the site of the present Sierra Nevada — the ancient, exhumed, roots of those ancestral mountains. The growing volcanoes weighted the crust, forming a trough on their seaward side. The mountains, eroded by torrential rains of a subtropical climate, shed sediments into the basin at their feet, filling it slowly with layers of coarser and finer sediments, gradually accumulating the thick beds of sand and shale that now fill the Central Valley of California and form the ledges, peaks, and slopes of the Coast Ranges.

            Seaward of the trough, a bulge in the sea floor marked the edge of the continent. As the Pacific Plate slid beneath North America, the bulge acted like the blade of an earthmover, scraping sediments and chunks of oceanic crust from the sea floor and plastering them onto the edge of the continent. This mélange of geologic material is now known as the Franciscan Formation; it forms the foundation of the Coast Ranges and appears here and there in scattered occurrences at the surface.

            All this time the Pacific and North American plates were drifting north at different rates, the Pacific chugging along at a bit more than two inches per year faster than the North American. (Not much, it seems, but do the calculation for 135 million years). By 35 million years ago, the descending part of the Pacific Plate had moved beyond Santa Barbara. Sediments from the eroding Sierra volcanoes filled the trough at their feet and the shoreline gradually receded, revealing the land that became the floor of the Central Valley.

            The tectonic plates and plate fragments, however, continued their slow movement north, jostling one another much like large blocks of ice in a frozen but broken sea. Then, about 24 million years ago, one of the fragments got caught in such a way that it began to rotate. Over the next 15 million years, as it moved north the block would slowly turn clockwise through 90 degrees or more, ending up poised across the grain of the Coast Ranges, forming the Western Transverse Ranges. (This history is vividly illustrated in an animation at http://emvc.geol.ucsb.edu/download/conejovolcanics.php). Along the entire length of the western edge of North America, these are the only mountains that lie with such orientation.

Three Valleys, Two Vineyard Cultures

This intricate bedrock back story produced a landscape of topographic variety and considerable beauty that occupies a unique piece of coast, a triangle of land that juts into the Pacific bordered on the northeast by part of the California Coast Ranges, on the south by the east-west trending Santa Ynez Mountains, and on the west by the ocean. In this mostly rugged country — home to ranches of the famous, (Ronald Reagan), and infamous (Michael Jackson) — lie three valleys that have become, lately, of considerable enologic interest. The Santa Ynez, Los Alamos, and Santa Maria Valleys lie one above the other, south to north, all open to the cool westerly Pacific winds, swigging them down each hot summer afternoon like a vineyard worker draining a beer after a sweaty day in the vines. The cold California Current that runs south just offshore cools moisture laden westerly winds, producing a morning fog that shrouds the coast and penetrates the valleys during much of the summer and early autumn. In the afternoon, near-surface interior air, heated by the intense sun during the day, rises, drawing in behind cool coastal air, moderating what would otherwise be brain-boiling heat. Without this mechanism, these valleys would be growing the broccoli, strawberries, and lettuce that are the non-vinous moneymakers of the region.

            If you arrive from the north, down the coast road from San Luis Opisbo, Big Sur or Monterey, the Santa Maria Valley comes as a shock — a flat and dusty agricultural coastal plain serviced by the eponymous city. Santa Maria is a modern market town with miles of commercial strips surrounding an older core. In the outer rings, residential housing, condominiums, and malls are often indistinguishable from one another, styled in the ubiquitous pink adobe of southern California. The flat western expanse of the valley on which the city sits was once a large marine estuary, later filled by sediments delivered by the Santa Maria and Sisquoc Rivers. Too cool for grapes, it is covered with fields of fruits and vegetables sliding rapidly into the maw of the expanding city.

East of Santa Maria, the valley narrows rapidly. It was cut by the Sisquoc River that now flows some 25 feet below uplifted alluvial terraces that extend from the base of the hills on both sides, the San Raphael Mountains to the north, the Solomon Hills to the south. The well drained gravely terrace soils are ideal for irrigated viticulture. South of the Santa Maria Valley, the Los Alamos Valley is a narrow, shallow declivity between the Solomon Hills to the north and the Purisima Hills to the south. Its small size belies its nature as home to thousands of acres of vineyards that climb the gentle slopes that comprise its northern boundary. These vineyards are much like those in the Santa Maria Valley, huge corporate farms feeding grapes to large wineries in northern California that attempt to sate the American hunger for modestly priced, oak-chipped, slightly sweet Chardonnay. And here begins the story of Santa Barbara County’s two vineyard cultures.

