Pali Wine Co. started the way a lot of the best wineries do, with friends, food, and a love of wine. Tim and Judy Perr launched it in 2005, naming it for their Pacific Palisades neighborhood and making the first wines in a Lompoc garage. Two decades later it is a family-run operation with an estate vineyard in the Sta. Rita Hills, a natural-wine sister label, and tasting rooms up and down the coast, all still built around small-lot, place-driven wine.

From the Palisades to the Central Coast

What began as backyard dinners and a shared obsession became Pali Wine Co. in 2005. Founders Tim and Judy Perr named the winery after Pali, the local shorthand for Pacific Palisades, and started small, working out of a garage in Lompoc at the edge of Santa Barbara wine country.

The label grew, but the family ethic stuck. Pali is now guided by two generations of the Perr family alongside longtime winemaker Aaron Walker, with a philosophy built on long-standing grower relationships and a commitment to wines that reflect people, place, and purpose. It has the feel of a family table that simply kept getting bigger.

An estate in the Sta. Rita Hills

In 2012 Pali planted its own vineyard in the Sta. Rita Hills, the cool, fog-swept appellation that is one of California finest homes for Pinot Noir. It started with Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the grapes that built the region reputation, and has since expanded into more adventurous plantings: Gamay, Syrah, Chenin Blanc, and even Dornfelder, a German red you almost never see on the Central Coast.

That estate fruit anchors a lineup of small-lot wines sourced from sustainably, organically, and biodynamically farmed vineyards across the coast. Pinot Noir remains the heart of it, made in a bright, expressive style that captures the lift and freshness of cool-climate California.

A family of labels

Pali is really a small family of wines. The flagship Pali Wine Co. label focuses on small-lot Central Coast bottlings shaped by site and sustainability. Alongside it sits Neighborhood Winery, led by Nick and Carmen Perr, a natural-wine project rooted in the energy of Los Angeles, where every bottle is wild-fermented, unfined, unfiltered, and made with minimal sulfur.

Together the labels let Pali play both sides of the modern wine world: classic, polished Pinot Noir on one hand, and wild, experimental natural wine on the other, all under one family roof.

What to pour it with

Pali Pinot Noir is a textbook food wine. Its bright acidity and gentle tannin make it a natural with duck, salmon, roast chicken, pork, and mushroom dishes, where the acid cuts fat and the wine savory side meets the earthiness on the plate. Serve it with a slight chill, around 60 degrees, and it comes alive.

The Gamay and lighter reds love charcuterie and roast chicken, the Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay suit richer seafood and creamy dishes, and the Neighborhood natural wines are made for casual, low-key meals, pizza, grain bowls, anything you would eat with friends. As always, a little salt on the plate rounds the wine and lifts its fruit.

Pali Wine Co.: common questions