Eislynn Wines is a one-woman, low-intervention label out of Buellton in the Santa Ynez Valley, founded in 2021 by winemaker Emily Myers. It is tiny, under 500 cases, built on organically and biodynamically farmed fruit, and best known for a singular Syrah and a skin-contact-touched Sauvignon Blanc. Tastings happen by appointment only, usually with Myers herself pouring.

The story

Emily Myers did not set out to make wine. Born in Los Angeles, raised in Orange County, she came to Santa Barbara to study English and music, and wine arrived as a happy accident, the kind of detour that quietly becomes a life. By 2021 she had landed at Demetria Estate on Foxen Canyon Road, first as assistant winemaker, eventually as winemaker and operations manager, learning the patient craft of a biodynamic hillside estate.

That same year, 2021, she made her first vintage under her own name. Eislynn is her middle name, chosen by her mother after a character in a romance novel she was reading while pregnant. The label was born out of a need to have something that was entirely hers, a place to make wine the way she actually believes in it, around community, kindness, and responsibility. She launched with a single Syrah, her favorite grape, and has grown the project carefully ever since, one small lot at a time.

In December 2025 Myers stepped away from Demetria to put her full attention on Eislynn. What had been a side project made on borrowed nights and weekends became the main thing, a young label run entirely by one person who farms the relationships, blends the wine, answers the texts, and pours for guests when she is in town.

The place

Eislynn is rooted in the Santa Ynez Valley, the broad inland heart of Santa Barbara County wine country. This is a valley shaped by an unusual piece of geography. The mountain ranges here run east to west, the transverse ranges, and they open the valley to the Pacific like a funnel. Cool ocean air and morning fog slide inland in the dark, then burn off to bright afternoon sun, and the daily swing between cool and warm is what keeps the fruit honest, holding acidity even as the grapes ripen.

The valley is large enough to grow almost everything, which is why a label like this can chase both a cool-loving white and a sun-loving red within a short drive. Myers sources Syrah from Demetria and from Alondra de los Prados in Santa Ynez, Sauvignon Blanc from White Barn Vineyard in Santa Ynez and the Gildred Family Vineyard in Solvang, and a Sangiovese-led red from the gravelly, warmer terraces of the Los Olivos District. The wines read like a map of the valley drawn by someone who knows exactly which block does what.

What they grow and make

Eislynn does not own vineyards. Myers buys fruit, and she only buys from growers who farm organically or biodynamically, which is the quiet foundation under everything in the glass. In the cellar the philosophy is restraint: very low intervention, only small additions of sulfur, native character allowed to come forward rather than be engineered out.

The Syrah is the wine that started it all and the one she calls her favorite grape. The early bottlings drew on organically farmed fruit from Demetria and Alondra de los Prados, and a single-vineyard Demetria Syrah followed, the kind of dark, peppery, savory red that tastes like the cool edge of the valley rather than jammy sunshine.

The Sauvignon Blanc is the surprise. Rather than the simple, racy style most California houses chase, Myers gives hers four days of skin contact, juice resting on the skins to pull out texture and a faint amber-leaning grip, then ages it in neutral oak so nothing tastes like sawdust. The 2023 came from White Barn Vineyard in Santa Ynez; more recent fruit has come from Solvang’s Gildred Family Vineyard. It is a thinking person’s Sauvignon Blanc, white wine with shoulders. There is also a red from the Los Olivos District, a blend of roughly 80 percent Sangiovese and 20 percent Syrah, bright and food-shaped, the sort of bottle built for a Tuesday table rather than a trophy shelf.

Farming

Eislynn has no estate vineyards of its own, so the farming story is a sourcing story, and Myers treats it as a non-negotiable. Every grape she buys comes from a vineyard farmed organically or biodynamically, including the biodynamic blocks at Demetria where she spent years working the land. The low-intervention winemaking follows from that: clean fruit lets her add very little, leaning on native fermentation character and minimal sulfur rather than heavy correction in the cellar.

Visiting

This is not a polished hospitality machine. Eislynn is a working winery and a genuinely small operation, so visits are intimate and arranged in advance. Tastings are by appointment only, and as long as Myers is in town she is happy to walk guests through the current releases herself. You are welcome to bring food, ideally nothing too aromatic or palate-flattening, no tuna fish. Because it is a working space with delicate and occasionally hazardous equipment, it is not set up for young children. Guests describe it as feeling like a small vacation even if they live nearby.

Food pairing

These are wines built for a table, which is exactly how Myers thinks about them. Pour the Syrah with something cooked over fire: grilled lamb chops, a peppercorn-crusted steak, or duck with a touch of char. Syrah carries enough tannin to grab onto the protein and fat, so the meat tastes cleaner and the wine tastes rounder, while the grape’s own black-pepper and savory edge echoes the spice on the plate. That is a congruent match, like calling to like.

The skin-contact Sauvignon Blanc wants more than oysters. Its extra texture and grip stand up to roast chicken with herbs, a bowl of fennel and citrus salad, or a wedge of fresh goat cheese, where the wine’s green, grassy aromatics share compounds with the cheese and read as a single flavor. The Sangiovese and Syrah red is a tomato wine at heart: its high acid slices through olive oil and slow-simmered sauce, so reach for it with a pizza, a pork ragu, or eggplant parmesan. For more ideas tuned to a specific dish, try our wine pairing generator.

To go deeper, read about the wider Santa Ynez Valley and the broader region on our Santa Barbara wine hub, learn what makes the grape sing in our guide to Sauvignon Blanc, and let the wine pairing generator match any of these bottles to dinner.

Anyone planning a weekend in the area should also walk Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone, where old warehouses a few blocks from the beach now hold the densest cluster of tasting rooms in the county.