Winemaker and Vineyard Manager, Erik Mallea of Mallea Wines has a remarkable talent for understanding the terroir of the vines he tends from which he creates his exquisite wines. As our featured winemaker for the month of January, Erik shared his foreseeable path to becoming a winemaker and the story behind his label.
Part One of our interview with Erik:
His love of farming took him to Oregon and New Zealand where he worked in viticulture and winemaking, but his fascination with fermentation began in his teen years back in his rural hometown in Minnesota with Chokecherries, apples, and oats. After receiving his Masters degree in Viticulture and Enology at Fresno State he came to Santa Barbara County in 2007 to pursue his career as a winemaker and vineyard manager. Currently managing vines for Sanford Winery and producing a stellar line up of wines for his and his wife, Amber’s, Mallea label.
“Observant” was the word Erik gave when asked to describe the part of his personality that gets infused into his winemaking. Instead of approaching winemaking with a specific style, Erik treats each vineyard with a unique approach that requires him to be observant of the land and the process. Mallea wines are sourced from five vineyards that Erik maintains from the ground up.
The thoughtful quality that can be tasted in every bottle can be experienced before the bottle is even opened. The coat of arms on the Mallea labels are a tribute to his father’s family coat of arms passed down from the Basque Country; the story behind this coat of arms takes you back into another time. If a wine label can influence the flavors and depths of character in a wine, either through it’s mere presence or the subtle feeling it evokes before sipping, then we suggest you listen to Part Two of our interview with Erik. The background story that makes up this coat of arms is inspiring and lives on not only in the Mallea family but also in the Basque region.
Crawford Family Wines truly embrace what family is all about. From the name, to the logo and labels, owner’s Mark and Wendy Horvath have embraced the bonds of their family and given their wines a deeper meaning. The name Crawford is the maiden name of Mark’s mother, it also happens to be his middle name. The wine labels are photographs taken by Wendy’s brother, and the key tells a story about their son who had a fascination with old keys and became and avid collector (listen to the whole story behind the key from Mark himself in Part 1 of our video).
The idea behind the packaging was to have doorways and windows, things that you move through and experience something new on the other side. “For every time you open a bottle of wine you are stepping through some kind of portal, there is an experience in there,” Mark shares in our interview.
In his thirties, Mark and Wendy decided to leave their jobs and move to Sonoma to dive into the wine industry. Mark’s friend and colleague was a master sommelier, and as you can imagine, you can’t be friends with a sommelier and not taste dozens of phenomenal and interesting wines. Through this friend Mark found his passion in wine, he quickly discovered being a sommelier wasn’t going to be enough. He wanted to get his hands dirty, to create something magical for people to experience for years to come. After making the move to Sonoma, Mark began working at Carmenet Winery, during this time he also took wine classes at the UC Davis extension program. This was where he and Wendy met three Santa Barbara County winemakers who couldn’t stop raving about an area, now called, Santa Rita Hills. After visiting the Santa Ynez Valley numerous times, Mark saw an ad for assistant winemaker for Bryan Babcock of Babcock winery, he applied and was hired as a cellar hand, eventually becoming assistant winemaker, and finally associate winemaker.
Asked to describe his winemaking style Mark chose the word authentic. Mark describes his wines as purposeful.The idea behind the wines has never been to chase scores. He makes each wine exactly as he thinks it should be, suited to the vineyard. His goal is to make the wines based on instinct and an intention to be authentic to the place, the fruit, and the season.
“I am going to make wines that I really like, and hopefully other people jump on board, hopefully they like them too.”
For a full background of each of these wines watch Part 2 of our interview:
“‘Walk Slow’ is sort of a reminder to myself that we all fall in love with wine at table, with food, and conversation. We watch how a bottle of wine opens up with air and time. I lost that somewhere, and now I am surrounded by so much of, smell, taste, evaluate, move on…smell, taste, evaluate, move on. Walk slow is a reminder to myself, I want to build as much complexity into that wine as I can, so that when you do sit down at table with a glass there’s all these layers that come out of the glass, with time and air. Slow down and enjoy what I got into this for.”– Mark Horvath
Sharing wine country, is what brings us pleasure– in fact, maybe that is wine country living.
