Southern California Wineries Open Doors
Entrepreneurial vintners find varied ways to meet their markets
Santa Barbara & Ventura counties, Calif. -- Several young wineries in these South Coast counties are bringing their products to the public via untraditional venues.
Municipal Winemakers plans to open its tasting room next month in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone. Proprietor Dave Potter will host the grand opening of his urban tasting space Feb. 20. It will be the 11th winery to join the Santa Barbara Urban Wine Trail and will be open only on weekends, when Potter himself will pour.
Potter plans to maintain his day job on the winemaking team at Fess Parker and Epiphany, where he produces a scant 500 cases per year of his Municipal wines. He started the label in 2007; it includes Bright White dry Riesling, Bright Red Rhône blend and most recently, FIZZ sparkling Shiraz. Potter will pour them exclusively at the new space at 28 Anacapa St.
Six friends made wine together for 10 years before going pro with Four Brix. From left: Steve and Lora Simonsgaard, Gary and Karen Stewart, Tracy and Jim Noonan.
An even newer operation, Four Brix, crushed its first 640 commercial cases last fall. Four Brix will host its inaugural public tasting April 24 at the Lost Canyons Golf Club in Simi Valley, after a “soft opening” April 7 at a Paso Robles wine bar.
The Four Brix business plan does not include a dedicated tasting room. The virtual winery is owned by three Simi Valley couples, the Simonsgaards, Stewarts and Noonans, who source grapes from many premium California growing regions and produce the wine at In Vino Veritas custom crush in Paso Robles.
Partner Lori Simonsgaard told Wines & Vines, “We started making wine in our driveway about 10 years ago. We started with 1 ton, and grew to 8.5.” The partners donated much of their output to charity, but Simonsgaard said, “People wanted to buy it, and we couldn’t sell it, so we decided to bite the bullet and get licensed.” She hopes to establish a brick-and-mortar presence at a wine shop in Thousand Oaks.
The 2009 vintage includes five different wines: an Italian-style red similar to a Super Tuscan, plus Spanish and Rhône-style red blends and a French-style white blend, plus a California blend of Zinfandel and Petit Sirah, all to retail in the $30-35 range.
The Four Brix partners are anxiously awaiting TTB approval for their labels. “We’re working on some changes,” Simonsgaard said. “It’s a little painful.”
A few miles inland, just off Highway 101 in Camarillo, Camarillo Custom Crush Winery, began regular tasting room hours just last weekend. Saturday drew some 60 visitors, according to assistant winemaker Justin Tatum. With virtually no pre-publicity, the turnout “blew us away. We know it is going to be big,” he said.
Proprietor John Daume produces his own Daume Winery wines there, along with those of 70-plus winery clients. The current plan is to pour wines from three or four featured wineries each weekend, but Tatum said he hopes soon to organize something so that virtually all of the 170-odd wines will be available for sales and/or tastings. Wines & Vines first featured the custom crush in a September 2008 headline covering the emerging Ventura County wine country.
There’s been a change of plan for Channel Islands Winery since we first mentioned it last October.
At the time, owner Doug Scott had just received approval from the Oxnard Planning Commission to open a working winery, tasting room and art gallery in an inland industrial park. Although the address was included on the Ventura County Wine Trail Map, Scott, who formerly owned Santa Ynez Winery, decided to move the tasting room/gallery to a storefront on the busy waterfront of the Channel Islands Harbor. It’s expected to open by the end of January.