If winemakers across Santa Barbara County were astonished by how early many of the region’s grapes ripened, they only had to think back to one of the warmest winters and springs on state record.

According to a September article in Wine Business, Greg Porter, a senior meteorologist at the San Francisco Chronicle, called December 2025 through February 2026 a tie with 2014-15 for the warmest winter in California since record-keeping began in 1895.

By the end of March, it was clear that California had witnessed the warmest and driest month on record, according to state officials.

Ben Van Antwerp of Ken Brown Wines, one of the three winemakers I interviewed, explained how “the warm spring weather during bud break triggered vegetative (green) growth instead of cluster development, so the result was smaller cluster size overall.”

However, that news extended a silver lining: “A lighter crop is good with the state of the market” still weathering saturation, he said.

The warmer winter and spring days also caused grapes to ripen weeks ahead of schedule, winemakers said. 

Sea Smoke picked four tons of pinot noir for its sparkling wine on June 30, the very day I toured the vineyards with Don Schroeder, director of winemaking. The prior “earliest” harvest at Sea Smoke was on July 18, he recalled.

Van Antwerp, a winemaker at Ken Brown since 2021, also produces about 500 cases of pinot noir and chardonnay for Jim York’s Catalina View Wines, based in Palos Verdes. The pinot noir from that ocean-view vineyard was harvested on July 14 — Van Antwerp’s first pick for 2026, he said. 

Ken Brown Wines’ final pick this year were the winery’s pinot noir grapes sourced from Fiddlestix Vineyard, which came in Aug. 28. 

In 2025, the last of the pinot noir were grapes from Radian Vineyard on Oct. 6, Van Antwerp said.

While harvest kicked off earlier this year, “the pace was smooth,” with the lower yields keeping long days to the bare minimum.

Van Antwerp passed on a quote from a seasoned viticulturist: “I wish all harvests were this easy!”

He expects the final wines to show quality similar to those from 2023 and 2024 because of 2026’s temperate climate: “There’s good concentration of flavors, low alcohol and good acidity. It looks to be a very promising year.”

In 2025, producers endured unseasonably cold temperatures, and in 2022, triple-digit heat arrived Labor Day weekend, typically when pinot noir grapes come ripe.

Having an early but uncomplicated harvest meant Van Antwerp and his colleagues could toast Brown, who celebrated his 50th vintage this year.

“We had a party for him in August,” Van Antwerp said.

While Brown has conceded some of the heavy lifting to Van Antwerp, he remains “very involved” with the blending process, as well as with all harvest decisions. 

“The things that are critical to making high-quality wine he’s still very involved in,” Van Antwerp said. “Still, he’s enjoying some of the fruits of not having to do all of the paperwork” that comes with owning a winery.

At Alma Rosa Winery, winemaker Samra Morris was two-thirds of the way through her eighth harvest when we spoke on Sept. 25. 

Like Van Antwerp, Morris noted that clusters were small, but the “juice to skin ratio is nice and the phenolics are good.” Phenolics are the polyphenols — natural substances in the skins, seeds and stems rather than the pulp of grapes.

Crews at Alma Rosa estate first picked pinot noir in mid-July, Morris said.

Boyd Shermis, winemaker and co-owner with his wife, Denise, of Tomi Cellars in Buellton, were the first producers I interviewed. The date was Sept. 12, and the couple’s exhaustion was palpable.

Boyd Shermis explained: While the two have a “vested partner” in their winery, he resides in Arizona. Picking started so quickly “that he only arrived late last week, so he missed quite a bit,” Boyd Shermis said, smiling. “I’ve only gotten minimal sleep.”

In mid-August came the tempranillo and syrah he sources from Paso Robles, and then “all the pinot noir came in on its heels,” Boyd Shermis said.

While some of Tomi Cellars’ 2026 pinot noir was already barreled down on Sept. 12, more picks were fermenting in the cellar, such as some from Our Lady of Guadalupe harvested on Sept. 4.

Not only was this harvest his “earliest in recent memory,” while the progress of Shermis’ pinot noir picks typically encompass “one month, this year we got it all within 12 days. The pinot noir all came in together; I’ve not experienced that before.” 

“We got 80% of our fruit in a two-week span,” Boyd Shermis said.

However, Boyd Shermis, leading Tomi Cellars’ eighth harvest, spoke highly of this growth year’s  “consistent degree days,” which produced “good chemistry, good numbers.”

While he detailed harvest, I sipped a glass of Tomi Cellars’ 2025 White Balance, a blend of grenache blanc, roussanne, marsanne, viognier and picpoul blanc. 

In 2024, the Shermises took over the Buellton tasting room and cellar previously utilized by Ross Rankin of Imagine Wine. Rankin and Boyd Shermis worked together crafting several of Tomi Cellars’ vintages before the former retired from winemaking. 

One needn’t look further than the names of Tomi Cellars’ various wines for a clue to the Shermises’ professional background: Hue, Volumetric, Back Light, Refraction and Circle Take, to name just a handful.

When he’s not making wine, Boyd Shermis, active in film and television since the mid-1980s, manages and directs digital effects and action sequences. Denise Shermis also is a film industry veteran.

Now, heading Tomi Cellars, the two produce between 900 and 1,000 cases per year, Boyd Shermis said.