The sun sets, it slowly sinks over the hills. The silhouettes of Valley Oaks stand solidly like statues basking in the last light of day. The heat of the day in wine country is replaced with a coolness inviting itself into open windows and resting on the vines to refresh them before the heat of the next day. Wine country life is romanticized for good reasons– plants love to grow here, grape vines thrive, beauty abounds. Even in California where seasons are limited to a brief Winter and an extended Summer, the seasons are experienced through the grasses of the rolling hills and the splashes of wildflowers in Spring. The vineyards are the barometers of the seasons.
Something about wine country makes people think that their life will be one of calm and ease like the oaks that serenely dot the landscape, a place where nothing goes wrong. Not to crush the romantic vision, but all of us in wine country can tell you, we still deal with the cable company, our computers crash just like yours, our cars need repaired, we get the same seasonal viruses, and we have a never ending list of things to do, however we do get to occasionally soak in the sunsets and enjoy wine from our neighbor’s vineyards, or if you’re lucky enough, your own.
Having founded the Los Olivos Wine Merchant & Cafein 1995, our lives were already immersed in wine and food, and the joy of sharing these palatable experiences. However, our story of discovering the true meaning of wine country living came in 2011 when we decided to convert the mother-in-law unit on our property into a vacation rental, our first Bernat Retreat.
The idea of having strangers on our property was a little scary at first. However, there is nothing scary about hearing these kind sentiments on a regular basis, “We don’t know who had this wonderful idea, but kudos to you! We’ve traveled all over the world at a variety of places from camping out to very posh resorts– this was one of the best!” Or this one from June 2012, “Escaping the city and enjoying this wine country paradise was much needed for us both.”
Selfishly though, the thing we love most, is watching our guests soak up wine country life, enjoy the sunsets we are too busy to enjoy because we lead a busy life, like the people vacationing on our vineyard. Sharing wine country, is what brings us pleasure– in fact, maybe that is wine country living.
Bottles of wine are not designed to be consumed alone — although I’m sure they sadly often are — they are meant to be shared. Beautiful sunsets are much more breathtaking when they are shared with loved ones, and even more breathtaking with a glass of wine in hand. With the beautifully manicured vineyards comes much toil and hard work, a labor of love as they say. So those of us living in this wine country invite you to live the wine country life while you are here, tuck your troubles away, soak it in and live it! (We’ll go to the city and soak up a few museums when we need to get away.)
“As a winemaker I will never make a million dollars, but I eat and drink like I do–and that’s good enough for me! Yachts and race cars are a bore anyways. Clean air, sunshine, fog and wind–you can taste these in our wines if you pay attention. Every moment on this planet is a miracle–and wine country surrounds us with the majesty that reminds us how lucky we are to be alive and drinking fine wine.”
-Wes Hagen
Consulting Winemaker, Brand Ambassador, Raconteur: J. Wilkes Wines
Planning a visit to Santa Barbara Wine Country?
We would love to share wine country living at our Bernat Winery Retreats with you!
Over-looking our vineyard and walking distance from our restaurant,
“It is fairly easy to get interested in wine, it’s alcohol, it’s fun to drink, you are usually surrounded by great times and friends. However, there is a lot of work behind it. Long hours, early mornings, and late nights.” Fabian Bravo, winemaker for Brander winery has been devoted to the craft of winemaking since his first harvest in 2007.
Like many, Fabian didn’t take a direct path into winemaking. He grew up in Gonzalez California, in the Santa Lucia Highlands. One of California’s premier cool-climate winegrowing districts. Surrounded by agriculture Fabian decided to take a different path. He attended Cal Poly for electrical engineering, and after college began working for a company in Goleta. He worked 4 years in his field but realized he couldn’t see himself growing old doing that type of job. Entering an early “mid-life crisis” he began to explore other career paths.
During his soul searching he dabbled in baking bread at a bakery, looked into law enforcement, and taught high school geometry and algebra. Eventually he went back home to work as an engineer again. Shortly after, he met a friend who offered him a harvest position, he would have to take a leave of absence from work if he decided to do it. As harvest crept closer he finally decided to take the leap and began working for Siduri winery in Santa Rosa, California. That was the point where he decided this industry was something he could see himself doing for a while. Watch Part 2 of our interview with Fabian to hear his inspiring journey in his own words here.
