Refrigerated Sunshine: Dispatch from Santa Barbara Wine Country
Pinot Noir and Chardonnay linger in the sublime, while Rhône and Bordeaux-inspired wines demand serious attention.
Wine grown within miles of the Pacific Ocean can be transcendent, unifying tension, restraint, linearity, and raw, stripped-bare, omnipresent expressions of fruit. Seven American Viticultural Areas (AVAs) are typified by the east-west orientation of coastal and interior mountain ranges, wind easing through carved valleys that lie perpendicular to the ocean. Moody morning fogs and maritime breezes cool vineyards and edge grapes to a phenolic precipice during a long growing season. Closer to the ocean, in the Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley AVAs, Chardonnay is sleek, acid-driven, and racy, while Pinot Noir expresses cherry, pomegranate, cranberry, and floral notes, with lingering acidity and supple tannins.
My most recent visit to Santa Barbara wine country deepened my understanding of this region’s expressive range though, in savoring equally beguiling wines from Rhône and Bordeaux varieties. To explore this versatility, I’ve selected eight wines to impart more of the region’s wine story. I’ve also highlighted a few bonus recommendations at the end to support a well-rounded visit!
Rhône Renaissance
Melville 2022 Estate Syrah and 2023 Donna's Block Syrah
When Chad Melville scoops up a handful of vineyard sand, two things clarify: natural fertilizer is funky and aromatic, and, in the Sta. Rita Hills AVA, on the western edge of the Santa Ynez Valley, the Pacific Ocean is just miles away. Winemaking here hinges on as little intervention as possible. Think old oak barrels, wild, local yeasts, and organically farmed estate blocks of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, and Syrah, sans chemicals or synthetic fertilizers.
Melville’s father Ron founded the estate in 1989, having relocated from Knight’s Valley, a warm, northeast pocket of Sonoma County, for the maritime climate; it’s often mild and cool—on that precipice of “making it all work,” Melville describes, adding, “Farming is ultimately a release of control. Our job is to capture the vintage, not to create it.”
Estate Syrahs have a dark interior and perfumed, elevated, briny flavor profiles; this is particular so in examples from Donna’s Block, where 100% whole cluster (with grape stems included) fermentation amplifies those savory notes. These are distinct Syrahs, even among Santa Barbara County’s seven AVAs. Melville describes Pinot as a great “lens to see the land, for its lifted red fruit, structure, and acidity.” Syrah similarly renders Santa Barbara County’s micro-terroirs.
Clementine Carter Mourvèdre and Grenache Blanc
Downtown Los Alamos is a small town of less than 1,500, between the Santa Maria and Santa Ynez Valleys and roughly 15 miles from the ocean. Within seven blocks are several examples of world class food and wine, like Sonja Magdevski’s tasting room, Clementine Carter. The space is both a feminist party (an allusion to a flagship red blend) and nods to the town’s roots as an old Western stagecoach stop. An ostensible “poker room” is tucked behind a black curtain, and an adjacent Beer Emporium likens a turn of the century apothecary, mementos from Magdevski’s Michigan childhood tucked among vintage finds like bronze eagle wings and old ads for Valley Beauty California Quality Grapes: grade school class photos and watercolors, and her father’s 2011 award from the Embassy of the Republic of Macedonia for (among other things) “contributing to the unification of the Macedonian Diaspora in Detroit, Michigan.”
Magdewksi focuses on cool-climate wines, whole cluster fermentation, and again, minimal intervention. Mourvèdre from the Robert Rae Vineyard in the Sta. Rita Hills is picked in November, the very end of harvest in the northern hemisphere, and at 22 “brix” (i.e., sugar), the lower end for red wines and thus producing a lighter-bodied, lower alcohol vibrant, ruby-hued styling. Hearty, gamey notes are in surrender here to the lighter, brighter expression of cherries, lavender, and lilacs. Magdevski’s Grenache Blanc, a grape that can have a round body but wane on acidity, also reframes expectations, as it greets with citrus and pear and has a silkier texture.
