Most wineries start with a vineyard or a fortune. Sweetzer Cellars started in a second-story apartment on Sweetzer Avenue in West Hollywood, where Lisa and Michael crushed grapes in the carport, fermented in the dining room, and kept the bedroom at 60 degrees so it could double as a cellar. That homemade beginning is the whole soul of the place, and you can still taste it in wines made the slow, hands-on way from some of the best vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills and Santa Maria Valley.

From a Sweetzer Avenue apartment

In 2008 Lisa and Michael began making wine in their West Hollywood apartment, blissfully unaware of what they were getting into. They hauled Cabernet down from Napa and Sonoma, crushed it in the carport, fermented it in the dining room, pressed it in the kitchen, and turned the bedroom into a makeshift 60-degree cellar. The whole operation ran on two 30-gallon barrels and a lot of nerve.

In 2011 they tried their hand at Pinot Noir, and as Michael puts it, it felt as if they had finally come home. By 2013 they were ready to share, which meant graduating to a real, legal winemaking space and a little more volume. The address changed, but the philosophy from the Sweetzer Avenue days never did, and the name keeps that scrappy origin story alive in every bottle.

Sourcing the Sta. Rita Hills

Sweetzer is built on a simple idea: find the best available fruit grown by the best vineyard managers, then get out of its way. That hunt has led the couple to some of the most respected sites in Santa Barbara County, including Chapel Vineyard, La Encantada, and Rita Crown in the Sta. Rita Hills, plus the Presquile Vineyard up in the Santa Maria Valley.

The Sta. Rita Hills is one of California coldest, foggiest places to grow Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Marine air pours in off the Pacific through the east-west mountains, so the grapes ripen slowly and hold their acidity, picking up the savory, mineral character that vineyard-designate wines are made to showcase. By bottling each site on its own, Sweetzer lets you taste the difference between one patch of dirt and the next.

The wines

The heart of the lineup is single-vineyard Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, each named for the site that grew it. The Chapel, La Encantada, and Rita Crown Pinots show the bright red fruit, foggy earthiness, and firm acidity of the Sta. Rita Hills, while the Chardonnays range from racy and mineral to richer and more textured depending on the vineyard. There are also approachable Santa Barbara County bottlings for everyday drinking, and a curveball Chapel Vineyard Dornfelder, a deep-colored German red that almost no one else in the county grows.

Across the board the winemaking is low-intervention, made to let the grapes and the terroir speak. These are wines for people who like to compare, to line up two Pinots from two vineyards and taste what the land did.

What to pour it with

Sweetzer Pinot Noir is a classic food red. Its bright acidity and gentle tannins make it one of the few reds that flatters salmon, so pour it with a grilled or roasted fillet: there is not enough tannin to clash with the fish and turn metallic, while the acid cuts the richness and keeps each bite fresh. For something heartier, sear a duck breast and add a cherry sauce, a congruent match where the wine red fruit echoes the cherry and its earthy side meets the gamey duck.

Mushrooms are the move with any of the single-vineyard Pinots, since wine and fungus share savory, earthy compounds and taste as one. Pour the Chardonnay instead with butter-poached halibut or a roast chicken, where its acidity slices cleanly through cream and fat. The unusual Dornfelder, deeper and darker, wants grilled sausages or a peppered burger, where its color and structure can stand up to char and spice. Skip the delicate Pinot with anything heavily charred or fiery, which would steamroll its subtlety.

Sweetzer Cellars: common questions