Some tasting rooms pour one label. Taste of Sta. Rita Hills pours a point of view. Tucked into Grand Avenue in Los Olivos, it is a place built to introduce you to the fine and rare wines of one of California greatest cool-climate regions, run by a couple who fell so hard for these wines that they bought the business. Alongside the lineup of sought-after local bottlings, they carry on Moretti Wine Company and its Italian soul, right down to a Prosecco shipped in from Valdobbiadene.

From wine club members to owners

Michael and Marlene Robinson did not set out to own a tasting room. They were wine club members who met Antonio and Jeni Moretti back in 2014, when the tasting room was still in the Lompoc Wine Ghetto. For the next eight years they drove up from Los Angeles to the Santa Ynez Valley as often as they could, and the pull only got stronger. When they finally moved to the valley for good in 2022, the Morettis, ready to retire, asked if they wanted to buy the business.

They said yes, and since August 2023 they have been the proud owners of Taste of Sta. Rita Hills and Moretti Wine Company. Michael brings real pedigree, having worked as a west coast wine buyer for the storied east coast retailers Zachy and Sherry-Lehmann, while Marlene pairs a marketing background with years of travel through Italy. Together they curate the room the way they once shopped it, as serious enthusiasts chasing the best glass in the room.

A window into the Sta. Rita Hills

The whole premise is the Sta. Rita Hills, the cool, fog-fed AVA that has made Santa Barbara County famous for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Cold Pacific air funnels inland through the east-west mountains, so the grapes ripen slowly and keep the bright acidity and savory complexity that collectors prize. This tasting room exists to put those wines, often made in tiny quantities, in front of you in one sitting.

That is why the calendar fills with special pours and winemaker events, like an educational tasting with Don Schroeder of Sea Smoke walking guests through estate bottlings. The model the Robinsons inherited and kept is simple: share the highest quality, limited-production wines from this corner of California, the kind of bottles that are hard to find anywhere else.

The wines and the Italian thread

On any given visit the flight leans toward fine and rare Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the wines the region was built on, chosen for quality over name recognition. The Robinsons love this style but are quick to say they do not discriminate against an Old World, Bordeaux-leaning red either.

Running through it all is the Moretti thread, which keeps an Italian accent on the room. Moretti Wine Company offers Italian varietals grown locally in Santa Barbara County, plus the perennial customer favorite, a Moretti Prosecco imported from Valdobbiadene in the heart of Italy sparkling country. It is an unusual and charming combination: California cool-climate seriousness with a glass of genuine Italian bubbles never far away.

What to pour it with

Start, as you should in any good room, with the Prosecco. Its bright acidity and soft bubbles are built for salty, fried, and savory bites, scrubbing fat off the palate so each taste resets clean. Pour it with salumi, fried olives, or a wedge of Parmigiano, where the salt actually rounds the wine and lifts its fruit. This is complementary pairing at its easiest, bubbles against richness.

The Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir wants seared duck or a mushroom dish, its earthy, savory side bridging to the fungus on shared compounds while its fresh acidity cuts the richness of the meat. The locally grown Italian reds, with their high acidity and savory edge, were made for the tomato: pour them with a ragu or a margherita pizza, where the wine acid matches the acid in the tomato so neither tastes sour, a congruent match Italians have trusted for centuries. Skip the delicate Pinot with a fiery, chile-heavy plate, which would bury its nuance.

Taste of Sta. Rita Hills and Moretti Wine Co.: common questions