Wining With Purpose: Santa Barbara Vintners Make Record Donation to Direct Relief

By Gabe Saglie
(published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on March 1, 2012 )

Call this one the little auction that could.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  The American Riviera Wine Auction, which is held biennially by the Santa Barbara County Vintners Foundation, has never been a small affair.  Over the years, it’s been held at fancy places, like Bacara Resort and the Four Seasons Biltmore Hotel.  And stellar lots – fancy bottles and unique experiences – have always helped harvest big money.

But at its core, this event has always been about heart.  A hand-grown enterprise with plenty of small town character.  A genuine effort to heed the call and make a positive local impact.  And an organic process that’s put local vintners on the front lines of what’s become a competitive arena in Santa Barbara: putting on a fundraiser that lives up to expectations and generates impressive results. 

The American Riviera Wine Auction achieved that on day one; the premiere event in October of 2000 resulted in a $250,000 donation to Goleta-based Direct Relief International in a year when the non-profit group was grappling with a $100,000 financial shortfall.  With the five auctions that followed – through the Auction in February of 2010 – vintners doled out more than $1.6 million for DRI.  And when the Foundation presented a check during a lunchtime ceremony at the Hitching Post II restaurant in Buellton yesterday, the amount represented a new donation record: $500,000.

That impressive total was the result of a spectacular evening held February 11^th at the Four Seasons Biltmore’s Coral Casino.  The iconic seaside location may have had something to do with the night’s generosity.  “It’s one of the most special places on the coast,” says winemaker and Hitching Post II owner Frank Ostini, who’s also the new president of the Vintners Foundation.  “Being there makes you feel like you’re really lucky and that you’ve got a lot to give.”

To be honest, there was a fair share of celebrity pull.  Actor Billy Baldwin served as the night’s energetic emcee.  Actress Jane Lynch, from Glee, broke into song at one point.  Days of Our Lives heartthrob Bryan Dattilo drew stares and smiles.  And rocker keyboardist Martin Gore, of Depeche Mode fame, inspired; winemaker Steve Clifton, actually, wowed the crowd by bursting into a classic Depeche Mode tune a capella on stage.

There were also plenty of competitive bidding, thanks to what may be the best group of auction items in the event’s history.  “I think we’ve figured out the crowd that comes out to support DRI, and they like the lifestyle stuff,” admits Ostini.  The vintner, himself, won two lots, including one that’ll give his daughter a one-of-a-kind behind-the-scenes experience during an upcoming taping of her favorite TV show, Glee.  Ostini also secured himself a seat, with voting privileges, on an upcoming episode of Top Chef.  One of the top getters of the night was a once-in-a-lifetime experience with Depeche Mode: attending a studio recording session and joining the rock band on tour, including a seat on their jet and access backstage.  Various barrels of wine also motivated bidders.  And Baldwin, the celeb emcee, “was incredible at working the crowd,” says Ostini.  “He was able to get four or five lots doubled,” or sold twice on the spot.

Thomas Tighe, president and CEO of DRI, gives credit for much of the night’s flash appeal to the vintners, themselves.  “Love for Santa Barbara wine is the main draw,” he says.  There’s truth in that.

But the vintners think they figured it out 12 years ago, when they selected DRI as the Auction’s sole beneficiary.  Keep in mind that the Vintners Foundation, which was formed in 2000 as the philanthropic arm of the Santa Barbara County Vintners Association, gives year-round to plenty of worthy local causes, including the Unity Shoppe, People Helping People and the Food Bank of Santa Barbara County, as well as public high schools throughout the county’s vineyard region.  “Having the Foundation furthers our belief that we all survive with sustainability,” says Jim Fiolek, executive director of the Vintners Association and past president of the Foundation.”That’s sustainability in the vineyard, yes, but also in the community.  Whether they’re in wine biz or not, the community that supports us must be sustainable.”

But there’s little denying that Direct Relief has carved out a league of its own when it comes to efficiency and the delivery of medicine and medical supplies to those who need them but can’t afford them.  It’s been both an international and local effort for decades, though a new, concerted focus – inspired by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and dubbed Direct Relief USA – has placed even greater emphasis on aid on the national and regional level.  That includes things like the delivery of medical supply packs for emergency responders and dental care for low-income children even in our own backyard.  DRI has leveraged its cache to get much of the medicine and supplies it distributes donated for free, meaning efficiency of identifying problem areas and delivering to them takes priority.  Forbes consistently ranks DRI among the most efficient charities in the nation.  Doing the math, the $500,000 donation by the vintners this year will translate to $15 million in critical aid.

Hence, the little auction that could.  And did.  Fact is, the reach of this event – driven by our friends and neighbor in the Santa Barbara wine industry – may be tough to rival anywhere else.

“I feel privileged to be involved with this event,” says Ostini.

And what of the Auction’s spectacular, record-setting success?  Tighe believes it’s due both to a better understanding by the community today of the work DRI does, combined with the still-troublesome economic reality of the day.  Fiolek adds, “This is a generous community that wants to give, it’s just a matter of how they’re asked.”

We’ll be asked all over again at the next American Riviera Wine Auction, set for February of 2014.

Meaty Milestone: Buellton's Hitching Post II Celebrates 25 Years

By Gabe Saglie

(published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on January 26, 2012)

It’s impossible to talk about the success of Buellton’s Hitching Post II restaurant without mentioning an Oscar-winning film named Sideways.

“A flash of celebrity,” chef-owner Frank Ostini calls it. 

