Some wineries start with a business plan. Montemar started in a garage in 1991, with Steve and Caryn Arrowood making fourteen barrels a year for friends and family, fruit hauled in from Santa Barbara County to Napa. Three decades later it is a second generation, small lot winery in the Lompoc Wine Ghetto, still run by the same family, still living up to its motto, serious wines, serious fun.

From the garage to the Ghetto

The Arrowoods were garagistes long before it was fashionable, making wine on weekends as a labor of love while Steve built a career in aerospace. When he retired, his passion refused to retire with him, and in 2009 the family turned the hobby into a bonded winery. A tasting room followed in 2013, and by the 2015 harvest they had built a winery of their own to crush the fruit.

In 2020, Steve Arrowood passed away after a long battle with cancer, and his son Kyle, who had helped make wine his whole life and joined full time in 2018, stepped in as winemaker. The torch passed cleanly, from first generation to second, and Montemar carries on today under Caryn, Kyle, and Layne, a family business in every sense of the word.

Great wine is made in the vineyard

Montemar lives by the old truth that wine is made in the vineyard, so most of its energy goes there. All of the fruit comes from premium vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills and other Santa Barbara County appellations, and the family has farmed some of the same blocks since the 1990s, working hand in glove with the vineyard teams. That continuity, the same rows year after year, is what lets the wines speak clearly of their source.

The winemaking is deliberately consistent, nearly identical within each varietal, so the differences you taste come from the vineyard and the vintage rather than from cellar tricks. Production is small, upwards of 1,200 cases a year and an average of fewer than 100 cases per lot, with several small lot bottlings poured only for club members. This is artisanal winemaking at a genuinely human scale.

Pinot, Syrah, and serious fun

The heart of the lineup is cool climate Pinot Noir and Syrah, the two grapes the Sta. Rita Hills and its surrounds do so well, which is why the tasting room offers dedicated all Pinot and all Syrah flights alongside a mixed pour. The Pinot carries the bright red fruit and savory lift of a cold, marine influenced site, while the Syrah leans darker and spicier, with the structure that comes from the same fog cooled ground.

The experience is as relaxed as the wines are serious. There is a 6,000 square foot outdoor space and a Ghetto Organic garden to stroll, cheese and charcuterie to graze on or bring your own, and a welcome that extends to well behaved children and pets. Serious wines, serious fun is not a slogan here so much as a house rule.

What to pour it with

Reach for the Pinot Noir with duck, mushrooms, or a piece of grilled salmon. Its bright acidity cuts the richness of fatty duck or salmon and resets the palate, while its earthy, savory side meets mushrooms on shared umami ground, a classic bridge pairing. This is the kind of red light enough to chill slightly on a warm Lompoc afternoon and pour with a charcuterie board straight off the garden table.

The Syrah wants something bolder. Pour it with grilled lamb or Santa Maria style barbecue, the local tri tip cooked over red oak, where the tannins in the wine bind to the protein and fat and turn plush against the char. A peppercorn crusted steak plays straight to the savory, peppery streak in the wine. Salt in the rub is your friend, since it softens tannin and makes the fruit taste sweeter and rounder.

Montemar Winery: common questions