When Cody Sargeant first met Wynne Solomon in the dorms at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo in 2010, he had no idea his future would involve winemaking.

Solomon did. A native of the town of Windsor in Sonoma County, she learned to ride a bike in the vineyards that surrounded her home.

She shared that sweet memory when I wrote about her work at Peake Ranch in the Sta. Rita Hills in 2023. She voiced a passion for chemistry and cooking — two skills that marry well with the craft of winemaking.

Fast forward to this year, and she is now Wynne Sargeant after they married in July 2022, the same year they harvested the first grenache grapes for their own label — Matilija Wines.

The two produce about 91 cases annually of their grenache and albarino, and they plan to add mencia and additional Sta. Rita Hills’ albarino to the lineup.

Matilija was just a dream — Cody Sargeant’s, actually — leading up to its 2022 debut.

“For two or three years, Cody bugged me to launch our own label,” Wynne Sargeant said. “He was relentless!”

“(Wynne) got me into wine back at Cal Poly,” he said. With their own label, “I get to learn from her while working with her.”

Matilija has morphed into “a project that we could do together, fulfilling a longtime dream,” the two said.

That initial 2022 vintage is now 75% sold out, Wynne Sargeant noted.

After graduating from Cal Poly, she jumped straight into winemaking in San Luis Obispo County’s Edna Valley, first as an intern and then assistant winemaker for Stephen Dooley of Stephen Ross Wines Cellars, who taught her how to make pinot noir and chardonnay, and then for Ryan Deovlet, who sourced those same varietals from Santa Barbara County vineyards, she said.

From San Luis Obispo County, Wynne Sargeant in 2016 moved south to Melville Winery, where again the focus was on cool-climate pinot noir and chardonnay. Under the tutelage of Chad Melville, she gained “lots of vineyard experience from a 100% estate vineyard” and worked as assistant winemaker to Melville, Sargeant recalled.

In 2018, Sargeant accepted her first lead winemaking gig at Peake Ranch Winery, landing there just four years after that estate’s first vintage, and worked under founding winemaker Paul Lato starting with the 2019 vintage, she said.

It was at Peake Ranch that Matilija Wines debuted. The 2022, 2023 and 2024 vintages were produced and aged at that facility.

After seven vintages at Peake Ranch, Sargeant moved to Brave & Maiden Estate in the Santa Ynez Valley this past March. She’s currently in the middle of harvest there, pulling in the Bordeaux and Rhone-style grapes for which that winery is known.

The 2024 Matilija wines — two barrels each of grenache and albarino — traveled in barrel to Brave & Maiden and now are in bottle, Wynne said. 

Why those two varietals? Cody Sargeant answered: “Both are varietals we thought were underrepresented for as well as they do in this county,” which is best known for pinot noir and chardonnay. “But the albarino and grenache grown here are also incredible.”

The couple lean toward Spanish varietals, especially when it comes to pairing with spicy foods.

“We love flavorful, spicy foods, so it’s fun to make wines that play well with that style,” he said.

Both the first and second Matilija Wines’ vintages honored the couple’s young nieces, the children of the couple’s respective sisters.

While a wine club — and shipping — are future considerations, for the time being, Matilija’s wines are available mostly to friends and family on the Central Coast and in Southern California; Cody Sargeant’s family still resides in Long Beach.

The wines also can be found at Good Land Wine Shop in Santa Barbara and the Bodega in Los Alamos, with more retail sites in the works.

“It’s mostly Cody who handles our sales,” Wynne Sargeant noted.

When he’s not selling wine, he is an attorney specializing in land use and environmental issues. The couple live in Santa Barbara with their dog, Maude.

She said one of her favorite aspects about making wine is the opportunity to learn new vineyards, and the farming aspects of each.

The couple’s first Matilija albarino hailed from a Santa Maria Valley vineyard close to the Tepusquet Bench. The site was farmed for Copper Cane, a large Napa-based winery, by Chalk Hill Vineyard Management. Through a connection with that farming crew, the Sargeants were able to score one ton that first year.

“We were very excited to get it,” Wynne Sargeant said. 

The resulting albarino wine is lean and crisp and was the ideal pairing to their shared plates at Secret Bao earlier this month.

Matilija plans to expand case production with additional albarino grapes this year from Peake Ranch, and mencia fruit from Nolan Ranch Vineyards in Los Alamos.