Right after harvest Fabian celebrated his birthday in Santa Barbara County, he went wine tasting, of course! One of the wineries he found himself tasting at was Brander winery. As fate would have it, the next Monday he saw that a winery had posted a job for assistant winemaker, which turned out to be Fred Brander, of Brander Winery. About a week after harvest at Siduri he started working as assistant winemaker for Fred at Brander. He is about to celebrate his 9-year anniversary there.
Fabian’s passion for winemaking is easy to see, as he describs his devotion to the craft. “You want to capture the vintage, the vineyard, the varietal. You have one shot at each vintage. Keeping that in mind, you only have a certain amount of years to make wine, a certain window to capture each year. Getting up early and staying late in necessary. You want to make sure you showcase the vineyard and hard work that goes into the fruit and production.”
Brander is well known for their Sauvignon Blanc production, which is celebrating its 40th vintage. Making 11 different bottlings every year. The vineyard was planted in 1975, and was first harvested in 1977. 44 acres are devoted mostly to Sauvignon Blanc, with a few other varietals planted on property. Brander has been practicing bio dynamic farming since 2010 which Fabian observed has given the wines a cleaner, fresher feel than before.
Fred Brander has been working for many years to get the Los Olivos District AVA approved. All of his hard work has finally paid off, the 2015 vintages will be the first with this AVA on the label. Great work Fred!
Enjoy learning about the story behind the Los Olivos District in Part 3of our interview here.
You are at a dinner party, and suddenly you hear it, the sound of a popping cork. After that first cork is pulled the sound of the house changes, the conversations begin to flow freely, the laughter comes more quickly. You aren’t discussing the taste, it is time to relax and let the wine take us some place emotionally, and flavor wise, without having to feel the need to define it.
“Great wine should lead to a conversation about everything except itself. Wine is not egotistical, it is not narcissistic, it doesn’t care if you talk about it.” -Wes Hagen
Asked to describe himself in one word Wes said, “Performative”. There are a lot of winemakers with the same knowledge he has but the ability to be able to engage anyone with a glass of wine is what sets him apart. We certainly won’t argue with that!
Wes started his winemaking adventures in 1996 here in Santa Barbara County. Ranked among the top 100 most influential winemakers in the United States by Decanter magazine, Wes is an incredible resource for wine knowledge. He researched, wrote, and had approved three AVA’s in Santa Barbara County; Sta. Rita Hills, Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara, and Ballard Canyon. He has written for various publications and taught at many prestigious institutions.
After 21 years as winemaker at Clos Pepe estates, he became the brand ambassador and winemaker for J.Wilkes winery. Founded by Jeff Wilkes in 2001 focusing on Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir, Pinot Blanc, and Chardonnay. The untimely passing of Jeff left the label at a standstill until it was purchased by the Miller family in his honor. Wes is continuing to represent Jeff’s legacy and his ideas about how to make great wine. Letting the vineyards speak, not getting too stylistic with the wines. Trying to keep the way they represent the place and the time they were grown, intact.
“…to put a bottle of wine on the table every night, and to use wine to keep the people you love at the table for an extra hour”-Wes Hagen
If you would like to meet Wes and try his incredible wines, he will be mingling with guests during our dinner service at the Los Olivos Wine Merchant & Cafe on September 30th. Can’t make it in? All of J. Wilkes wines are 20% off the whole month of September in the retail store and online! Take advantage of this discount that will only last until the end of September, and try the sampler 4-Pack to get a taste of a wonderful selection of J. Wilkes wines. For reservations call 805-688-7265 or schedule online via open table
Larry Schaffer started off in the educational and trade publishing industry, but after a number of years felt he had finished everything he set out to do in that field, and started wondering about what was next. He had always been interested in winemaking, wondering how the process worked. How do you develop different wines from one grape varietal or another?
