About Us:    

    Founded in 1996, with our first vintage in 1997, Arthur Earl is no longer one of the newest, but still one of the smallest wineries in Santa Barbara County.  Production remains very small, only 2500 cases of premium, handcrafted wines for the 2004 vintage.  Arthur Earl focuses on wines from the grape varieties native to the Rhone Valley of France and Northern Italy, plus Zinfandel.

    As those who have already discovered our wines know, our style is to produce big, full bodied, fruit forward red wines, and white wines that are fresh and easy drinking with lots of flavor. Since 1999 our tasting room has been located in downtown Los Olivos, to the delight of many who struggled to find our winery location.  Our production averages only 50-300 cases for each variety.

        We produce all of our own wines, in our own winery, from grapes we purchase locally.  Beginning with the 2002 vintage, all of our grapes are from Santa Barbara County appellations except Mourvedre and Zinfandel which are sourced from the much warmer appellation of Paso Robles.  We also use our large, fully equipped production facility to produce wine for others.

    Our style is to produce full bodied wines, both white and red, and to maintain the fruitiness of the grapes through to the bottle.  Our winemaker believes that ninety percent of the final result in the bottle comes from the vineyard and it is his job to both find and purchase excellent grapes, and then, not detract from their natural product.  Only about ten percent of the time is any significant intervention required with the wine to achieve the quality product we offer.  But our style alone is not what makes us different.

Rhone Varieties:

    Varieties native to the Rhone Valley of France have seen a tremendous growth in popularity in recent years, and rightly so.  We are fortunate in that some of the best places in California to grow these grapes are the Central Coast areas of Santa Barbara County and Paso Robles.  Our production includes the white variety Viognier, and the red varieties Syrah, Mourvedre and Grenache, plus Cinsaut and Counoise for our Rhone style blend.

    We frequently blend small amounts of one or two of these varieties into a named variety to add complexity to a wine.  From the 2001 vintage we produced a southern Rhone style blend of Grenache, Mourvedre and Syrah.  From the 2002 and 2003 vintages, we produced a blend including Mourvedre and Syrah, plus two other southern Rhone blending grapes, Cinsaut and Counoise.  Our name for our Rhone blend is "A Genoux."   A Genoux means "to your knees" and is borrowed from a quote from Alexander Dumas, the author of The Three Musketeers and The Count of Monte Christo.  Dumas was a great wine lover and is said to have described his favorite wine as so good that "you should drink it on your knees with your hat off."

Italian Varieties:

    Italy is one of the largest wine producing countries in the world, and may produce the largest number of different varieties as well.  Our preference is for the popular white variety of the northeast, Pinot Grigio, and the reds of the Piedmont region of the northwest, Nebbiolo and Barbera.  Once again, we are fortunate to have an excellent supply of these varieties in Santa Barbara County and they are consistently among the most popular choices in our tasting room.  One wine we have become particularly noted for is our Nebbiolo.  We also produce a blend of these two varieties called "IL RE (the king)."  The exact percentages in this blend vary from year to year, but are usually close to fifty percent of each wine.

    These Italian varieties work especially well with our style of emphasizing the fruit flavors in our wines.  The red varieties, in particular, exhibit wonderful aromas and flavors of berry fruit.  These wines are very tasty and, as you might expect, having originated in Italy, are very food friendly.

Zinfandel:

     While Zinfandel is not native to either the Rhone Valley or Italy (probably Croatia or nearby), it is genetically the same as the largely planted Italian grape Primitivo.  In addition, it is a favorite of our winemaker and grows especially well in the nearby area of Paso Robles.  Combine all that with the fact that it has been grown in California for about 150 years, and, despite its European origin, is probably the most Californian of any variety grown here, and we have all the reasons we need to have it on our production schedule.

    Of course, we only produce the traditional red variety.  These are big, full bodied fruity wines, frequently high in alcohol that entice your senses with aroma and fill your mouth with warmth and flavor.  They are a perfect match for our style of big full bodied fruit-forward wines.

Grape Sources:

    While we do not grow our own grapes, we work closely with the growers from whom we purchase, and with whom we work to develop long term relationships.  Occasionally we will lose our enthusiasm for a particular vineyard and try another, or a new vineyard may become available that we consider a better source of fruit, but, in general, most of our vineyard sources remain the same from year to year.

    Among the many benefits of producing wine on California's Central Coast is the large number of grape growers who sell most or all of their grapes to producers like us.  The vast majority of Santa Barbara County wineries, including those who grow lots of grapes buy at least some of the grapes from which they produce their wine from other growers.  Many of these growers are primarily farmers and not wineries, but,  many wineries who do grow grapes sell some of them to other producers.  Furthermore, much of the grape farming operations, whether for growers or wineries, are managed by firms that specialize in vineyard management and not by the individual vineyard owners or wineries themselves.  In effect, there are a few vineyard management companies who manage the farming of a large percentage of the local vineyards.  By establishing and maintaining relationships with the vineyard managers we prefer, we gain access to the variety, quality and quantity of fruit we desire.

What Makes Us Different:

    Many small wineries, and larger ones too, specialize in producing one, two, or maybe three varieties.  At Arthur Earl, however, our passion is in variety.  We have produced twelve different varieties so far and have one or two more that may be in our future.  At any point in time, our available selections will include eight to ten different wines.  Generally speaking, our wines are produced in small lots of 50 to 300 cases.  We have, on occasion, produced larger lots, up to the 500 case range, which is very large for us.  Most of our wines are sourced from single vineyards.

    In addition, about 98 percent of our wines are sold directly to the consumer.  This is accomplished through our tasting room in Los Olivos and through our wine club, the Arthur Earl Wine Society.  The remainder of our wines are sold to a select number of restaurants and wine retailers, mostly in the Santa Barbara and Los Angeles areas, but, it is sometimes possible to find some of our wines in restaurants and stores in other areas.