Lompoc Wine History: From Mission Grape to Spectator’s Top Eight

During a memorable harvest lunch at Sea Smoke’s state-of-the-art winery in Lompoc, I swirled a glass of the 2009 Ten Pinot Noir and reflected on the evolution of the Lompoc wine community. The 230-year history from Spanish mission to temperance colony to wine mecca has an ironic trajectory.

Accompanied by the Sea Smoke winemaking team, plus their harvest crew and a few other guests, I lunched on oven-roasted heirloom tomato soup topped with goat cheese, arugula corn salad laced with Padrón peppers and heirloom tomatoes, Waygu beef meatballs and flatbreads with beer-braised pork belly and chanterelles or roasted heirloom tomatoes prepared in the Full of Life Flatbread mobile oven. We drank unlabeled bottles of Sea Smoke Pinot Noir and Sea Spray while appreciating the area’s winemaking history.

The Lompoc Valley has a tradition of growing grapes and making wine that dates back to its Franciscan mission period. The city of Lompoc is located where La Purisima Mission was founded by Father Fermín de Francisco Lasuén in 1787. The mission had its own vineyards to produce wine for sacramental offerings, medicinal purposes and general consumption.

While volunteering as a docent at the mission, I learned that the unique skills of Father Mariano Payéras expanded La Purisima’s material wealth; his mission pear brandy was prized worldwide. He arrived at La Purisima in 1804, and planted vineyards and orchards in nearby Jalama Canyon and San Francisquito because they were better suited for growing wine grapes. Payéras’s influence continued to grow as he oversaw the entire California mission system from La Purisima during his tenure as president from 1815 to 1819.

In 1874, the Lompoc Valley Land Company established Lompoc as a temperance colony similar to one in Vineland, New Jersey. Since Lompoc was on the stage coach route between Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo, alcohol was ubiquitous and temperance was difficult to maintain.

Yet, Lompoc’s own “Carrie Nation” vigilante committee succeeded in pulling down a building in which liquor sales were taking place in 1883. The event is memorialized in one of the town’s public murals at 137 S. H St.

When Lompoc was incorporated as a city in 1888, the temperance clause written into every deed was unenforceable, so temperance was deemed officially over. Temperance proved to be incompatible with the cultural traditions of the old West as well as the Portuguese and Italian immigrant garagistes, who were accustomed to their own home winemaking.

Nonetheless there was a long dry spell with temperance and then Prohibition. Then Michael Benedict and Richard Sanford pioneered wine grape growing in the area when they planted Sanford & Benedict Vineyard with Pinot Noir on Santa Rosa Road in 1971. The first vineyard planted in what would become the Sta. Rita Hills appellation, it supplied the cuttings for many of the surrounding vineyards planted over the next few decades.

The advent of new vineyards in the area and the petition for a nearby AVA led to the opening of Lompoc’s first winery in the Sobhani Industrial Park, affectionately known as the Lompoc Wine Ghetto. Rick Longoria launched the trend in December 1998. He was attracted to the availability of large industrial space with comparatively low rent in a naturally cool environment.

Sea Smoke launched their tradition of harvest lunches in 2002, to nourish their hardworking team. Chef Sonseeah Gil set up Sea Smoke’s kitchen in their original industrial park winery. Aromas from her cooking lured winery neighbors. The guest list was often serendipitous and frequently illustrious. Founding owner Bob Davids generously shared his vintage Burgundian wine collection and Wine Spectator Top 100 Sea Smoke wines.

That same year I relocated to Lompoc to help grow the nascent wine industry as the city’s economic development specialist. My participation in the camaraderie at Sea Smoke lunches broadened my insight into the community and enlightened my wine palate. I was soon spoiled; I couldn’t go back to Trader Joe’s Fearless Flyer specials.

Lompoc was on the cusp of heady times. Robert Parker Jr. had just launched Lompoc-based Brewer-Clifton’s first buzz with wine lovers around the world when he wrote in his newsletter, the Wine Advocate, that their wines were “the single greatest revelation of my 2001 tastings.” Partners Greg Brewer and Steve Clifton quickly gained celebrity status in the wine world. Lompoc was suddenly on the international map in the context of handcrafted Pinot Noir.

In 2014, Brewer-Clifton’s 2012 Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir was named the number eight wine in the world in Wine Spectator’s Top 100. This Spectator accolade was not only a coup for the winery but for the Lompoc wine community as a whole. Brewer-Clifton has long been considered a top producer of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the Sta. Rita Hills appellation, along with Sea Smoke, Longoria, Pali and other Lompoc wineries. And, to this day, this is the highest Spectator rating received by any winery in Santa Barbara County.

Meanwhile, Flying Goat Cellars, another Lompoc winery in the vanguard, initiated production of the first serious in-house sparkling wine program in Santa Barbara County in 2005. The following year, winemaker Norm Yost shared his new project with me. We married in 2010, and I’ve been chief philosopher at Flying Goat ever since.

Other Lompoc wineries following the bubbles trend include Brewer-Clifton, Fiddlehead, Kessler-Haak, Longoria, Loring, Moretti, Palmina, Sandhi, Sea Smoke and Zotovich. According to Santa Barbara’s Sparkling Wine Guide publisher Liz Dodder, of the 40 wineries that are making sparkling wine in Santa Barbara, 25% of the producers are clustered in and around Lompoc.

“I predict Lompoc will be famous for its sparkling wine because of the quality of the grapes and vineyards,” said Michael Benedict, co-founder of Sanford & Benedict Vineyard. “There is not a better place in America for sparkling wine. No other wine region on this side of the Atlantic consistently produces such high-quality fruit appropriate for superior sparkling wine.”

No doubt, Lompoc has come into its own with a reputation for handcrafted winemaking that complements Sta. Rita Hills AVA. As of 2017, there are about 23 wine production facilities, each producing numerous brands, and about 28 tasting rooms in the city.

From mission grape to Spectator’s Top Eight, the Lompoc wine community continues to evolve, combining the sage expertise of industry pioneers with the exuberance of young entrepreneurs. Considering its unusual trajectory, it’s exciting to imagine what might come next.