Learning more about winemaking was the challenge he was looking for, and he left his career to get a degree in Viticulture and Enology. After studying and working for years, Larry began his new career as the Enologist for Fess Parker Winery. He chose to settle in Santa Barbara County because of the openness of the winemaking community, their willingness to help each other, and because the Santa Ynez Valley is a great place to raise children.
After a year with Fess Parker, Larry started buying grapes to make his own wines, focusing on Rhone varietal wines under the label Tercero Wines. Tercero means “third” in Spanish, and the number three has many ties within Larry’s past and present. He was the third child in his family, he lived in the third dormitory complex at UC Davis, and he has three children of his own!
When asked, Larry describes his style of winemaking as “pragmatic”. He believes that if he’s done a blend correctly, the sum will be greater than the its parts. So, when he is putting his blends together, he’s never sure exactly what he’ll have. In his head, he’ll be thinking “This is going to add this and this is going to add this…” but in the end, sometimes it works out fine and sometimes it doesn’t. He believes that if he has done his job right, when one of his bottles is opened, he wants it to speak of the vintage, to speak of the vineyards that he worked with, the varieties he used, and he wants it to speak of his knowledge, education, or lack of knowledge – whatever it was that went into making that wine at that time. He says, “That’s an evolving process to me. My wines are never going to taste the same, or smell the same, and that’s ok! Because it’s going to hopefully be reflective of that time period when I made the wine. If I was going to be dogmatic, rather than pragmatic, I don’t think I would achieve that.”
Recently Shawnda Marmostein from the Los Olivos Wine Merchant & Café, sat down with Matt Brady of Jaffurs Wine Cellars to learn a bit more about his wine making journey. In 2005 Matt started in winetasting and then, when harvest came around, he jumped in to help out with the picking of the grapes. Working through that harvest, Matt was bitten by the winemaking bug and was subsequently offered a full-time position. He has been there ever since, enjoying the diverse opportunities afforded by a small winery. Over the years, he has moved through 7 different job titles including cellar master to assistant winemaker and, a little over a year ago – to his current position as co-winemaker with owner Craig Jaffurs. While most of his training has been on-the-job, Matt has also taken weekend wine chemistry classes at UC Davis. In 2009, he took a sabbatical to travel to Australia and created a vintage at “Two Hands Wines” in the Barossa Valley. Matt is very appreciative of the benefits of working in a small winery where the few employees have the opportunity to become familiar with all aspects of the business and wear a number of different hats.
Craig Jaffurs, owner of the winery, began a career as a cost analyst for an aerospace company in Santa Barbara. On his off hours, he started exploring winemaking and creating his own home wines, learning from one of his best friends, Bruce McGuire, who works at the Santa Barbara Winery. After working a couple of harvests with Bruce, Craig fell in love with winemaking. Based on the success of his first few home vintages, he launched his own commercial brand and, in 1994, began making the Thompson Vineyard Syrah. His started with a couple 100 cases – which received rave reviews from the Wine Spectator. This initial success got the ball rolling, and Craig started doubling production – making his wine at Central Coast Wine Services in Santa Maria through the year 2000. In 2001 Craig and his wife, Lee, bought the property where Jaffurs Wine Cellars is currently located. One block from the beach in Santa Barbara, the facility is off Milpas on Montecito St. After purchasing the property, the couple knocked down the little house on the site and began building their dream winery from the ground up. Visitors to the facility, which is open every day for tasting from 11am – 5pm, are in for a rare treat. The tasting room is located in the center of the production floor, surrounded by the tanks, barrels, and all the action. In fact, it is not uncommon for a casual winetasting to turn into an adventure for the lucky ones who come to taste and end up being invited to sort the grapes or do a little foot stomping – especially around harvest.
