I met winemaker Emily Myers at the Women Winemakers Culinarian Celebration’s grand tasting in early March. We chatted about what she was pouring (sauvignon blanc and syrah) and our shared penchant for storytelling — me, about wine, and Myers, about fly fishing.
Fly fishing utilizes a weighted fishing line and a lightweight “fly” to mimic insects or baitfish. Flies can float on the surface of a river or lake, or underwater, using nymphs or streamers. What distinguishes fly fishing from traditional fishing is that fly fishermen/women practice catch-and-release techniques.
While Myers is only a few years into fly fishing, she’s hooked, and said she snagged a fish during a late March weekend getaway that included time on a lake.
Both making/marketing wine and catching fish are based in the great outdoors, where Myers says she’s happiest.
“Meeting people in an outdoor space, promoting my brand,” which, as a small producer, is a task that falls squarely on her shoulders, she said.
Since launching her Eislynn Wines brand in 2021 with syrah, “my favorite grape,” Myers has added a sauvignon blanc as well. Myers wants her label to be affordable and to offer “wines that you can drink with food.”
The name Eislynn is Myers’ middle name and comes from a character in a romance novel that her mother read while she was pregnant with Myers, she recounted.
Vintage 2022 found Myers focused on her job at Demetria Estate, where she started working in February 2021. She jumped in as winemaker and operations director with Ryan Roark, director of viticulture and winemaking, so she skipped making any 2022 Eislynn.
In 2023, she returned with her own sauvignon blanc and syrah, and in 2024, produced cabernet sauvignon, sourced from Solvang’s Coquelicot Vineyard, and another sauvignon blanc.
She sources syrah grapes from Demetria and more recent sauvignon blanc grapes from Solvang’s Gildred Family Vineyard, the “newbie on the block” that’s attracting attention from several area winemakers.
That white varietal Myers processes with contact between the juice and the skins — exactly four days’ worth, a length of time she calls her “sweet spot” for that grape. After three vintages of sauvignon blanc, Myers has decided that “four days of skin contact is just enough for somebody” for the finished wine.
The result is a wine that’s varietally true to sauvignon blanc but with a “husky” edge, I discovered.
Her 2025 production of Eislynn was 250 cases, and Myers expects 2026 to be similar.
“Small is nimble,” she said of her label.
Her aging style focuses on using much more neutral than new oak, barrel-wise, “because I want oak to be a backseat character to winemaking,” she said. Myers also practices low intervention winemaking and sources only from vineyards that are farmed organically or biodynamically.
During our interview at her Buellton facility, I tasted the 2025 sauvignon blanc from barrel alongside a 2024 bottle. The younger wine is more tropical, with notes of papaya and guava, and the older exudes more melon flavors.
Santa Barbara Fly Fishers will host a community film event at the Lobero Theatre on Tuesday, March 31. Featured will be a screening of the classic film “A River Runs Through It.” Actor Tom Skerritt, John MacLean (son of author Norman MacLean) and others will participate.
Myers will pour wine during a sold-out VIP “First Look” reception during which guests can meet the panelists and preview Skerritt’s river-focused documentary work. Limited tickets likely remain available, she noted last week.
Myers lives in Los Alamos with her husband, Jed, and dogs Pip and Wax (“both rescues”), and Bane, a cat.
A native of Playa del Ray, Myers said she grew up in a family that didn’t drink wine, but on her 21st birthday went wine tasting.
After graduating from UCSB, Myers got a job in software sales in Santa Barbara. The desk job, she recalled, drove her stir crazy.
A friend who worked at Grassini Family Vineyard hooked up Myers with a weekend job in the Santa Barbara tasting room, where she could utilize her sales knowledge but be closer to the outdoors.
Soon, “I quit software sales and was hired full time in the tasting room.” When she had an opportunity to work a harvest, Myers knew she’d found her calling: “I loved it!”
After about two years with Grassini, Myers joined Solminer Wines in more of a general manager position, she said, but longed for the call of the cellar and the vineyards. Along the way, Myers met Roark, who started farming Demetria Estate’s vines in 2019 before he would become winemaker in 2020.
In 2021, Myers started at Demetria herself, and left last December to focus on Eislynn.
While Myers said she’s “not in wine to make money,” she said she’s absolutely in the business to learn and to make connections.
“You can never learn everything about wine” — and same with fishing. “There’s always something to learn about fly fishing,” she said.
Tasting is available by appointment only at eislynnwines.com/.