Uriel Nielson and Bill DeMattei planted the first modern vineyard in Santa Barbara County in 1964, on the Santa Maria Mesa, the uplifted terrace on the north side of the Santa Maria Valley, above the Sisquoc River. Louis and George Lucas followed soon after and then the Miller brothers, who planted the 640-acre Bien Nacido Vineyard on the westernmost end of the mesa. Nielson, DeMattei, and the Lucas brothers were from grape growing families in the San Joaquin Valley, where vineyards extend for miles without a break, maximizing tractor runs, reducing wear on the machines, and generally adding to the efficiency of large scale farming. They brought this tradition and culture with them to the Santa Maria Valley, planting large blocks and long rows on both sides of Santa Maria Mesa Road.  Similar development eventually would blanket the Los Alamos Valley and its gentle northern slopes with vineyards up to 2300 acres in extent.

They made many mistakes, planting heat loving Cabernet Sauvignon where cool conditions would later support first class Pinot Noir and Chardonnay; growing 6 tons or more per acre to pay the bills when cool weather and quality demanded three tons or less; and using farming techniques, and pesticides, more suitable to row crops than grapes. But they learned quickly and drew the attention of large wineries in Napa and Sonoma that could not supply their need for grapes locally. These wineries began buying Santa Barbara grapes and then, to stabilize their supply, the vineyards themselves. By the early 2000s, most of the acreage in the Santa Maria and Los Alamos Valleys was owned by corporate wineries based in northern California — Mondavi, Beringer, Kendall Jackson, Sutter Home, and a few others.

While a corporate vineyard culture was developing in Santa Maria and Los Alamos, something quite different was happening in the Santa Ynez Valley, a reflection of the land and the people who were attracted to it. The landscape is intimate, hidden, niched, and nuanced. It is cooler in the west, around the Santa Rita Hills, where morning fog hangs heaviest and the afternoon winds are the coolest. The Santa Ynez River flows along their southern border, a narrow, sinuous vale with alluvial terraces at the base of the hills on both sides. Vineyards — small in the context of Santa Maria and Los Alamos — mantle these terraces and the slopes of the hills. Grapes grow on gravely alluvial terraces, landslide debris, or residual sediments, mostly derived from Monterey Shale and relatively clay rich, the kind of dirt that vineyard manager Jeff Newton sees as the preferred substrate for Pinot Noir. This is where Richard Sanford planted his first vineyard in 1971, on a landslide terrace on the south side of the river. To the North of the Santa Rita Hills, vineyards coat the slopes of the Santa Rosa Valley, a semi-enclosed, mini-plateau surrounded by low hills, higher in elevation by 200 to 300 feet than the Santa Ynez River. The substrate is sandier than to the south, in part derived from sediments blown in from what was once an estuary to the west at the mouth of the valley, around the city of Lompoc.

East of the Santa Rita Hills, the Santa Ynez River flows through a flat, straight stretch that extends east and west of the town of Buellton before entering a narrow vale south of rolling hills incised by several small canyons. This eastern end of what would later become the Santa Ynez Valley AVA began to attract attention in 1972 when the Firestone family (tires and rubber) bought several hundred acres of ranchland near the eastern juncture of the Solomon and Purisima Hills. They planted vineyards and others followed, along the canyons that extend north from the eastern half of the valley — Ballard Canyon, Alamo Pintado, and Foxen Canyon, which connects with the eastern end of the Santa Maria Valley. These narrow canyons present a variety of micro-climates, sun aspect and substrate conditions; the Bordeaux varietals originally planted here have not received the level of attention garnered by Santa Rita Hills Pinot Noir, but Rhone grapes from the Purisima Hills are attracting thoughts of future greatness. The warmest country is in the east, up Happy Canyon Road, on the edge of the fog and beyond the cooling maritime winds. Here, Westerly, Star Lane, and Vogelzang are making some expensive bets on future quality.

