The Piazza family helped write the early history of the Sta. Rita Hills, and they are still writing it. Decades before the appellation existed, Ron and Nancy Piazza partnered with a community of Carmelite nuns to plant Mt. Carmel Vineyard by hand, on a steep hillside of ancient seabed. Today that vineyard is a benchmark for the region, and the family farms a second estate in Ballard Canyon, making minimal intervention wines that taste of two very different grounds.

A founding family of the Sta. Rita Hills

In the 1980s, when Santa Barbara County wine was still finding its feet, Ron and Nancy Piazza did something visionary. They partnered with a community of Carmelite nuns to plant Mt. Carmel Vineyard by hand, on the steep slopes of what would later become the Sta. Rita Hills. It is now the second oldest vineyard in the appellation and one of its true benchmark sites, the source of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay of remarkable perfume, depth, and longevity.

The ground at Mt. Carmel is pure cool climate magic, diatomaceous earth and marine sediment, the chalky remains of an ancient ocean floor, on a high, exposed hillside raked by Pacific wind. For more than four decades it has proven itself capable of world class wine, and it helped shape the reputation of the Sta. Rita Hills as one of the premier winegrowing regions in California. That the family who planted it is still making wine from it gives Piazza a lineage few can match.

Bella Vista, the home estate in Ballard Canyon

The second estate of the family, and its home winery, is Bella Vista Vineyard, planted in 2001 on the north end of Ballard Canyon at 1,180 feet of elevation. Where Mt. Carmel is cold and coastal, Bella Vista is warmer and higher, rooted in limestone rich soils and cooled by Pacific breezes that funnel up the canyon. The site is certified organic by CCOF, a serious commitment to farming the land cleanly.

Bella Vista is planted to an adventurous spread of varieties that speak to a European sensibility, Syrah, Grenache, and Graciano among the Rhône and Spanish grapes, Nebbiolo, Sangiovese, and Montepulciano from Italy, and Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot from Bordeaux. The elevation and limestone give the wines vibrancy, texture, and structure, and the range lets the family explore far beyond the Pinot and Chardonnay that first made their name.

Minimal intervention, two grounds

Piazza makes expressive, small production wines with a minimal intervention approach, the philosophy that the best thing a winemaker can do with great fruit is to interfere with it as little as possible. The two estates give the portfolio an unusual range, the cool, perfumed Burgundian wines of Mt. Carmel on one hand, the structured Rhône and Italian varieties of warm, high Bella Vista on the other.

It all comes together at the family tasting room in downtown Los Olivos, a relaxed, modern space where you can taste current releases and limited production bottlings from both estates side by side. Few places let you travel between two such different terroirs in a single sitting, with the people who farm them pouring the wine.

What to pour it with

The Mt. Carmel Pinot Noir is built for duck or for fatty roasted salmon, where its bright acidity cuts the richness and its earthy, savory notes meet the meat on shared umami ground. The Chardonnay, taut and mineral, loves shellfish and a lemon roast chicken, its acidity keeping the plate bright. These are the cool climate classics, and they pair like it.

The Bella Vista reds want bolder food. Pour the Syrah with grilled lamb, where the tannins bind to the protein and fat and turn plush against the char. The Italian varieties are food wines by birth, so reach for the table they were bred for, Sangiovese with a tomato and olive oil pasta or a Margherita pizza, where the bright acidity of the wine cuts the richness and lifts the tomato, and Nebbiolo with a slow braise or a mushroom risotto, its firm tannins softening against the protein and fat. Salt in the dish, as always, makes these structured reds taste rounder and sweeter.

Piazza Family Wines: common questions