History
The original 1996 planting was Italian and its planter is not recorded. Zotovich took the property in 2004 and regrafted it to Burgundian and Rhone varieties, adding Syrah and Grenache blocks in 2012. The family label followed quickly, with a first Pinot Noir of about three hundred cases around 2007, and it now runs three tiers from the entry ZOTO bottling up to the Z Reserve. Steve's nephew Ryan Zotovich makes the wine, having come through Palmina and Sea Smoke, and Ben Merz manages the farming here as he does at neighbouring Spear.
The Site
Forty acres in total with roughly thirty five of them the parcel most buyers name, sitting at the northern edge of the appellation between Buellton and Lompoc, south of Highway 246 and away from the Santa Rosa Road corridor where Sanford and Benedict lies. The slope is gentle and faces broadly north, which is unusual here. The soil is the reason producers queue up: diatomaceous earth and Arnold series sand of ancient marine origin, so pure in the lower blocks that visitors compare walking it to walking on a beach, with light clay over sandstone and chert on the higher ground.
Vines and Blocks
Pinot Noir and Chardonnay lead, with Syrah, Viognier and the later Grenache. The Pinot Noir is Dijon material, clones 113 and 115, and at least some of the Chardonnay is clone 76. No blocks carry formal names; the working distinction is simply between the sandy lower sections and the clay and sandstone above them, and that split shows up clearly in the wines different producers draw from each.
The Wines
The family bottles under its own label, and the outside roster is long for a vineyard of this size. Chanin has made both a Pinot Noir and a Chardonnay here since the early 2010s, Paul Lato's Seabiscuit is his Zotovich Pinot Noir and has run from about 2011, and Deovlet, SAMsARA and Whitcraft all take fruit. The house character follows the sand: pale, lifted, red-fruited wines with low tannin and high acid rather than density.