Rex Pickett, the man who wrote the book that inspired the movie, has readily admitted that it was time spent sitting and sipping at the wine bar at the Hitching Post II – and a crush he developed on a waitress who once worked the floor there – that aroused the now-famous focus on pinot noir that remains a boon to Santa Barbara’s wine industry to this day.

It was a clear boon for Ostini’s restaurant, too.  “It led to at least three years of nonstop, steady demand!” Ostini says with evident amazement.

The movie’s success, and the influx of customers it created for the Hitching Post II, did lead the affable restaurateur to make key improvements to better meet the surge in demand.  “We finally fixed our air conditioning and we got Open Table to manage reservations,” he says.  But the core philosophies of his business – the things that had already made his eatery a local’s favorite and a special dining option for wine country tourists – remained the same.

“Our values, and our kitchen, did not change,” insists Ostini, as he ponies up to the same wood bar that once hosted Pickett.  “I told my employees that the movie was going to get people coming through our door, but that we still had to give them a compelling reason to keep coming back.”

Indeed, the Hitching Post II has always been a culinary draw.  The restaurant is now celebrating 25 years in a business that can be as volatile and competitive as it can be lucrative and rewarding.  To diners go the spoils, with a celebratory $25 three-course menu that runs through February 12^th and that features Hitching Post II staples like prime sirloin steak, natural turkey steak, smoked pork chop and market fresh fish.  A soup or salad starter and a hot apple sundae (think pound cake, hot apples, vanilla ice cream and caramel) are also included.

Frank Ostini and Gray Hartley

The quarter-century milestone is also being marked with the release of a special wine, a 2010 pinot noir made with fruit from Rio Vista mainly – that’s the closest pinot vineyard to the restaurant – as well as the celebrated Fiddlestix Vineyard in the Santa Rita Hills.  A glutton for a full plate, it turns out Ostini is not only a chef, he’s also a winemaker; the pinot-centric Hitching Post label, which Ostini produces with business partner and cellar master Gray Hartley, is readily considered a quintessential Santa Barbara wine producer.  The commemorative bottle sells for $25 at the restaurant (with generous discounts for half-case and full-case buys) and is also offered at $7.50 a glass. And wine buffs will notice something new on its label: the signature Roman numeral II (two) appears next to the Hitching Post logo for the first time.

That distinction in nomenclature, in fact, is important.  Ostini’s restaurant is actually preceded by the original Hitching Post in the nearby town of Casmalia.  That original steakhouse dates back to 1945 and was purchased by Ostini’s father – a cabinetmaker-turned-restaurateur – in 1952.  “My parents worked harder at that restaurant than I ever have,” says Ostini, humbly.

Ostini and his brother, Bill, began working at the restaurant when their father died in 1977, and they bought it outright from their mother in 1981.  Admittedly, there were creative differences in the kitchen.  “We wanted to take it in different directions,” recalls Ostini.  “Bill wanted to keep things the same and I wanted to try new things: a more extensive menu, offering soups made from scratch, featuring desserts and focusing on the business from Southern Californians coming up here to visit wineries.”  So Ostini took a leap of faith and opened up his own place – Hitching Post II – along Highway 246 in Buellton, just off Highway 101, in May of 1986.  And the rest is culinary history.

The original Hitching Post is still thriving, with a lengthy, storied past and an avid repeat clientele.  But the Hitching Post II has made its own claim on the valley’s food scene with a focus on quality Santa Maria-style barbecue – fare grilled over an open oak wood fire – and a penchant for infusing hearty, smoky flavors throughout the menu.  “A third of our menu is beef,” says Ostini, “but it’s 75 percent of what people order.”  The Hitching Post sources its meat from small packers in the Midwest – Iowa, Nebraska and Kansas, mainly – and doles out cuts like prime top sirloin, New York strip and filet mignon in a variety of portion sizes and made-to-order temperatures.  The menu also features daily fish specials and popular renditions of fowl, like Texas quail, Shelton chicken and duck breast.  Its rack of lamb and pork baby back ribs are big sellers.  And several appetizers are almost legendary, especially the grilled artichoke, which is steamed and then cooked over that distinctive oak wood fire before being seasoned with Ostini’s proprietary Magic Dust (a blend of three peppers, onion, garlic and salt in secret percentages) and served with his signature spicy smoked tomato mayonnaise.  The restaurant is specific about using the green globe artichoke variety exclusively, which it sources from growers in Castroville.

Weekly reduced-price specials have become popular, especially with locals.  Steak sandwiches are featured on Tuesdays and pulled pork sandwiches are headliners on Wednesdays.  A $12.95 oak grilled burger reels in the crowds on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays; extras like Tillamook cheese, grilled onions and avocado are $1 extra each.

The wine list offers several Hitching Post wines, mostly pinots, by the glass.  Interestingly, it also includes a Hitching Post merlot, a response by Hartley and Ostini to the hit that the red grape takes in the Sideways film; the main character’s foul-mouthed critique of the wine has been credited with a nationwide downturn in merlot sales that’s being felt to this day.  “We felt bad,” Ostini admits.  A mention of Sideways in the back label of this merlot (in defense of the grape) is the only reference to the movie that the consumer will ever find on any Hitching Post wine bottle or menu.  “But we were swimming upstream since 1986 with having pinot noir as the house wine at a steakhouse,” asserts Ostini with a chuckle.  “The movie definitely changed the stream’s direction.”

