Every morning the marine fog pushes east off the Pacific and settles over the Sta. Rita Hills, and that cool gray hour is the whole idea behind Seagrape. The name carries the ocean in it on purpose. These are wines made by someone who left the cubicles and freeways of Los Angeles behind for vineyard roads, and you can taste that choice in every glass: unhurried, honest, and tied to a specific stretch of foggy California coast.

From cellar rat to winemaker

Karen Steinwachs and her husband Dave Robinson spent the boom years of the personal computer in LA, escaping north to Santa Barbara wine country whenever the traffic and the CPUs got to be too much. In 2001 Karen walked away from tech for good and took the lowest job in a winery, a cellar rat shoveling stems, scrubbing fermenters, and hefting barrels. By 2007, her seventh harvest, she had become the winemaker at Buttonwood Farm in the Santa Ynez Valley, and it was there she earned the freedom to craft Seagrape under her own label.

Dave moved his own business to Lompoc in 2005, working alongside the wineries he loved. When he died suddenly in 2014 at just 54, the send-off looked like a snapshot of the whole region: chefs, winemakers, farmers, and musicians, food and wine and music in equal measure. Karen still makes a Pinot Noir called Dave Cuvee from his beloved Sta. Rita Hills, and a magnum of it goes to anyone who gives to charity in his name. Seagrape is a small label with a big heart, and that history is poured into it.

Why the Sta. Rita Hills

The Sta. Rita Hills is one of the coolest, most extreme places in California to grow Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, and that is exactly the point. The transverse mountain ranges here run east to west, funneling Pacific fog and cold ocean air straight up the valley. Vines bask in afternoon sun, then get tucked under a damp gray blanket by evening.

That daily swing is the secret. Warm days build flavor while cold nights lock in acidity, so the grapes ripen slowly and keep their nerve. Seagrape sources from respected Sta. Rita Hills sites including Hibbits Ranch, Rancho La Vina, and Zotovich, vineyards farmed on sandy, ancient-seabed soils that give the wines their bright, mineral edge.

The wines

Seagrape is built on the two grapes the Sta. Rita Hills does best. The Chardonnay leans toward freshness over weight, citrus and orchard fruit with a saline lift rather than a wall of oak and butter. It is the kind of white you want with the first cool evening of fall.

The Pinot Noir is the heart of the house: red cherry and wild berry, a savory, foggy earthiness, and the kind of bright acid that makes you reach for the next sip. There is also Le Pecheur, a second label, and the memorial Dave Cuvee Pinot. These are not blockbuster wines built to shout. They are made to be opened at a table with people you love.

What to pour it with

Seagrape Pinot Noir is a food wine first. Its bright acidity and gentle tannins make it one of the rare reds that loves fish, so pour it with grilled or roasted salmon: there is not enough tannin to turn metallic against the flesh, and the wine acid cuts the richness of the fatty fish and resets your palate for the next bite. For a classic, sear a duck breast and spoon over a cherry pan sauce. The wine red fruit echoes the cherry while its savory, earthy notes bridge straight to the seared, gamey duck, a congruent match that feels inevitable.

Mushrooms are Pinot best friend for a reason that is more chemistry than poetry: the wine and the fungus share earthy, savory compounds, so a wild-mushroom risotto and a glass of this read as a single flavor. Pour the Chardonnay instead with butter-poached halibut or a roast chicken, where its acidity slices cleanly through cream and schmaltz. Skip pairing the Pinot with anything heavily charred or heavy on chile heat, which would bully its delicate red fruit into the background.

Seagrape Wine Company: common questions