Santa Barbara Winery - Wine Delivery

Local winemakers Santa Barbara Winery are now partnered with us at Restaurant Connection to deliver their local wines throughout Santa Barbara, Goleta, Montecito and everywhere in-between.

It is a new on-demand wine delivery service in Santa Barbara; the first of its kind. To order, simply go on the Restaurant Connection website. There, you can either choose to order from the Santa Barbara Winery menu page or visit the Wine Store. Select the bottle(s) of wine and follow along with the checkout process. That's it! Your wine order will be delivered within 45 minutes.

(The Wine Store provides a full list of wines offered for delivery by Santa Barbara Winery, Lafond Winery, Carr Winery, Kalyra and Area 5.1 wineries) 

GET $5 OFF your wine delivery!

use code: WINEBL

(or mention it to your phone operator)

ORDER WINE

Here is an article about the winery written in the Santa Barbara Magazine:

In 1962, at the age of thirty-two, Pierre Lafond founded the fi rst post-prohibition commercial winery in Santa Barbara County. Two years later, he located a winery facility on Anacapa Street, just two blocks from the Pacific Ocean.

Santa Barbara Winery has become an extremely visible and successful wine concern, winning many medals for an array of wines. Lafond is now in the midst of a significant expansion in order to meet the desires of the consuming public.

Lafond was originally a retailer, and his wine and cheese shop was a meeting place for many of Santa Barbara's wine afficionados. He decided to go into wine production for two reasons: he enjoyed fi ne wines, primarily French, and it would be a good business venture.

Initially Lafond used grapes from outside the county, notably zinfandel from Bill York's vineyards in Templeton. York Winery, later York Mountain Winery, had its own historic allure: it was the oldest winery in San Luis Obispo County, and it had vinified grapes for the famous Polish statesman and virtuoso pianist Ignace Paderewski.

The primary reason Lafond went north for grapes was that there were none available in Santa Barbara County at the time. It was not until 1964 that Uriel Nielsen and his friend Bill DeMattei, both UC Davis viticultural graduates, planted the famous Nielsen vineyard, the first commercial vineyard in Santa Barbara County and now part of the Byron Vineyard and Winery operation in the Santa Maria Valley. By the late 1960s Lafond was using some Santa Barbara County grapes.

Unfortunately, his source was also supplying grapes to a large Napa Valley winery, which because of increased public interest and consumption began taking every grape. When Lafond's supply was cut off, he decided to plant his own vineyard, purchasing 105 acres in the Santa Ynez Valley west of Buellton. In 1972 with the assistance of viticulturist Bill Collins, He planted 65 of those acres to cabernet sauvignon, chenin blanc, riesling and chardonnay.Today Lafond Grows about half the grapes needed to satisfy his own production.

The initial crop for the new vineyard was 1975, and Lafond was pleased with the grapes and the wine he made from them. However, his part-time winemaker could not devote the attention needed to produce first class varietal wines, Lafond’s hiring of winemaker Bruce McGuire in November 1981 solved that challenge and set the course for the stellar reputation Santa Barbara Winery has achieved today. “We were a very amateur operation until Bruce came,” Lafond admits.

McGuire had been working in the Napa Valley but heard of some exceptional chardonnay and pinot noir being produced in Santa Barbara County, the latter by Sanford and Benedict. One of his first suggestions to Lafond was to plant some pinot noir

The next step was to upgrade the winery facility to include the next generation of stemher necessary equipment. Not much wine was being produced at the time, perhaps 7,000 cases annually; but plans for the future were ready to be implemented.

Lafond’s Santa Ynez Valley property is in the heart of pinot noir country, with soil and microclimates exceedingly favorable to that fickle grape variety. Richard Sanford and Michael Benedict had proved that point with their stellar wines in the late 1960s. The area is also excellent locale for syrah, and McGuire convinced Lafond to plant that luscious Rhone varietal as well.

Santa Barbara Winery is currently building a new facility at its vineyard on Santa Rosa Road that will more than double the winery's total production, from a current 20,000 to 44,000 cases. The additional 24,000 cases will be pinot noir and syrah, with the Santa Barbara facility being reserved for white wine production.

McGuire also enjoys experimenting with small lots of lesser-known varietals such as carignan and the Italian varietals nebbiolo and sangiovese, as well as viognier, which is lately becoming much more visible in Santa Barbara County.

Young Pierre Lafond took a chance, well ahead of the times, on the viability of Santa Barbara County for the propagation of premium varietal grapes that could be vini- fied into world-class varietal wines. Santa Barbara Winery has achieved a prominent position in the area it so greatly assisted in creating, and that position is certain to grow.

We are indebted to Archie McLaren and Santa Barbara Magazine for this marvelous article which appeared in the winter 2000 edition. The new Lafond Winery has been completed and had its first 'crush' in the fall of 2000 and the visitor area opened in the spring of 2001.

To read more about Santa Barbara Winery visit their website here https://www.sbwinery.com/