Ostini also retooled the restaurant’s wine list two years ago to bolster the inclusion of local wines; they now make up 90% of the list.  “These wineries referring people to our restaurant was crucial for us when we got started,” Ostini says.  “I don’t want to forget what got us here.”

But it isn’t the food or the wine that Ostini points to when he speaks of the Hitching Post II’s longevity and success.  Aside from loyal local, he credits his employees, many of whom shuffle back and forth behind him in dinner preparation as he sits calmly at the bar.  His restaurant, he says, is in good hands.  “With this 25-year celebration, I’m really honoring the everyday work all these people do,” he says with a noticeably genuine tone.  He makes special mention of staff who’ve been there since day one, like server Kelly Fairbrother, sous chef Jesus Montano and the restaurant’s executive chef, Bradley Lettau, who “taught me how to cut and cook fish,” admits Ostini, “and who makes a bacon that’s just incredible.”  Eight kitchen workers have been clocking in for more than 10 years.

Ostini recognizes that each employee “spends a third of their time with and for the Hitching Post II.”  And as he plays with the calculator function on his iPhone, he figures out that those who’ve been with him since the doors opened in 1986 “have done their daily chores 6000 times!  There’s a load of honor in that.”

These days, Ostini wears the hat of general manager (a signature pith hat, at that) and describes himself as a “systems guy” who ensures things run smoothly.  Peak season for the restaurant is March through October, and his duties after that are consumed by the annual grape harvest’s rigorous demands on any winemaker.  January and February tend to be calmer, which makes the timing of the current 25-year celebration ideal.

Ostini also focuses on shaking hands and mingling with guests often.  “We had this little miracle happen with the movie, my picture was in like 500 newspapers,” he says, “so that’s become important to a lot of the people who come here.”

The downturn in the economy in 2008 has softened sales some; but, buoyed by the earlier Sideways effect, no jobs at Hitching Post II have been lost.  “The movie gave us the opportunity to make a first impression all over again,” Ostini says, “and we knew that if we did things right, people would keep coming back.”

Mission accomplished.

Hitching Post II, 406 E. Highway 246, Buellton.  805-688-0676 www.HitchingPost2.com.

Local Wine Merchant Passes: Remembering Frank Crandall

By Gabe Saglie

(published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on January 8, 2012)

Frank Crandall may well have been one of those lucky people who lived two unique incarnations to their fullest.

Renegade Wines

For more than two decades, he was the go-to guy for many Santa Barbara wine aficionados.  As founder and owner of Renegade Wines, he garnered a following for his expansive selection of fairly priced bottles, his large wine storage space and a knack for tracking down hard-to-find labels.  But a younger Crandall lived a completely different reality – a young man’s rock and roll dream.

“You know, his brother in law was Alice Cooper,” says Jim Fiolek, executive director of the Santa Barbara County Vintners Association and longtime friend of Crandall.  This fascinating fact – that Crandall’s longtime wife, Nickie, was the sister of a rock legend – wasn’t something a decidedly unassuming and humble Crandall would readily mention.  But his affiliation, with both Alice Cooper and the world of rock and roll, extended well beyond family ties.

Crandall taught himself to play electric guitar and bass a young teen.  Many a prepubescent’s dream, but Crandall had a special knack.  In the 1970s, he helped found a classic rock band, Jett Black, that would soon become familiar with the roaring of crowd-swarmed stadiums by touring the East Coast and opening for hot names like Aerosmith and Bruce Springsteen.  When he moved to Southern California, his skill with strings got him headlining gigs on the wildly popular Sunset Strip and with accomplished performers like Tony Childs and The Motels.  And it was sheer talent that garnered him songwriting awards alongside colleague Alice Cooper; the domestic connection simply made the accolades sweeter.

It is quintessential irony that such an accomplished strummer would be afflicted with arthritis.  Crandall’s was, in fact, especially severe, and it affected both his hands and feet.  Those who met him in his later years undoubtedly noticed a visibly crippled hand whenever they went to shake it.  But Crandall always extended it without hesitation, and always with a distinctive, infectious guffaw.

Necessity forced Crandall to look at a different career track.  “His arthritis is why he gave up the bass,” recalls Fiolek.  But the wine business proved more than mere employment; it became a veritable way of life for Crandall.  His new incarnation started at the wine department inside Jurgensen’s, a now-closed but once-popular grocery along Coast Village Road in Montecito.  “People would come by asking for rare wines and Frank would put together these fabulous cases for them,” remembers Antonio Gardella, a fine wine specialist with wine distributor Henry Wine Group, and Crandall’s longtime supplier and friend.  “Over the years, he had this Rolodex of all these people and their wine wants, and when Jurgensen’s closed, he took it with him.”

Briefly, he sold wine while he worked at the Wine Bistro, another Coast Village Road landmark of yesteryear.  But, as friend and Renegade business partner Steve Wayne tells it, “he soon said to himself, ‘Hey, I could do this on my own.’”  His solo venture launched in 1990 from a wine warehouse near Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone run by then-wine merchant and successful winemaker Chris Whitcraft.  But it wasn’t long before he found a quirky spot at East Gutierrez and Santa Barbara Streets to open a wine shop that would be his own.

“The Wine Cask had just opened so a lot of people called him nuts for going off on his own,” recounts Wayne.  “They called him a renegade.”  The name fit, and stuck.

