A Tribute to Grace

History

A Tribute to Grace was founded by Angela Osborne, a New Zealand-born winemaker who settled in California and built the project around a single conviction: that Grenache, treated with care and picked at the right moment, could make wines of genuine delicacy in a state better known for weight and extraction. The label began as a small négociant-style operation, sourcing fruit from select vineyards rather than owning land outright. Osborne has remained the central figure throughout, and the project has stayed deliberately small. The name itself reflects a personal and somewhat philosophical orientation toward the grape, though Osborne has consistently let the wines speak rather than the backstory.

Vineyards

The core of the lineup draws on Santa Barbara County, with the Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyard appearing across both the rosé and a red bottling. That site sits at notably high elevation for the region, which moderates ripening and preserves acidity. The portfolio also reaches beyond Santa Barbara: the Paicines Ranch sits in San Benito County, a cooler inland valley with significant diurnal range; the Besson Vineyard is in the Santa Clara Valley; and the Dorigo Family Vineyard represents another distinct California appellation. This multi-county sourcing strategy is deliberate, using site character to express different registers of the grape rather than anchoring the project to a single place. Farming details across these sites are not uniformly documented, though Osborne has shown consistent preference for sites with natural tension built in by climate rather than canopy management alone.

Winemaking

The wines are made with a light hand by California Grenache standards. Whole-cluster fermentation appears explicitly in at least one bottling and likely informs others to varying degrees, contributing structure and a savory, sometimes stemmy lift that counters the grape's natural tendency toward softness. Extraction is kept moderate, and the wines are typically pale to mid-ruby in color, closer in weight to a serious Burgundy than to a Châteauneuf-du-Pape. Oak influence is restrained; the wines read more of fruit and texture than of wood. The Luke bottling sits slightly apart from the single-vineyard Grenaches and likely represents a different blend or vinification approach, though specifics are limited. Across the range, the unifying quality is a deliberate avoidance of the richness that most California Grenache producers pursue, favoring instead wines that finish dry, cool, and relatively firm.