Energy Unleashed With a Classic Touch: Santa Barbara Finds Its Sweet Spot

One of the first things you see when walking onto the Ibarra-Young vineyard in the Los Olivos District AVA of Santa Barbara County is an impressive compost pile off to the side. Nothing unusual there, but further inspection reveals an intricate range of other ways in which a healthy ecosystem has been nurtured on this land.

“We do very conscious cover crop – we’ve probably introduced at least 50 different species back to the land, both native and more productive cover crops for our animals to eat,” explained Alice Anderson, who leases Ibarra-Young vineyard and three others with her partner, Topher de Felice. It’s an environment of notable symbiosis, and the wines produced from it are full of character and clarity.

That sense of harmony is reflected in the vast majority of the reds and whites we tasted from Santa Barbara County for this report. The Âmevive Syrah Los Olivos District Ibarra-Young Vineyard 2023, for example, is full of pink peppercorn and bouquet garni notes that wrap around bruised brambleberries and turned earth, the sappy tannins a harbinger of years of life ahead.

Their vivid wines embody the sense of energy and respect for the land that’s so integral to so many being produced in Santa Barbara County, especially the ones from the outstanding 2023 vintage, which is one of the best in recent memory. The 2024s hold tremendous promise as well.

For this report, we visited 18 producers, from icons like Domaine de la Côte, Sandhi, Brewer-Clifton and Stolpman to less widely known yet accomplished ones like Story of Soil, MarBeso, The Joy Fantastic and more. We also tasted remotely across the breadth of the county, with more than 130 wines earning scores of 94 and above and more than 75 meeting or clearing the 95-point threshold.

Most of the wines are from the 2022, 2023 and 2024 vintages, the latter two of which were significantly less stressful for producers than the former.

“A powerful Santa Ana Labor Day heatwave defined 2022,” said Peter Stolpman, the managing partner of Stolpman Vineyards, which produced some of the highest-scoring wines in this report. “Early-ripening varieties were the most impacted, forcing many of us to hedge and pick some fruit before the heat, assuming that the remainder would be a bit overripe if left to hang through.” In general that year, he added, “ripening accelerated into a shorter window.”

2023 and 2024, on the other hand, were easier. “While we worried more about being able to achieve ripeness in 2023, both years allowed for a steady march in sugar accumulation with beautifully high acid,” Stolpman said. “We were able to pick concentrated fruit while the grapes were still round and taut, so the wines have the yin and yang of richness and energy. Because the vines had cooler conditions all the way until October 2023, the syrah vintage overall shows more pronounced red fruit over darker hues. With the warm September of 2024, the wines give blue-purple-black fruit all the way through.”

The Stolpman Syrah Ballard Canyon The Great Places Ruben Solorzano 2023 is a terrific example of the profundity of the vintage; it shows grace and power, with juniper and botanical notes flecking plums, figs and meat. It’s one for the cellar.

Range and Diversity

Sashi Moorman, the managing partner of Domaine de la Côte and Sandhi Wines, as well as CEO for wine consultancy Provignage, explained during a drive through the Santa Rita Hills that it’s the only area in the world “where you get chardonnay and pinot noir grown on diatomaceous shales in a cool climate,” referring to the sedimentary soils based on the fossilized remains of silica-based skeletons of ancient diatoms, like plankton.

“You have millions of different ages of soils … extremely heterogeneous soils,” he added, leaving an incredible range of terroirs that can, if harnessed properly, be brought to bear on the wines that are grown in the region.

The Domaine de la Côte Chardonnay Santa Rita Hills Juliet 2023 is a pure, defined and concentrated example of the heights that the best wines can achieve here. So, too, is there Pinot Noir Santa Rita Hills Sous le Chêne 2024, whose allspice and star anise notes are woven with tamarind paste, hibiscus, blood orange, red cherries and saline minerality.

Much of the success of the wines of Santa Barbara County is thanks to the ability of growers and producers to leverage the varied soils, aspects, microclimates, underlying geologies and more throughout its seven AVAs – Santa Rita Hills, Santa Maria Valley, Ballard Canyon, Happy Canyon, Los Olivos District, Santa Ynez Valley and Alisos Canyon.

“We can grow great fruit in every corner of Santa Barbara County, and it’s a winemaker's dream to have that on offer,” explained Jesse Cloutier, the founding  winemaker at Sea Creatures, whose Sea Creatures Pinot Noir Santa Maria Valley Dear Sea Reserve 2023 is aromatically complex with warm spice to the minerals and fruit.