Renegade Wines opened in a 1500-square foot, no-frills storage space in an industrial complex.  Not a splashy spot, and not easy to find.  “The speakeasy of wine shops” is how one tourist recently described it after finally finding his way there, Wayne recalls with a laugh.  Indeed, committed wine buffs have made their way there over the years, enough so that Crandall expanded his shop twice – once around 1995 and again about six years ago – by knocking down the walls to neighbor spaces that became vacant.  He built his business by engaging customers with genuine enthusiasm for wine and making a point to keep prices competitive.  And he forged solid, long-lasting relationships with purveyors like Gardella, who still recalls the largest order Crandall ever placed with him: “25 cases of Dow’s Port,” he says.

Crandall also developed a keen palate for tasting wine.  “We’d have distributors come in with samples and Frank would take on sip and say, ‘Corked!’” recalls Wayne.  “And after two or three more sips, you’d realize, yeah, he’s right, this wine is corked.  And the distributor would tell us he’d been tasting other buyers on the same bottle all day and they’d loved it!”  Crandall preferred whites, chardonnays in particular, and especially those from the Corton-Charlemagne appellation in Burgundy.  “On special occasions, the bottle he’d open all the time was the Louie Latour,” remembers Wayne.

Today, Renegade Wines is a nearly 5000-square foot shop with a burgeoning selection that Crandall regularly updated for his customers online, at www.renegadewines.com.  Most of the space is, actually, home to temperature- and humidity-controlled lockers for wine storage that are under 24-hour video surveillance.  Budding collectors have smaller eight-case lockers to rent; serious connoisseurs can choose spaces that hold close to 600 cases.  The store’s total storage capacity is more than a quarter-million bottles.  Renegade obtained a license to hold monthly tastings four years ago, which has also helped bolster business.

When Crandall passed away on December 29^th, it came as a surprise, a shock even, for many who knew him.  “I had no idea he was that sick,” says Fiolek.  Par for the course, perhaps, for a man who wore humility on his sleeve.  Wayne says the 64-year-old ended his daily visits to the wine shop in May of last year, a victim to health complications wrought by cancer.  But his spunk managed to survive.  “He was still cracking jokes last time I spoke with him on the phone,” says Wayne, “about three or four days before he died.”

Wayne worked with Crandall at Renegade Wines for 10 years.  He is hoping to buy Renegade Wines outright.  For now, he says the store is still very much open for business.

For Fiolek, the few days since Crandall’s passing have spurred memories of both wine and rock and roll.  Turns out, the man who successfully lived two incarnations found a way to perfectly, wonderfully – but briefly – enjoy the two together.  The launch of Renegade Wines in 1990 coincided with the formation of a band of Santa Barbara-based winemakers and wine aficionados called “H2S”; the formula for hydrogen sulfide was a tongue-and-cheek title equating the chemical compound’s notoriously stinky rotten-egg smell to the purported talents of the band members, which included Fiolek and Whitcraft, among others.  “Our first gig was [winemaker] Fred Brander’s 40^th birthday party in October of 1990,” remembers Fiolek.  Crandall was the rock band’s bassist for about three years, until the debilitating pain from arthritis won out.

“But Frank always played through the pain, had this fierce look in his eye, just kept it going, kept it going, and always kept our rhythm, and made sure things always fell into place,” recalls Fiolek.  “So he was a lot like the instrument he played: steady, and always kept the beat going.”

Score! Local Wines Land on Coveted Best-of List

By Gabe Saglie
(published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on December 8, 2011)

The significance of being featured in a publication like Wine Spectator Magazine is not lost on winemaker John Falcone.

“It’s the most read wine magazine in the entire country,” he says, “and probably even internationally.”

With an estimated readership of 2.6 million, and a global reach, Wine Spectator is readily known as the magazine of record among wine enthusiasts.  Its reviews and endorsements can help sell wine in large numbers.  Its writers are industry celebs.

Perhaps it most anticipated release is its yearly roundup of the 100 most exciting wines, which it first published in 1988.  According to a company press release, the top 100 wines “reflect significant trends, recognize outstanding producers and spotlight successful regions and vintages around the world.”  The magazine’s editors revisit wines they’ve already reviewed throughout the year and list them based on four criteria: quality (reflected in scores earned from a 100-point scale), value, availability and an overall “X-factor,” or general excitement generated by a particular wine.  Paring down more than 16,000 selections, the list of the best 100 from 2011 was released a few days ago.

“We didn’t know we’d made the list until a retailer in Chicago called us to say congratulations,” says Mr. Falcone.  The 2008 Santa Barbara County syrah he made for the Rusack label of Ballard Canyon was #27 on the list.  The $25 wine garnered 93 points – an enviable feat –- when the magazine first reviewed it last year.  The ranking honors a team that also includes assistant winemaker Steve Gerbac and enologist Helen Falcone.

This is the first time a Rusack wine’s made it on this high-profile lineup and Mr. Falcone admits “it’s quite an honor.”  The wine, itself, is sold out now; the 2009 syrah is on store shelves now.  But the buzz from the honor goes beyond the bottle.  “This kind of publicity brings recognition to the brand, period,” he says.  “People start to ask, ‘what other wines do you have?’  And a lot of them will look at Rusack a lot more closely the next time they’re buying wine.”

Mr., Falcone remembers 2008 as a reduced vintage for syrah, though “the wines tended to be fruity and forward, and very aromatic and easy to drink.”  About 60% of the wine’s fruit came from the Rusack estate off Ballard Canyon Road; the rest came from multiple syrah sources throughout the county.