A Diversity of Winemaker Culture

            Sanford and Benedict released their first Pinot Noir in 1976, 5 years after planting the vineyard. It was made in the absence of grid electricity, with kerosene lamps for light and a generator for electrical necessities. To this day it inhabits the enologic memories of winemakers who came to Santa Barbara at its behest. Sanford says he has not made one like it since, though it seems difficult to catch quite what set it apart. We struggle to deconstruct wine, attempting to understand and describe it by its component elements, when the finest stand out largely on their integration and wholeness rather than any collection of separate and identifiable characteristics. Thinking of the conditions under which that wine was made, one wonders where lies the balance between intuition and technology, tradition and experimentation, restraint and exuberance, and what these questions imply for discussions of terroir.

            These issues have been brought to even sharper focus by a recent piece in the New York Times by Eric Asimov, decrying the trend of the last few years of increasing sweetness in American red wines: “I’ve particularly noticed this problem in pinot noirs from the Santa Lucia Highlands and Santa Barbara County on the central coast of California, in Napa Valley cabernets, and in zinfandels from all over.” Asimov made clear that “…not all California red wines fall into this category, not by a long shot.” He singled out one that he had particularly enjoyed (a Pinot Noir from Carneros) adding, however, that it “was in marked contrast to two sweet pinot noirs that I could not drink with dinner.” Both of these were made in Santa Barbara County.

            Pinot Noir in Santa Barbara County clusters, as it does in much of the remainder of the wine world, around two styles, one generally characterized as bold, exuberant, fruit forward, jammy, hedonistic and drinkable early, the other as elegant, restrained, structured, balanced, food-friendly and age-worthy. In Santa Barbara, the proponents of the former are generally a younger generation of winemakers some of whom began their own labels with no formal training and little hands on experience. Those who tend toward the latter are generally older and had considerable experience before becoming independent producers, some of it in the vineyards and cellars of Burgundy. People in both camps speak of occupying opposite ends of a continuum, but a different perspective suggests that they are two separate cultures divided by a chasm of belief, assumption, opinion, taste, and perspective. One side sees themselves as revolutionaries on the cutting edge of winemaking, viewing the others as old-school traditionalists whose hay-day, perhaps, has come and gone. The other side sees themselves as defenders of a long-standing winemaking tradition threatened by global forces, viewing the new guys as the vultures of mass culture. There is some truth in each position. They are, if you will, the rock stars and classical soloists of the wine world. Some bridge the cultural divide, but only a few.

These two cultures, while they exist side by side throughout the world of Pinot Noir, are particularly well defined in Santa Barbara County, in part by a quirk of climate and geography. In Oregon, the harvest season is cut off, sometimes abruptly, by rain and cold, usually sometime in October. In northern California, the limit is winter rain, which comes usually in late October or early November. In Santa Barbara County, no such limit exists. Rain in September or October can be followed by weeks of sun, allowing hang times not available elsewhere, with harvest sometimes extending well into November. The sun, at latitude 34 degrees north, shines intensely, providing levels of solar energy greater than those farther north. And in America, restraint is not a part of the national character: If it is possible, it will be pursued; if it hasn’t been done before, that is reason enough to do it now. So the rock star side of the divide exploits the hang time possibilities to the utmost, ostensibly in the search of flavors not otherwise available but perhaps equally so just to show what can be done with Santa Barbara County’s unique climate while thumbing their noses at Burgundian classicists.

            The results of this approach, which have garnered some high scores from the Wine Spectator and the Wine Advocate, are surely provocative, especially in their winemaking details. Exploring the far shores of hang time brings with it some dangers that many winemakers, perhaps most, would prefer to avoid, such things as dehydrated grapes with high sugar levels and low acid. For the rock stars, this presents little difficulty as they appear to have few qualms about adjusting grape must that is seriously out of balance. Some are quite prepared to add back large quantities of lost water (at times upwards of 25 percent) and acid (5 pounds or more tartaric acid per barrel). When questioned about this practice, Brian Loring, an open and outspoken winemaker of the rock star culture, observes that they are just adding back natural products that were lost prior to harvest and that surely this is no less “natural” than the long-accepted use of oak barrels for aging and modifying wine. The classicists, mind you, are not averse to making some adjustments, but they try to avoid extremes through viticultural management and harvesting decisions — for them, the wine is indeed “made in the vineyard”. For the rock stars, some of whom have little or no vineyard experience, this approach flirts a bit too closely with the risk of picking grapes with “green” flavors and tannins, characteristics that perhaps above all else they want to avoid, whatever complications might result.   

