Most California wineries chase Cabernet or Chardonnay. Claiborne and Churchill chased Alsace. Tucked into the Edna Valley along Highway 227, this is the rare American estate built around dry, aromatic whites, the perfumed Rieslings and Gewurztraminers that pour through the dining rooms of eastern France. The story of how two university teachers from Michigan ended up making them on the cool central coast of California is one of the most quietly romantic in the valley.

Two professors and a change of life

Claiborne and Churchill was founded in 1983 by Claiborne Thompson, known as Clay, and his wife Fredericka Churchill Thompson. Both had been teachers at the University of Michigan, where Clay taught Scandinavian languages, a long way from a fermentation tank. Drawn to wine, he spent five years working as a cellar hand, learning harvest, fermentation, barrel aging, and the unglamorous business of selling what you make, before the couple struck out on their own.

What sealed their direction was travel. A research trip to Germany and a walking journey through Alsace gave them a deep affection for the dry, aromatic whites of that region, and they saw a niche almost no one in California was filling. Their first 1983 vintage was tiny, just 565 cases of Dry Gewurztraminer and Dry Riesling. Decades on, the winery is still family in spirit and still anchored to that founding idea, with a tasting room beside a cellar famously built from straw bales for natural insulation.

Claiborne and Churchill built its cellar from straw bales, one of the first super-insulated straw-bale buildings in California.

Why cool Edna Valley suits aromatic whites

Riesling and Gewurztraminer are cool-climate grapes. They need a long, gentle growing season to build their heady aromatics while keeping the bright acidity that makes them refreshing rather than flabby, and they lose their nerve in heat. Edna Valley gives them exactly what they want. The valley opens to the Pacific through a gap in the coastal hills, and daily fog and cold marine wind hold the temperature down through a famously long hang time.

That slow ripening lets these grapes develop their signature perfume, rose petal and lychee in Gewurztraminer, lime and stone fruit in Riesling, without tipping into high sugar or low acid. The valley calcareous marine soils add a mineral backbone. It is the same logic that puts these grapes in the cool corners of Alsace and Germany, transplanted to a foggy California valley that happens to share the climate.

The wines: Alsace on the central coast

The heart of the lineup is the dry aromatic whites. The Dry Riesling is crisp and citrus-driven with a wisp of orchard fruit, the Dry Gewurztraminer is all rose, lychee, and warm spice yet finishes clean and dry, and the Pinot Gris and small-lot Muscat round out the Alsatian set. Because these wines are genuinely dry, they work at the table far more easily than the sweet versions many drinkers expect.

The winery also makes cool-climate Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that reflect the same Edna Valley address, but the aromatic whites are the reason to seek the place out. Few American wineries have stayed this faithful to a style for this long, and tasting through the range is a small tour of a wine culture most California tasting rooms skip entirely.

What to pour it with

Dry aromatic whites are some of the best food wines on earth, and this is where Claiborne and Churchill shines. The Dry Gewurztraminer is the classic partner for fragrant, lightly spiced food, mild Thai curry, Vietnamese spring rolls, or pork with apples, because its rose and ginger aromatics bridge directly to the spices in the dish while its acidity cuts the richness. The wine being dry, not sweet, keeps it from turning cloying alongside savory plates.

The Dry Riesling is a precision tool for brighter, brinier food. Pour it with Dungeness crab, a platter of charcuterie, or roast chicken with herbs, where its high acidity slices through fat and salt and resets the palate. A small note on chemistry: if a dish is genuinely fiery, alcohol amplifies the burn, so these lower-alcohol aromatic whites cool spicy heat far better than a big red would. Keep tannic reds away from the spice and let the aromatic whites carry the meal.

Claiborne and Churchill: common questions