Two other Santa Barbara County wines made the list, too.  The 2008 Rhone blend “The Offering” on the Sans Liege label -- a $25 wine that also was awarded 93 points – was 34^th on the list.  And Doug Margerum’s Sybarite Sauvignon Blanc from Happy Canyon, a $21 bottle and 91-point winner, took slot #82.

Winemaker Brian Loring makes wine in Lompoc, and makes mostly vineyard-designate pinot noirs; the pinot he makes annually with Santa Rita Hills fruit is always a best-seller.  But Loring made this year’s list with a wine he made using fruit from Sonoma County’s Russian River Valley.  The $29 wine from 2009, which scored 93 points when it was first reviewed in February, ranked 75^th.

“Being on the Top 100 list is really cool because it's worldwide,” says Mr. Loring.  “It's also nice that the selections are based on price and availability, as well as score.  That means that the wines are often more consumer friendly than just a list of $1000 bottles of wine that very few people can afford.”

Since the list’s publication, Loring Wine Company has been an increase in phone calls, emails and mailing list sign-ups.  “That hasn’t resulted in increased sales per se,” Mr. Loring adds, “but it's always nice to get new people exposed to your brand, which should translate into future sales.”

The wine, itself, which saw a production of about 600 cases, has been sold out since early this year.  The winemaker recalls 2009 as “a fantastic year for California pinot noir” and “as perfect as you could wish for.  His Russian River Valley wine, specifically, “was probably the lightest, most elegant pinot we made from 2009.  Our wines tend to get bigger as you head south, with our Sta. Rita Hills pinots being some of the boldest we make.  While many of our wines received equally as good scores, I think it was the combination of the lower price point and relatively higher production of the Russian River Valley pinot caused the senior editors at Wine Spectator to choose that wine for their Top 100,” says Mr. Loring.

California Central Coast was further represented on the coveted list with three wines – and all red Rhone blends – from Paso Robles.  The 2008 “The Dirt Whisperer” from Denner Winery was #11, with 97 points and a $45 price tag.  Tablas Creek’s 2009 Cotes de Tablas was 37^th, with 93 points and a $30 price point.  And with 97 points and a retail price of $75, Saxum’s James Berry Vineyard came in 52^nd place; the winery’s ’07 blend by the same name got the top spot in the magazine’s list for 2010.

In all, Wine Spectator’s Top 100 wines list for 2011 represented 12 countries.  The number one slot went to a Northern California Burgundian: Kosta Browne’s 2009 Sonoma Coast pinot noir, a $52 bottle.  You can find the complete list here: http://assets.winespectator.com/wso/pdf/WS123111_Top100AtAGlance.pdf.

Handcrafted in More Ways Than One: Couple's Los Olivos Venture Features Jewelry and Wine

By Gabe Saglie
(published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on November 28, 2011)

As the Santa Barbara wine buzz has exploded over the last decade, Los Olivos has become an oenophile’s mecca.  But as dozens of tasting rooms have opened their doors, the quaint Santa Ynez Valley town has seen many art galleries make way by closing theirs.  Now, one young couple is putting the spotlight back on art, with a venture that highlights the creative merits of both jewelry and wine.

“Both industries are extremely similar,” says jeweler Samantha Coghlan, 29.  “It’s the idea of taking something the earth is giving you – a rock or a grape – and transforming it into a beautiful handcrafted product.”

Mrs. Coghlan and her husband, Eric, fell in love with the Santa Ynez Valley when they celebrated their first anniversary here in 2008 and spent several days wine tasting.  The small-town feel appealed to them, and felt familiar; she’s from Sun Valley, Idaho and he hails from Kosciusko, a Mississippi town of about 7,000 residents.  When they returned on their second anniversary, they looked at real estate in earnest and stumbled upon a 100-acre property near Happy Canyon, about a mile inland from where Highway 246 meets the Chumash Highway. 

“There was a cabernet vineyard already on it, but it had been neglected for years,” admits Mr. Coghlan, 28.  But farming was in his blood; his father and grandfather had tended land in Mississippi since he was a boy, so this was a challenge Mr, Coghlan welcomed.  “We added 10 acres of vines and took it totally organic,” he says, noting that the property where they grow grapes is also the home where they’re raising their two sons, four-year-old Ozzy and eight-month old Cash.  “It’s important for us not to have chemicals affecting our children and our animals.”  Official organic certification of the Coghlans’ land is pending.

But there’s more than just the penchant for farming that runs through the Coghlans’ veins.  The two are graduate jewelry gemologists, having received their accreditation from the prestigious Gemological Institute of America, or GIA, in San Diego.  The organization is readily seen as a global leader in diamond grading, jewelry education and gemology.  “Getting a degree from here is seen like having a PhD after your name” Mr. Coghlan says.

This is where the couple met.  He was there pursuing the family business.  In 1956, his grandfather had bought what is now the longest running jewelry store in Kosciusko, run today by Mr, Coghlan’s parents.  His father, himself, had ventured to Southern California to get his training at GIA, and taught there for several years.  The younger Coghlan’s focus was on jewelry manufacturing arts and gemology.  “Doing work on a bench,” he explains, “like stone setting and metal snipping.”

She was there following her dream.  The young girl who once considered a career in the CIA or FBI began handcrafting jewelry at age 16, “making leather cuff bracelets with antique fabric,” Mrs. Coghlan recalls.  She got such positive response for her work, she evolved to working with gem stones and, by the time she attended college in Arizona and became active in the trunk show circuit, wire wrapping with beaded work.  “Making jewelry was my passion, and by now I felt that I really needed to have an education,” she says.  “Doing it just as a hobby was not fulfilling enough.”

