Horizon Vineyard was planted in 2019 in

Santa Barbara County’s Santa Ynez Valley

just outside Happy Canyon.

The vines rest along curving slopes and across a ridge overlooking thousands of acres of wildlife reserve as well as the Santa Ynez Valley. Rhône and Bordeaux varietals, well suited to our warm Mediterranean climate, fill the vineyard and take nourishment from ancient marine soils and the rich biodiversity of neighboring Sedgwick Reserve. The grapes bask in the warmth of California’s endless sunny days, cool off with crisp evenings and velvety marine-layered mornings, and enjoy a long growing season that allows them to develop intense, complex flavors and aromas.

As an estate winery,

we grow our grapes on our property

and have the freedom to farm in direct alignment with our

values and winemaking goals.

We can ensure fair wages and safe working conditions, prioritize smaller, higher quality yields, and tune our farming operations and harvest schedule to what each block, row, and vine tell us in real time. This dynamic approach to farming, coupled with the unique local benefits we enjoy from mother nature allows the grapes to carry the best of these precious inputs into the finished wines.

To us, being an estate winery also comes with a responsibility to

steward the land.

We thoughtfully employ organic, sustainable, and regenerative practices whenever possible, and plan to expand these practices as we grow. We’re learning farming philosophies and techniques where what’s good for our planet and people is also what’s good for our wines. For example, by integrating native cover crops and a no-till approach, we’re able to improve soil and vine health, restore our local ecosystem, and sequester carbon. Strategically reducing irrigation leading up to harvest not only conserves water when it’s the most scarce, but also concentrates the flavor and aroma compounds in grape berries and skins. And by carefully choosing only safe, organic inputs, we can avoid harmful chemical exposure to our vines and team while cultivating healthy yeast colonies living on the skins of our grapes. These native yeast colonies, in turn, help ferment the grapes into wines that express the distinctive characteristics of our vineyard.

It’s been galvanizing to see how an

intentional vineyard

can elicit a synergy of compounding benefits beyond the wine.

The more we learn about the nuances of this ecosystem, the more we realize there is to learn – and that’s something we’ve always embraced. We’re excited to continue on this path and see where it takes us, and grateful to have you along for the ride.