A Tribute to Grace 2023 Grenache
Angela Osborne is the Grenache whisperer. A New Zealand-born film student-turned winemaker, Osborne was drawn to California in 2006 by “abundant sunshine and entrepreneurial spirit.” Her first vintage in 2007 was sourced from the Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyard in the Santa Ynez Valley, 33 miles east of Santa Barbara and at 3,200 feet of elevation, in the Sierra Madre Mountains. The vineyard is isolate, sandy, and otherworldly. The 2023 vintage, from the exact same vineyard, is ethereal and delicate, floral, and restrained, just tart cherries held together by flowers and acidity, like lace. Osborne describes the wine best, imagining “a barefoot woman riding a horse bareback while holding a stick of burning incense.” Why on earth would I even try to describe it otherwise? Be sure to visit Angela’s Los Alamos tasting room when local, as well as Lumen Wines and others.
Bordeaux Expressions
Crown Point 2021 Cabernet Sauvignon
This was my last sip of the trip, and a richly delicious one. Grapes are sourced from the warmer Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara AVA, further inland and on the eastern edge of the Santa Ynez Valley, with breathtaking valley views of San Rafael Mountains. The warmer climate supports varieties that need time to ripen, like Cabernet Sauvignon. Crown Point’s 2021 vintage, crafted by winemaker AJ Fairbanks, includes 3% Petit Verdot, though the wine is firmly in deep ruby Cabernet territory. Tasting notes include cocoa, chocolate, blackberry, graphite, and cassis, and tannins are elegantly interknit, buoying the wine’s structure like a backtstage mom stage whispering lines.
Carhartt Family Wines 2025 Sauvignon Blanc and Dreamcôte’s 2024 Sauvignon Blanc
Sixty-acre Rancho Santa Ynez is a former dairy and swine operation turned family vineyard and winery, acquired by the Carhartt family in 1954. Estate-grown Sauvignon Blanc evinces freshly sliced grapefruit, green apple, and lime with a medium body due to separate (then blended) fermentations, 50% in stainless steel, and 50% in neutral oak. The latter contributes texture, while steel supports what winemaker and co-owner Chase Carhartt calls “a clean edge.” The result is a wine with mouth watering acidity, a medium body, and delicate flavor profiles—a wine of both substance and freshness. Carhartt’s production is diverse, its Venture label a platform for experimentation, including a beautiful berry fresh vintage of Mission, aka Listan Prieto, a historic variety dating from 1756 in California. Wines are crafted by Chase and his mother Brooke, one of the region’s breakthrough female winemakers, who originated Carhartt Family Wines in 1998.
Another splendid Sauvignon Blanc comes from Brit and Ryan Zotovitch of Dreamcôte, this one grown in the Vogelzang and Grassini vineyards, again in the warmer Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara AVA. Liquid gold captures citrus, body, and complexity. Both Carhartt and Dreamcôte have tasting rooms in Los Olivos.
Bonus Recommendations
Your ultimate guide to wine tasting is here; also visit the Inn at Mattei’s Tavern on Wednesday evenings to gab with local winemakers and to taste featured local wines!
Artist studios, tasting rooms, boutiques, hotels, and eateries occupy industrial lots and small city streets in the Funk Zone in downtown Santa Barbara, where white stucco Mission-style buildings with red Spanish tiled-rooftops are in tableau against the backdrop of the Santa Ynez Mountains. The Hotel Californian’s outdoor paseo (pictured above) is a place to unwind, as is The Society wine bar, Djinn cocktail lounge, and Blackbird. I recommend going all in on the tomahawk steak, which is accompanied by luscious roasted potatoes and tomatoes, butter, chimichurri, truffled bearnaise—etc. Margerum Wine Company’s tasting room is across from the hotel’s main entrance, a fortuitous opportunity to taste excellent examples of the region’s torchbearers, Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
To see the region’s hills and valleys from above, book a tour with Captain James Lawson of Sky's the Limit Ballooning.
Read on…
It’s been a busy month in terms of publications. For Decanter, I wrote “Three Reasons to Start Drinking Albana, Romagna’s Signature White Grape” and “What’s Next for Washington State’s Wines?
For SevenFifty Daily, I explored ”Why More Wineries Are Betting on High-Volume Wines” and for Wine Enthusiast,“As Developers Close In, This Historic California AVA Is Standing Its Ground.”
Imbibe gathered seven domestic Rhônes to try, with inspiration from my May story “White Hot. In a Warming World, Grapes of the Southern Rhône are Thriving Stateside.”
It’s *still* rosé season, so don’t miss these recos: “It’s Rosé Season. Choose Wisely, Favoring Personality, Panache, and Sense of Place.”
Lastly, for more Cali wine inspiration, check out the Petite Wine Traveler’s Substack!
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Very comprehensive and it looks like there are many great treats for summer!