The couple was engaged in 2006, and the pair reminisces with a laugh about the engagement ring that sealed the deal.  “The bad part about that was that whatever diamond I bought, she’d know what it was,” he jokes.  “I couldn’t pull the wool over her eyes.”  Mrs. Coghlan’s ring finger is now adorned with a champagne-colored diamond.  “We both love color,” he says, “and colored stones is what we enjoy working with the most.”  His wife agrees, and adds, “Our jewelry is an expression of artistic abilities and colored stones add a beautiful spectrum to that.”

So what’s a couple with a penchant for the artistic – not to mention newly-acquired degrees in jewels and a newly-acquired plot of vines -- to do?

Coghlan Vineyards and Jewelers opened its doors along Alamo Pintado Road in Los Olivos on May 19.  A unique venue, it features myriad jewelry handcrafted entirely by Sam and Eric Coghlan, as well a tasting room for their new line of wines.

The Coghlans’ handiwork is featured in displays throughout the store and on the walls, as well as inside the bar where wine curious visitors must rest their glasses between sips.  Talk about a captive audience.  The team crafts their pieces both at a studio at home and a small shop setup inside the tasting room.  And the work load is steady.  “We have to provide all of the inventory,” Mr. Coghlan says, “and we don’t repeat anything, it’s all one-of-a-kind.” 

Output demand varies.  “Eric works a lot with 18-carat metals and he may make three rings in a day,” says Mrs. Coghlan.  “More intricate rings could take three days or more to make.”

“And when we were getting ready for a street fair [in Los Olivos] recently, Sam was beading like crazy, pumping out five or six pieces in a day,” Mrs. Coghlan says.

Among the best-selling jewels are wire-wrapped bird nest rings that she makes.  At $30 apiece, “we can’t keep them on the shelf,” she says.  Her husband is gaining a reputation for a high-end line of real antique Roman coins, which he sets in gold.  “They sell like crazy,” she adds.

Thanks to a large selection of handmade beaded items, the Coghlans says they can keep price points competitive.  Gem stone earrings sell for $30 a pair.  Intricate necklaces can range from $90-$150.  “The most expensive item we have is an 18-carat gold bracelet Eric made,” Mrs. Coghlan says.  It sells for $5000.

Custom design is quickly becoming an important part of the Coghlans’ jewelry business.  “We’re updating, resetting, recreating pieces for many clients,” says Mrs. Coghlan, “and they can walk away wearing something for the first time in a long time and feeling good about it.” 

Modern technology also plays a role.  The couple uses sophisticated computer programs to help clients design and visualize jewelry pieces before they’re cast.  “We can see a rendered photograph of what they want us to make that’s so real, they can tell us right away what we need to adjust,” says Mr. Coghlan.  “Before, we had to do it all with wax.”

The Coghlans’ wine business is no less diligent.  They’re brought on celebrated local winekaer Alan Phillips to handcraft a lineup that currently includes a 2009 estate cabernet sauvignon and a 50-50 cabernet-merlot dubbed Fusion, made with grapes off the family’s Happy Canyon plot.  “We make them so it’s not highly extracted, not like the Napa Valley standard,” says Phillips.  “Instead, we’re going for elegance and balance, and luscious wines that are ready to drink as soon as you open them.”

Many of the new planting on the Coghlans’ property will come online next year, so the output of estate wines will increase.  For now, though, they’re sourcing grapes for their other wines from other established vineyards.  That includes a Grenache blanc and two pinot noirs, one made with fruit from Richard Sanford’s celebrated La Encantada Vineyards and the other from Rio Vista Vineyard grapes.

Just like any two pieces of handcrafted jewelry are unique, the two Coghlan pinots are distinct.  “My mantra is, let the grapes dictate your style,” says Phillips.  “Rio Vista is in the warmest, eastern-most portion of the Santa Rita Hills, so it’s more round and accessible, not as extracted.”  Le Encantada is in the much cooler, windier western stretch of the appellation, and the resulting pinot is “more dense, darker, fuller,” Phillips adds.

The Coghlan wine production is small – about 300 cases per lot.  They’re sold exclusively through the tasting room and, within a few weeks, the company’s new web site at www.coghlanvineyard.com.

The jewelry and wine store on Alamo Pintado is on a one-acre piece of land which the Coghlans also own, and which houses two other enterprises.  One is the Art Outreach Gallery, a space the Coghlans donated to the nonprofit group that promotes the arts to students throughout Santa Barbara County.  “It’s a rotating art gallery where teachers can showcase their work,” says Mrs. Coghlan, who’s also vice-president of the group’s board.  “They can sell their work and proceeds go back to Arts Outreach.”

The Coghlan showroom’s other neighbor is another tasting room: Fontes-Phillips.  This is Alan Phillips’ own boutique label, which he owns with his wife Rochelle, and which features a highly-regarded pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot gris; their celebrated Rhone rosé is playfully called Panky.  Suffice it to say, beyond their business relationship, the Coghlans and Phillips have become good friends, and the winemaker appreciates the Coghlans’ efforts at bringing two seemingly disparate industries together. 

“They’re both artistic expressions in a different way,” he says.