Though pinot noir, chardonnay and syrah account for many of the top scores in this report, they are by no means the only varieties responsible for remarkable wines. Grenache, gamay, sauvignon blanc, riesling, gruner veltliner and more impressed, too.

Graham Tatomer’s eponymous wines exemplify this. His Grüner Veltliner Santa Barbara County Meeresboden 2024 is a tactile gem whose crushed shells and seaweed notes balance more tropical flavors. And his Riesling Santa Barbara County Vandenberg 2023 is nervy and lingering with limes, lime leaves and jasmine. Both stand out not just for their character, but for the fact that they’re so accomplished in a region far better known for other grape varieties.

Brandon Sparks-Gillis, who co-founded Dragonette with John and Steve Dragonette and serves as its chief winemaker, touted the diversity of Santa Barbara County as “unparalleled,” where the influence of the ocean is particularly important and provides “a distinctive savory, saline influence in many wines—an oceanic terroir.”

That is certainly the case with the Dragonette Chardonnay Santa Rita Hills Radian Vineyard 2023, whose salt-preserved lemons join a nervy custard character, with saline notes throughout.

Tyler Thomas, the president/winemaker at Star Lane and Dierberg, has been crafting classically styled wines in the region for nearly two decades. For him, a confluence of factors is at play: “Cool nature, consistent weather, low rainfall and low-vigor soils [that] conspire to produce wines with energy and concentration like no other region on the west coast.”

The best of them, he says, are “energetic through a thread of classicism,” like the Star Lane Vineyard Cabernet Sauvignon Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara 2021, whose pencil shavings, herbs and currants are framed by long tannins that promise years of evolution in the cellar.

While a range of styles can be found throughout the region, the best wines of Santa Barbara County boast moderate alcohol, fresh acidity and purity of fruit. In general, many of the best wines tend to focus on specific sites and are made in a way that doesn’t try to hide anything beneath overly obscuring screens of new oak or too-aggressive extraction.

Greg Brewer has been a believer in Santa Barbara since his first vintage at Brewer-Clifton in 1996. His wines are as delicious as ever, including the profound Brewer-Clifton Chardonnay Santa Rita Hills 3-D 2023, which is energetic, supple and filigreed with turmeric powder, Meyer lemons and white flowers. This one, and so many others in an impressively expressive lineup, embody much of what makes the region so exciting. “In many ways, the wines [of the region] have never been better,” he noted. “Over the past 50 years, we have been able to fine-tune which areas are best suited for which varieties while still maintaining a very open-minded spirit of trial, exploration and discovery.”

READ MORE EASY-DRINKING REDS FROM A SCORCHING NAPA VINTAGE

And it’s not just established producers that are making a mark. Colin McNany, the proprietor of MarBeso alongside his wife, Hannah, kicked off operations in 2019. “We just saw a lot of opportunity as a young brand in Santa Barbara County, especially Santa Rita Hills, for making world-class wines.”

He added: “We source fruit in close proximity to the ocean, which allows us to create wines that are lower alcohol, cooler climate – kind of more Old World style in that regard.”

And despite the fact that they don’t own any vineyard land – property prices tend to be prohibitive – there are, he stressed, “a plethora” of amazing sites to source from. “The idea is transparency – less winemaking and more vineyard speaking,” he said.

The MarBeso Syrah Santa Rita Hills Robert Rae Ranch 2023 transmits that clarity of vineyard expression beautifully, with bouillon and fermented tea alongside medicinal dark cherries, blood and thyme.

The Joy Fantastic, which, along with the wines of Holus Bolus, is produced by Amy Christine and Peter Hunken, is another standout producer that excelled with syrah and a number of other varieties, among them chardonnay, pinot noir and gamay. Their Syrah Santa Rita Hills 2022 is grippy yet not heavy, with a translucent character carrying brambleberries and pink peppercorns.

Santa Barbara County is increasingly impressive, and seems to grow more so each year. With the 2023 vintage, quality is tremendous across the board, with pinot noir, syrah, cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, gamay, chardonnay and sauvignon blanc shining.

The 2024s are still rolling out, but already pinot noir, gamay, sauvignon blanc and other whites like picpoul and viognier are making their mark. Both vintages are well worth exploring and represent, in their own ways, much of what makes this region so important and exciting.

–  Brian Freedman, Staff Writer & Taster

The list of wines below is comprised of bottles tasted and rated by the JamesSuckling.com tasting team. They include many latest releases not yet available on the market, but which will be available soon. 

Note: You can sort the wines below by vintage, score and alphabetically by winery name. You can also search for specific wines in the search bar.