Located in the prestigious Santa Rita Hills appellation, Foley’s beautiful Rancho Santa Rosa property is home to a 3,500 square-foot tasting room and event center. Located next to the iconic 12,000 square-foot winery building, the Hospitality Center affords visitors spectacular vistas of neighboring mountain ranges, coastal oaks and contoured hillside vines.
Over a 100 years ago, the first known woman wine grower in California, Dona Marcelina Felix Dominguez, grew Mission vines on her Santa Barbara property. The vines survived, and when Deborah Hall and her late husband, William, brought the property in 1994, they discovered these vines under a heavy cover of brush. They originally thought the vines were Zinfandel, and sold them as such to other vintners. DNA testing at University of California Davis later revealed that they were Mission vines. Mission vines were brought into California in 1767 by Spanish Padres from Mexico who established a chain of missions from San Diego to Sonoma from 1767 to 1833. Deborah’s ancient Mission vineyard of three acres is part of only ten acres still growing in California.
Bonaccorsi Wine Company produces limited quantities of Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and Syrah rendered in the style and spirit of a small Burgundy domaine. Grape sources are selected carefully from cool areas of Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo Counties in California's South Central Coast.
Palmina is more than a winery. It is a philosophy, a passion and a strongly held belief that wine is an extension of the plate, a component of a meal and a means to bring people together. Formed by winemaker Steve Clifton in 1995, Palmina is named in honor of Steve’s great friend Paula. Like a grandmother to him, she taught Steve to love cooking, wine and the Italian lifestyle and was a spark in his life. After Paula succumbed to breast cancer, Steve found that her given name on her Italian birth certificate was Palmina, and the winery was thus fittingly named.
Rusack was established in 1995 by Geoff Rusack and Alison Wrigley Rusack with a commitment to creating world-class wines. In the years since then, this dedication to quality has meant some dramatic changes at the winery.
The most visible change is in the vineyard. Following the 2001 harvest, many of the original vines were pulled out and replanted. Utilizing cutting edge technology and taking advantage of Ballard Canyon’s unique terroir, varieties to be grown were carefully chosen and limited to those clones best suited to the microclimate. Syrah, Sangiovese, and Sauvignon Blanc have been planted, along with smaller lots of Cabernet Franc, Merlot and Petit Verdot to be blended into the renowned "Anacapa."
Andrew Murray fell in love with the emerging Rhône varieties, Syrah and Viognier, in the late 1980’s while traveling through France’s Rhône Valley. Leaving his UC Berkeley paleontology studies behind, he pursued his new mistress, Syrah, with an internship in Australia. As Robert Parker, Jr. put it, “…Andrew Murray’s offerings are a breath of fresh air given their exceptionally high quality and realistic prices – reader take note.
Summerland Winery is a boutique winery dedicated to the production of fine wines from the Central Coast of California. Nebil “Bilo” Zarif founded Summerland Winery in 2002 with the goal of producing premium wines from expressive vineyard sources spanning from Santa Barbara to Monterey. Since then, the winery has built a name synonymous with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
The 14+ different varietals from 9 renowned vineyards allow the Central Coast and Single Vineyard Collections to showcase their excellent fruit character combined with strong regional character. The winery’s tasting room is located in Summerland’s charming seaside setting, just 10 minutes south of Santa Barbara.
Daniel Gehrs Wines is a small, family owned and operated winery featuring small lots of hand-crafted wines. With over 30 years of experience, Daniel's wines are made in a classic old-world style that is exceptionally approachable to both novice and oenophile alike.
Daniel Gehrs Wines is the personal expression of winemaker Daniel Gehrs, whose vision of wine is simply this: “The holy grail of my winemaking is the taste of the grape on the day of harvest.” Dan hastens to add: “The first duty of a wine is to be interesting. Life is too short for boring wines”.
At Tudor Wines the select fruit from their family-owned vineyards and transform it into wine using traditional techniques. These include small fermentations mixed by hand and aging in French barrels. The resulting wine has a purity of expression that cannot be duplicated on a larger scale.
When Bennie Cassara first set foot on this mountain top retreat he knew this was the place for which he had been looking. Bennie a brick mason by trade was busy running his Masonry construction company in Orange County California, but he was looking for a place where he and his could get away from the daily grind. It was in 1990 the first vines were planted on the tiny hilltop estate. Bennie Cassara chose Pinot Noir grapes at the urging of his friend Brian Babcock of the Babcock Winery. Brian told Bennie his property would be the perfect growing environment for Pinot Noir grapes, this variatal is grown on hillsides in France, and Brian knew the combination of warm days and cool foggy nights would be perfect. Much of the rest of the story is in the glass.