Harvest Lessons: Local Winery Hosts International Interns

By Gabe Saglie
(published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on November 20, 2011)

Vanessa Guardia and Romina Regules have a lot in common.  The budding winemakers both work in the wine-buzz region of Mendoza in their native Argentina.  And, coincidentally, both are working on the same thesis toward their enology degrees, on winemaking’s carbon footprint and environmental impacts.  But the two have just recently become friends.

“We actually didn’t meet until a week before harvest started,” says Guardia, 32, in Spanish.

And that’s because the two women have something else in common: they are wrapping up their first harvest internship at Lucas & Lewellen Winery in Buellton.  They met just a few days before flying north for the summer, just before grape picking in Santa Barbara County got underway.  And now they, along with three other international winemakers, have new friendships, and plenty of new know-how, under their belts.

Lucas & Lewellen hosts interns every harvest.  The paid positions run about four months, to coincide with harvest season from beginning to end.  Winemaker Megan McGrath Gates, who’s been in charge of selecting interns for the last five years, finds prospects through an agricultural exchange program run by the state.  “We screen them digitally first, online, and then narrow them down to people with skills we’d be interested in,” she says.  “I require they either have some wine education or at least some hands-on experience.  I want people who show initiative and real interest in wine.”

This year, McGrath Gates picked five candidates with impressive global reach.  Joining Guardia and Regules for the 2011 harvest are Umberto Gaia from Italy’s Piedmont region, Gustavo Assandri from Uruguay and Mehul Patel from India.  The five are paid a stipend – they get time-and-a-half if they work more than eight hours a day or 40 hours a week – and are hosted as a group in a private home that’s walking distance from the winery on East Street.  “They love it because it’s a family setting under one roof, with home cooking, Internet access and TV,” says McGrath Gates.

The workload is steady, often six days a week, based on the volume of grapes that are picked and the day-to-day demands inside the winery.

“My goal was to basically gain more experience and learn new techniques to take back home,” says Regules, 26, also in Spanish.  “And, of course, to learn new cultures and to better my English.”  She admits that most Argentinians think Napa when they think California wine, and that zinfandel, California’s purported native variety, has notoriety.  “But I have been very surprised by the variety of wines here,” she declares.  “In Mendoza, most wineries focus on two, three, maybe four varietals.  But here we’ve been working with more than 20, which is great because we’re exposed to grapes we never get to work with.”

Truth be told, Lucas & Lewellen, which was co-founded by pioneering viticulturist Louie Lucas, is one of Santa Barbara County’s most prolific producers.  The company grows some 24 grape varieties on three estate vineyards in Santa Maria, Los Alamos and the Santa Ynez Valley.  It also sells grapes to myriad wine producers throughout California.  “We made less of our own wine this year because Louis sold more fruit to other wineries, especially up north where yields were dramatically down this year,” says McGrath Gates.  “Our own yields were down, too, but not nearly as much.”

For Guardia, seeing the differences in the malbec produced by Lucas & Lewellen and that made in Argentina has been a fascinating lesson.  The Bordeaux grape is readily considered Argentina’s flagship variety.  “The softness of the tannins is similar, but here it tends to be silkier and the color is so deep and intense,” she says.

Guardia also noticed some distinction in the way wine is made.  “In Argentina, we make wine in large quantities,” she says.  “But here, they work a lot in smaller batches, and each is different and unique, often with different alcohol and acidity levels.”

Regules adds, “To work with small batches at a time is great, because you can closely see the evolution of your wine.”

It hasn’t been all work, of course.  The group has gotten to know their temporary community well.  “Everybody has been so kind and giving,” Regules says.  And they’ve done their fair share of travel, visiting tourist hot spots like the Grand Canyon and Hollywood.  “Las Vegas was a lot different than Solvang,” Guardia says with a laugh.  For her and Regules, this was their first visit to the United States.

“For me, this has been an amazing opportunity both professionally and personally,” adds Guardia.  “We all formed friendships, talked about life in our respective countries, shared stories and expanded our experience in so many ways.”

The experience is always enlightening for McGrath Gates, too.  “I ask them about techniques they’re using back home all the time,” she says, but speaks most enthusiastically about the relationships she’s forged.  “I recently visited one of our former interns from Portugal,” she says, “and she took us all over Lisbon, introduced us to these amazing cheeses and Ports, and to all these cultural treasures.” 

Methodology can change, after all, but friendships can last long.

This year’s internship officially ends on Tuesday.  But Guardia and Regules are not planning on heading back home until early December.  “We’re still hoping to visit Miami,” they echo each other with a laugh.

Fame Official: Vintner Richard Sanford to be Inducted Into Vintners Hall of Fame

By Gabe Saglie

(published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on October 23, 2011)

Richard Sanford

When Richard Sanford got into the wine business, he had two options: study viticulture at UC Davis or roll up his sleeves and plant vines.

“I thought, ‘I could either have a degree in four years, or I could have grapes in four years,’” he recalls.  And I chose grapes.”

That unabashed pioneering attitude has been well recognized by the Santa Barbara wine community for decades.  The vineyard that has long bared his name – Sanford & Benedict – remains to this day one of zone’s more stories sources for Burgundian grapes.  And the wineries he founded – Sanford first and, most recently, Alma Rosa – have been indisputable pacesetters in quality wine production.

Now, that acknowledgment has officially gone mainstream.  The Culinary Institute of America is inducting Sanford into its 2012 Vintners Hall of Fame, an honor that recognizes his profound contribution to an industry that may be as much about business and marketing as it is about instinct and art.  The new inductee feels humbled.