Matt related that Jaffurs philosophy is to have a minimalist approach. Beginning with great vineyards (strongly believing that the site trumps everything else), harvesting the best grapes they can get by hand, and working with vineyard managers so that everything is done to their specifications. They pick the grapes at night, trucking them to the winery in Santa Barbara by 7:00-8:00 in the morning. In the winery, the philosophy is “…to not do too much, so they don’t screw anything up.” Using a light touch, they hand sort the grapes, and employ gravity to move their wine, de-stemming most of their fruit without crushing it – while allowing for a small percentage to get whole cluster fermented before getting lightly foot stomped. Matt says, “We want our wines to be powerful and expressive, but we also want them to be elegant and balanced and together.” Currently Jaffurs has 25 acres of grape under contract, producing 5,000 cases, and 14 different wines. The produce small lots, with the majority of their wines being sold directly to their wine clubs. Matt feels, this gives them the opportunity to be “…a little more headstrong and experimental on what we want to do with our wines. Because we have a captive audience, so to speak, that are going to buy them – we can experiment with things like using more whole clusters or extending barreling.” Something larger wineries aren’t able to do, because they have to make the same thing every year. One of the things Matt is most excited about in 2016 is breaking some of their picks into multiple picks. For instance, if they target a harvest for a particular Wednesday, they will go in the Friday before to pick some of the grapes, pick the majority on that Wednesday, but then save some to be picked a few days later. This gives them some slightly varying levels of ripeness to work with – creating a way to increase complexity and add more layers to the wine. “Not the kind of thing a huge winery can do,” continues Matt. “but when you are small, agile, and dynamic- you get a winery team and winemaking staff that is excited to keep pushing the bar up and you get some really cool stuff!”
Matt loves his job. “Every year is different, every year we do some great experiments, every year your understanding of winemaking evolves. Things you thought you knew…you realize you don’t know. It’s one of those ever humbling processes. You get one chance at making wine each year and that’s pretty exciting.”
Learn more about Matt Brady and Jaffurs Wine Cellars from our interview at the Los Olivos Wine Merchant & Cafe.
Blair Fox, of Blair Fox Cellars, is a Santa Barbara native who found the passion for wine and viticulture in his own backyard. Blair began attending UC Davis as a pre-med student, before transitioning into fermentation science for brewing. Due to uncontrollable circumstances he had to switch a class last minute, and Blair stumbled into his first viticulture course, which marked the moment he fell in love with the grape growing side of the industry. At first he thought he would solely be a grape grower, but once he realized that he would have to relinquish the grapes to someone else to turn into wine, he knew he wanted to have his hands in that side as well.
After graduating from college with a degree in both Viticulture and Enology, Blair began employment as head winemaker for a family-owned winery in the Santa Ynez Valley. This was the time he and his wife, Sarah, established their own label Blair Fox Cellars. As Santa Barbara wine country’s premier restaurant for highlighting local winemakers, we are proud to say the Los Olivos Café was the first to offer Blair Fox Cellars on a wine list! After a few years of making incredible wines, Blair traveled to the Rhone region of France, and shortly thereafter traveled to Australia to expand his knowledge of the extraordinary wines made around the world. After coming back to his roots in the Santa Barbara County, he began working for Fess Parker and now also makes the wine for Epiphany—yes, Blair stays very busy
The focus for Blair Fox Cellars is on Syrah and other Rhone varieties. The estate vineyard, planted by Blair himself and farmed organically, has Grenache, Syrah, Petite Syrah, Vermentino, and a small amount of Zinfandel planted. Blair feels it is very important to be part of the grape growing process as a winemaker. He enjoys being able to control the wine from vine to glass, not only in his estate vineyards but the ones he sources fruit from as well. Looking for grapes with beautiful concentration and intense varietal character, he currently sources grapes from Zotovich, Kimsey, Tierra Alta, Larner, and his own Fox Family Vineyards.
Blair and his family take pride in the creation of the small production wines for Blair Fox Cellars. While Blair manages the winemaking, Sarah does the marketing. His two adorable daughters love riding on the forklift and helping with Pigeage – foot stomping the grape cap! The grapes are hand harvested, hand sorted, fermented in small lots, and basket pressed to ensure the highest possible quality and true expression of the vineyard. The results of this family’s hard work are wines with a modern feel, while showing a reflection of historically made French wines.
“To share and enjoy wine and food with friends is why I believe we are all in this industry.”
The Cotiere Pinot Noir, Santa Maria Valley, is one of those wines that stops you in your tracks, once you try it you have to find out what it is, who made it, and how to get more! It is a head turner, the flavors are rich and textured throughout, with plenty of resonance and fabulous overall balance.