Other differences distinguish the two cultures: For the classicists, high alcohol is a problem, affecting balance and hiding, with its heady sweetness, entrancing nuances of Pinot Noir, to say nothing of the intoxicating effects of wine with over 15 percent alcohol. The rock stars shrug it off with comments such as “alcohol is just a number” maintaining that consumers need not be concerned about wines with 15 percent and more alcohol as long as the wines are balanced. The classicists, who question the notion of a wine with 15 percent or more alcohol having balance, also wonder what problems will arise from the low acid levels that sometimes characterize these wines. The classicists work in the context of Burgundian tradition and seek to emulate the wines that have been their models, with focus on the food-enhancing structure and transcendent texture of great burgundy. The rock stars wonder how this focus relates to Santa Barbara terroir, where the climate allows for consistently riper fruit than that grown on the Cote D’Or. They see themselves as establishing — along with their cultural brethren throughout the world —a new paradigm for Pinot Noir, a riper style that speaks to the hedonistic tendencies of, at least, western culture.

Both sides of the cultural divide produce wines that have been highly praised by one wine critic or another. The rock stars are more concerned with ripeness, with tannins that do not intrude, with easy and early drinking wine, while the classicists focus on how their wines reflect terroir, their structure and ability to age well, and their food-enhancing capabilities. The rock star style has been particularly well rewarded for two decades by high scores in the Wine Spectator and the Wine Advocate, and some people wonder if this has influenced the paths of the younger winemakers who might have chosen this route as a quick way to make their bones. The winemakers deny any such motivation, stoutly maintaining that they make the style of wine they prefer. While such personal declarations are beyond dispute, context sometimes is revealing. Brian Loring, for example, whose wines are exemplars of the rich and opulent style and rated highly by the Wine Spectator, is brashly and proudly honest in describing the boundaries of his food palate, summed up by a love of “grease” and a dislike for all vegetables. In a country where even the affluent succumb to the lure of fast food, it might be that Loring’s taste reflects the cultural norm, which perhaps accounts in part for the success of the delicious, easy drinking, sweet and rich style of wine that the rock star culture tends to produce.

Loring, who is disarmingly open about his approach to winemaking, is just the most public example of a new breed of winemakers who have come into the business with little formal training or experience, particularly in the vineyard. They have been encouraged by the low price of entry: Much winemaking in Santa Barbara County takes place in two complexes of industrial buildings, one in Lompoc—known as “the wine ghetto,” the other in Santa Maria. Young winemakers band together, rent a building, share the cost of equipment, buy a few barrels each, and they are up and running. A number of these newcomers are focused on Syrah, a grape that does well throughout Santa Barbara County, in cool regions and warm. It is less expensive than the more delicate, climate-limited Pinot Noir and, at least for the moment, the supply of grapes is sufficient to meet the demand.

 The use of industrial buildings was pioneered by Richard Longoria, who produces a broad range of wines mainly from purchased grapes. Though Longoria owns a small (8 acre) vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills, he is one of a number of winemakers who have established stellar reputations from grapes bought from the regions best vineyards. Jim Clendennning (Au Bon Climat), Bob Lindquist (Qupe), Greg Brewer and Steve Clifton (Brewer Clifton), and Joe Davis (Arcadian), are among the most prominent. Brian Babcock owns vineyards but also makes single vineyard wines from purchased grapes. Lane Tanner makes highly structured, bright-fruited Pinot Noir from grapes picked at the earliest indication of ripening. While they all work closely with vineyard owners, few are as involved as Davis, who farms his rows using practices learned during two years in Burgundy at Domaine Dujac.

A new influence is now coming into the mix: a few wealthy vineyard owners up Ballard Canyon and Happy Canyon Road, are engaging teams of consultants from outside the county to help them upgrade their vineyards. Soil and vine specialists from Napa and Sonoma are working with local vineyard manager Jeff Newton to elevate vineyards that have produced mainly Bordeaux varietals in the past but now the entire range of Rhone grapes as well, into world-class range. Some have sought the advice of the ubiquitous Michel Rolland. Newton is convinced that the results of these consultations will outweigh the cost, but the proof lies in bottles waiting to be filled.

