Bien Nacido, one of Santa Barbara County’s oldest and most distinguished vineyards, was recognized by two national publications earlier this year.
In January, Wine Enthusiast included Bien Nacido in an article titled “10 Vineyards Behind the World’s Most Famous Wines.” The Santa Maria vineyard was in the company of some historic properties, some of which are in France — Romanée-Conti of Burgundy, of Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) fame; Montrachet, a grand cru vineyard famed for chardonnay; and Old Garden Vineyard in Australia’s Barrossa Valley, to name just three.
Bien Nacido topped a compilation of vineyards in another article, this time in Food & Wine. The August story profiled “The 17 Most Important California Vineyards All Wine Lovers Need to Know.”
As author Jonathan Cristaldi noted, “it’s the smaller, boutique wineries that have made the vineyard famous, like the late Jim Clendenen’s Au Bon Climat, Ojai Vineyards, Qupe (now Lindquist Family Wines) Tyler and Gary Farrell.”
Since 1969, when the Miller family, fifth-generation California farmers, purchased a stretch of land that’s now the vineyard and planted it to vines in the early 1970s, it’s truly been the winemakers who source the grapes that have driven Bien Nacido into the hands of wine aficionados the world over.
Yet the site itself represents some of California’s richest lineage.
The history of the land now known as Bien Nacido harkens back to 1837, when Thomas Olivera secured a Spanish land grant of two square leagues from Juan Bautista Alvarado, then gobernadora of Alta California.
The land grant stretched up toward the San Rafael Mountains from the Santa Maria Mesa, which bordered the Sisquoc and Cuyama rivers. In 1955, Thomas Olivera sold Rancho Tepusquet to his son-in-law, Don Juan Pacifico Ontiveros, who had started construction on an adobe in 1857 and moved to the ranch the following year, according to the Bien Nacido webite.
Ontiveros and his wife raised horses, cattle, sheep and several grain crops, as well as grapes for the production of wine. The historic Ontiveros Adobe still stands; today, merlot grapevines are growing outside its stucco wall and around the adjacent winery facility.
While the Millers made a very small amount of wine under the family’s estate labels (Bien Nacido and Solomon Hills vineyards) as early as 2005, it was not until 2009 and 2010 that case production was close to that of the 2,500 cases produced in 2019, winemaker Anthony Avila said.
He considers the launch of the current estate wines to be 2011, when the Millers hired winemaker Trey Fletcher and built a winery on the vineyard.
An estate tasting room is under construction near the entrance to the vineyard, and when it opens around March will likely will replace the Los Olivos site, Avila said.
When I visited Bien Nacido on Oct. 19, Avila tasted me through the 2019 Bien Nacido pinot noir and chardonnay, as well as multiple barrel samples from the 2020 vintage.
The 2019 vintage was one of the coldest in recent memory, he said — “only four or five days (all season) were above 80 degrees.” That cold growth season translated to small berries and clusters but also “really ripe fruit,” which Avila prefers. “I like the mid-palate richness” that ripeness portends, he said.
That 2019 chardonnay hails from own-rooted vines planted in 1973, and the juice spent 12 months in oak barrels before being transferred to stainless steel tanks for six months, he noted.
This year mimicked 2019 as far as cooler weather, but likely even more so: “2021 was even less ripe because of the coldness” of the growing season, Avila said. “Fog persisted all the way into harvest this year.” Typically, the coastal marine layer dissipates by August.
“Typical” years offer “tropical” heat from Mexico around mid-August, followed by a Labor Day “heat spike,” he offered. “But not this year.”
The 2019 Bien Nacido pinot noir enjoyed 45% new French oak in larger barrel aging, Avila told me.
I characterized that wine as deep and elegant with dark cherry on the palate — a rich and balanced wine.
The Bien Nacido and Solomon Hills wines have secure blocks within the respective vineyards. At Bien Nacido, there are four distinct soil types, moving west to east: Tectonic (outcrop), sand, sandy loan to shale, he said. “We have length and breadth” when it comes to soil; basically, “a little of everything.” And that diversity translates to the diversity for which the vineyard is respected.
Of the 640 acres planted, multiple blocks are under contract to the many winemakers who source Bien Nacido Vineyard grapes, Avila told me. “We have our same blocks for our estate wines, and our clients with long-term existing blocks (contracts) will keep those.”
The 2020 vintage created a unique challenge for Avila, longtime vineyard manager Chris Hammell and their respective crews because of the adjacent wildfires.
Bien Nacido’s regular practice of utilizing whole cluster fruit through fermentation was a no-go last year, Avila said. “In 2020, we destemmed all our fruit because of the risk of stem-taint from the fires,” since it’s the cluster’s wood stems that reflect smoke damage.
Avila, who graduated from Cal Poly with a degree in business finance, started as a harvest intern at Bien Nacido in 2012. He moved up the chain to assistant winemaker and, in 2019, to winemaker when Fletcher departed for another winery. Between his Bien Nacido internship and his assistant winemaker gig, Avila worked a harvest in Argentina, he said.
While Bien Nacido and Solomon Hills vineyards are just eight miles apart and the wines are produced in a similar fashion, he said, the final results echo Solomon Hills’ distinct cooler climate. “The two vineyards’ wines could not be more different.”
Asked if he could pick the best grape varietal from each site, Avila said: syrah for Bien Nacido and pinot noir for Solomon Hills. The shale that encompasses the hillsides of Bien Nacido lends itself to Rhone varietals, in particular, syrah and grenache, he said.
Despite still being in the throes of harvest, Avila took time for a driving tour of the steep hillsides for which Bien Nacido is known. Blocks of grapevines surround pockets of avocado groves. “Having multiple crops keeps us in full-time crews all year long.”
The vineyard is home to 20 sheep and 20 goats, which earn their keep through organic weed abatement.
While the 2021 chardonnay and pinot noir grapes were already headed to barrel, syrah grapes still hung heavy and plump on some hillside blocks, among them the famed “Z Block,” which is co-planted with viognier.
An older gentleman — “Cowboy Jim” — runs his herd of cattle through the hillsides and valleys not planted to vines.
Back in the barrel room down the road from the winery, Avila pulled barrel samples of 2020 Bien Nacido pinot noir to contrast the Mount Eden clone and another with clones 828 and 667 from a special, eight-acre block, followed by a third from Solomon Hills, which he pronounced “brambly,” a reflection of that site’s pronounced colder climate.
An Alban-clone grenache aged in 500 liter-barrels expressed the classic fresh fruit essence for which the varietal is known, and a syrah from the X Block, where own-rooted riesling vines planted in 1973 have since been grafted to syrah was elegant and laden with spice followed by a hint of cocoa and lavender.
We ended our tasting with two chardonnays that were racked to tank in September. The first, from Solomon Hills, was pretty, with wet gravel, minerality and saline on the mid-palate. The second, from Bien Nacido, had settled better to tank, Avila observed, and showed brighter, more lemon and with that “classic” structure and acidity for which the vineyard is known.
My visit to Bien Nacido, with the estate wines obviously in excellent hands with Avila’s expertise, reminded me that the Santa Maria Valley AVA is another diamond destination, a place where one disconnects to soak up a viticultural phenomenon.
— Laurie Jervis tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are her own.