After about 10 years of harvest work, and assistant winemaking, Kevin Law began his own label, Cotiere, in 2006. A geology major who found himself getting involved with atmospheric sciences, meteorology, and mapping, Kevin decided to expand his experience into something he was genuinely passionate about; wine. Like all great winemakers, there are individuals who influence and guide them along their journey, Barbara and Jim Richards of Paloma on Spring Mountain in Napa, were incredibly helpful to Kevin.
In his mid-twenties there was an old vine California Zinfandel that turned Kevin into a wine-lover. From there it seems, there are many benchmark wines and varietals from around the world that captured his imagination. The first California Pinot Noir that truly got his attention was the 1994 Williams Selyem Allan Vineyard – “on release that wine was singing.”
Cotiere wines are made humbly out of respect for the fruit, to reflect that year’s unique growing conditions. The wines are crafted to offer a sense of place, an expression of the Central Coast terroir. Kevin wants to stay true to the grapes individuality per row, block, vineyard, and year. The fruit for Cotiere wines is sourced from selected vineyards such as River Bench, Thompson, Hilliard Bruce, La Encantada, and Presqu’ile. Keeping each vineyard separate he shows the honest truth of terroir, creating a unique experience for wine drinkers. We’ve had the honor of meeting Kevin, tasting his wines, and getting to know him on a personal level. We can vouch that Cotiere wines express the true authenticity of their place because of the character of the person behind them. Can’t think of a better way to experience the terroir of the our Santa Barbara Wine Country then enjoying these wines.
Kevin’s Pinot is one of many fantastic wines he produces for his Cotiere label.
Nestled in the heart of Santa Ynez’s Happy Canyon AVA you’ll find Grassini Vineyards, a family owned vineyard and winery dedicated to making overall balanced wines with beautiful aromatics, and elegant mouth-feel. Happy Canyon is an area blessed with warm days and cool marine influenced nights with few variations. The combination of warm days and cool nights makes Happy Canyon ideal for growing Bordeaux grape varietals.
The Grassini family are firm supporters of sustainable and renewable business practices. The vineyard and winery are not only solar powered but irrigated with a well-fed lake on the property, in addition all the water used in the wine production is reclaimed and used to irrigate the landscaping surrounding the winery. The wine cellar is embedded in a hillside to ensure humidity and temperature control using limited energy sources.
The vineyard management team has been with the family since planting the vines in 2001. They have 35 acres planted to vine, varietals include Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, and Petit Verdot. Each lot from the various vineyard blocks are fermented individually to ensure proper fermentation temperatures. After generous amounts of time in barrels the wines mature to express the unique character of this special estate and those who work there. Their 2014 Sauvignon Blanc is a uniquely floral addition to our by the glass options.
Tune in every month to our Featured Local Winemaker series.
In the heart of Santa Barbara Wine Country, we are the premier wine merchant for California Central Coast wines, from Santa Barbara County to Monterey County, with select vintages from other areas of California’s Wine Country and noteworthy wines from around the world.
We’d love to share wine country musings, events, and special offers with you. No need to worry about getting inundated with emails from us, we only send them about once a month both from the Café and the Wine Merchant.
The idea of having strangers on our property was a little scary at first. However, there is nothing scary about hearing these kind sentiments on a regular basis, “We don’t know who had this wonderful idea, but kudos to you! We’ve traveled all over the world at a variety of places from camping out to very posh resorts– this was one of the best!” Or this one from June 2012, “Escaping the city and enjoying this wine country paradise was much needed for us both.”
established their own label Blair Fox Cellars. As Santa Barbara wine country’s premier restaurant for highlighting local winemakers, we are proud to say the Los Olivos Café was the first to offer Blair Fox Cellars on a wine list! After a few years of making incredible wines, Blair traveled to the Rhone region of France, and shortly thereafter traveled to Australia to expand his knowledge of the extraordinary wines made around the world. After coming back to his roots in the Santa Barbara County, he began working for Fess Parker and now also makes the wine for Epiphany—yes, Blair stays very busy
Looking for grapes with beautiful concentration and intense varietal character, he currently sources grapes from Zotovich, Kimsey, Tierra Alta, Larner, and his own Fox Family Vineyards.
