Why the Sta. Rita Hills taste different

The magic here is in the dirt and the wind. The Sta. Rita Hills sit at the cold, western mouth of the Santa Ynez Valley, the first ground the Pacific fog touches as it pours inland, and the soils are unlike anywhere else in the county: ancient seabed thick with diatomaceous earth and sand, laid down when all of this was ocean floor. Those poor, fast-draining marine soils stress the vines just enough, and the relentless afternoon wind shuts the grapes down and slows ripening to a crawl. The result is Pinot Noir with startling tension, dark fruit wrapped around a spine of acid and spice, and Chardonnay that tastes of citrus and crushed stone.

A quick note on the odd spelling. The appellation was approved in 2001 as the Santa Rita Hills, but Chile’s giant Santa Rita winery objected, and in 2005 the name was officially shortened to Sta. Rita Hills. The locals still say it in full, and the wine in the bottle did not change one bit.

Where to eat, and what to pour

Tasting in the Sta. Rita Hills is refreshingly unglamorous. Many of the best producers pour in the Lompoc Wine Ghetto, a cluster of garage-style spaces in an industrial park where you might find a cult winemaker rinsing glasses behind his own bar. Come hungry and keep it simple. The bright, savory Pinot Noir here is a natural with cedar-plank salmon, seared duck breast with cherries, or a wild-mushroom risotto, where the wine’s earthy side meets the mushrooms on the same savory note. For lunch, the nearby Hitching Post II in Buellton grills tri-tip over red oak and pours its own Sta. Rita Hills Pinot, a pairing the locals have trusted for decades.