Final Thoughts

            In Santa Barbara County debate centers on wine style more than terroir. The focus is Pinot Noir, though Syrah and other Rhone varietals are entering the conversation with considerable force. At a recent lunch at Au Bon Climat, Bob Lindquist — progenitor of Syrah in the county — decanted a ’96 Syrah that was a mind-stopper, an elegant and restrained wine with perfect balance and lively fruit, quite unlike the sometimes syrupy concoctions that can come from California. Steve Beckman is producing superb Rhone varietals from the eastern end of the Purisima Hills; some people think the future of Santa Barbara County lies with Syrah, adaptable as it is to the climatic diversity that exists there.

            For now, however, Pinot Noir is the moneymaker for the small producers, along with Chardonnay. Despite the rock star protestations that “terroir does not exist,” there are indeed noticeable differences in wine from different parts of the region, as one might expect in a place of such climatic, topographic and geologic diversity. Ken Brown has produced wine from grapes throughout the county, first at Zaca Mesa, then Byron (which he founded), and now under the Ken Brown label. According to Brown, Pinot Noir from the Santa Maria Valley “has an oily, rich, opulent, tactile, mid palate, with little specific fruit component, but elements of brown spice such as clove and nutmeg. In the Santa Maria Valley, it’s difficult to get hard tannins, the wines age well, but the tannins are subtle. Pinot Noir from the Santa Rita Hills exhibits vivid black fruit, and blueberry, perhaps not as complex as Santa Maria, but fruit forward, with firmer texture and tannins than Santa Maria and an opulent mid palate.”

            As throughout North America, wine here is still an infant, crawling through the hills and valleys trying to find its places of greatest comfort. And most of the winemakers, even the rock stars with their bravado and the yet more youthful generation now entering the wine ghetto, seem to be searching for understanding. Peter Cargasacchi is a vivid example. He is a tornado of information, a swirling mind throwing off the debris of ideas in bits and pieces that fly forth along fragmented but fascinating trajectories. He grows 16 acres of highly sought-after Pinot Noir, sold to a number of winemakers including Brian Loring, Greg Brewer and Steve Clifton, Ken Brown, and Wes Hagen, most of whom are making the big, bold, sometimes ostentatious wines that seem so highly favored by the Wine Spectator. Cargasacchi also makes wine, but appears headed toward a more restrained style that seems to have caught the attention of restaurateurs. Jim Laube calls Cargasacchi a “contrarian” for taking a path different from the others who make wine from his grapes. Cargasacchi wonders what the implications are for his future while his family urges him to follow the trend. It is yet another example of the power of the critics and the difficult position in which some producers find themselves.

            One final note: The open and contentious debate about wine style and winemaking in Santa Barbara County brings to the fore a bigger and more universal question that involves fundamental issues of perception, awareness, taste, experience, personal philosophy, and lifestyle. Over the past two decades, hedonism has become the focus of wine world-wide. But the accepted definition of what constitutes pleasure seems very narrow, consisting commonly of wine with “gobs of fruit,” one that is opulently rich, often excessively alcoholic, increasingly sweet, soft in the mouth, and easy to drink. Perhaps this suits the palates of many wine drinkers, but it surely limits the broader pleasures that derive from exploring the full range of internal experience that wine engenders, from pure sensation to intellectual engagement. Wine and awareness go together — to limit either by focusing solely on a restricted notion of enjoyment seems a sad narrowing of a marvelously broad world of experience. One hopes that more wine drinkers open their minds and senses and move past this constraint into the realm of wine that lies beyond — it is a vast region open to any who are tired of following others and ready for new and perhaps even revelatory experience.

 

Acknowledgements

The brief and incomplete history of the early days of Santa Barbara wine presented here is based on a fine account by Otis L. Graham Jr. and his colleagues at the University of Santa Barbara. Once again I am indebted to John Haeger who provided me with indispensable suggestions for thoughtful interviews. Most of all I express my gratitude to the winegrowers of Santa Barbara County, particularly those whom I interviewed for this article and others I listened to or spoke with during the first annual Wine and Fire Festival in the Sta. Rita Hills AVA. The thoughts and observations of these generous, dedicated, and friendly people provided the foundation for this work.

 

 

References

Asimov, Eric. Too Sweet To Be Invited For Dinner. New York Times, July 19, 2006.

Graham, Otis L. Jr., et al. Aged in Oak. The Story of the Santa Barbara Wine Industry. Santa Barbara County Vintners’ Association. 1998

Haeger, John, American Pinot Noir. University of California Press, Berkeley and Los Angeles, California. 2004. 445 pp.