“I am flattered and proud,” he says.  “Just sort of overwhelmed, frankly.”

But even for the characteristically modest Sanford, there’s also as admission that the road to recognition has been paved with plenty of hard work and a fair share of innovation.

“For a long time, people have been talking about me as some sort of pioneer, and it’s all felt silly, really.  But truth is, it has been a long effort and experience and commitment.  And it feels great to look at the whole region and to see the quality we’ve achieved here.  That’s the biggest reward.”

The region Sanford refers to is the Santa Rita Hills, those roughly 100 square miles of now-prime grape growing real estate that stretches west of Highway 101, from Buellton toward Lompoc.  It won the federal stamp of approval as a unique appellation 10 years ago, and was touted as an area especially well-suited for cool climate grapes like pinot noir and chardonnay for at least a decade before that.  But back in the late 60s and early 70s, when a young Sanford spent many a day driving through the rolling valley with a thermometer in his car to study temperature and climate, “people thought I was nuts,” he recalls with a laugh. No one was growing wine grapes there, with plantings relegated instead to warmer areas like Foxen Canyon and Los Olivos.  “But I had confidence.”

In many ways, this environmental experimentation was cathartic for Sanford.  As soon as he’d graduated from UC Berkeley in 1965, he’d been drafted, and he spent the next three years at war as a sailor in the U.S. Navy.  “Back from Vietnam, to drive around in a tractor in nature was very healing,” he says.  “That time was precious, a spiritual kind of journey and a great period for me, personally.”

But the young man who’d opted for planting grapes instead of seeking a school degree had still managed to do his homework.  An early admirer of French wines, “I’d done a lot of research into the climates of Burgundy, went back 100 years in gathering climate information, and started comparing it to climates in California,” he recalls.  “My prejudice then was that pinot noir was going into climates that were too warm.  And I found that the east-west mountains [in the Santa Rita Hills] allowed weather to come in and make it cool.  That marine influence was important.  It’s about a degree Fahrenheit cooler for every mile you go west.  And that’s unusual for almost anywhere in the world.”

This, of course, was Sanford’s eureka moment.  It was the birth of a winemaking movement that, today, is responsible for some of Santa Barbara’s most lauded wines.  But in the years that followed, pioneering was a relatively lonely business.

Sanford and botanist Michael Benedict established the Sanford & Benedict nursery in 1970, cultivating cuttings from an experimental vineyard that had been planted in the Tepesquet Mesa in the mid 60s.  A year later, they put in the ground their namesake vineyard, which would take until 1976 to offer the young winemaker viable fruit.  That vintage was aged for two years and finally released in 1978. “That’s when people started to take some notice of the possibility here,” says Sanford, who left Sanford & Benedict in 1980.

Sanford Winery was founded in 1981, and much of the first decade of his solo winemaking project took Sanford on the road.  “I spent a lot of time traveling and talking about the region,” Sanford remembers.  And touting something brand new was no easy task.  “It would have been a lot easier if I was in a recognized region, like Napa.  And on the East Coast, everyone was looking to European wines in those days.”

Sanford admits that the Santa Rita Hills finally attained more widespread recognition in the 1990s, but he speaks about that period with a bittersweet tenor.  “By 1995, Prudential and Bank of America were the biggest vineyard owners in Santa Barbara County, and they were looking to get rid of them,” he says.  “Napa guys like Mondavi, Kendall-Jackson and Beringer were already buying up chardonnay from here to blend with Napa chard to increase quality, so they ended up buying all the vineyards from the insurance companies.  Of course, I lost the opportunity to buy grapes from Sierra Madre Vineyard when Mondavi bought it.”

He adds, “Once they had major investments here, that’s when they finally started to toot the horn.  It’s curious how it takes the effort of marketing to create a buzz,”

Sanford sold his eponymous winery in 2005 (the new owners continue to capitalize on the name) and launched his current and very personal winemaking endeavor, Alma Rosa Winery.

“This whole new effort is a chance to recognize the quality of the grapes growing in our region,” he says.  “At Sanford, we were making great wine but it was more classic and used more oak aging.  But I thought, here we are with these beautiful bright grapes and high acids, why not preserve that?”  The Alma Rosa wines include pinot gris, pinot blanc, chardonnay and pinot noir; much of the latter is sourced from the latest vineyard planted by Sanford, La Encantada in the Santa Rita Hills.  The wines are produced sustainably from organic grapes and are typically brilliant and light; Sanford uses absolutely no malolactic fermentation, a process that converts tarter malic acid to softer lactic acid, to give wines a fuller, more buttery mouth feel.

And he uses screwcaps, no corks, in all his wines.  He and wife Thekla “are very pleased with the way the wine keeps in terms of freshness and aging,” he says.  He admits that some traditionalist consumers are yet to be won over, but “I’m sold on it.”

Spoken like a pioneer.

Sanford will be inducted to the 2012 Vintners Hall of Fame on February 20^th, 2012, at the Culinary Institute of America’s Greystone campus in St. Helena.  The induction class, the 6^th annual, will also include Peter Mondavi, Sr. of Charles Krug Winery, Professor Albert Winkler of UC Davis, Joe Heitz of Napa’s Heitz Cellars, former Beringer winemaker Myron Nightingale, Mendocino vintner Joe Parducci and soil scientist Dr. Eugene Hilgard.  Tickets are $175.  For more information, visit www.ciachef.edu.

And for more on Richard Sanford and Alma Rosa Winery, visit www.almarosawinery.com.