Justin Willett breaks down the Santa Ynez Valley

“I think there’s this moment in wine now where people are being more honest with themselves. I want to make the wines I believe in and that I want to consume, and then I’m going to find my audience; I’m not going to make wine for an audience. For me, it’s more about a job well done.” – Justin Willett

When people talk about wines from Santa Barbara, they're probably talking about the Santa Ynez Valley. But the range of varieties and microclimates found here makes the valley perhaps the most densely diversified wine region in the world, so what is Santa Barbara wine really? Justin Willett has a few answers. His projects Tyler, Lieu Dit, and Ad Ripa experiment with dozens of varieties and seek to produce classic European-styled expressions, spanning the valley from the Santa Rita Hills to Happy Canyon.

In this episode, he breaks down the varietal differences between the three brands and explains the philosophical and practical reasons for planting certain varietals at certain sites. He also reflects on the transition from his very first label as an apprentice to building a home at Mae Estate and now stewarding the iconic Fiddlestix Vineyard.

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Transcript

Introduction

Justin Willett 0:03

I think there's this moment in wine now where people are being more honest with themselves. My attitude's always been, I want to go make the wines I believe in and I want to consume, and then I'm going to go find my audience. I'm not going to make wine for an audience. For me, it's more about a job well done.

Harmon Skurnik 0:20

Hey, this is Harmon Skurnik, and welcome to another episode of Skurnik Unfiltered, where we peel back the layers and get behind the scenes of our favorite wineries and winemakers and find out what makes them tick. And today we're going to listen in on an interview with Justin Willett, the proprietor of three brands: Tyler, Ad Ripa, and Lieu Dit. And I have with me Jamie Schwartz, who is the ambassador and specialist in all things American wine for Skurnik. Welcome, Jamie. You sat down with Justin. I find him to be one of the most interesting, intelligent and forward-thinking winemakers I've ever met. What do you think?

Jamie Schwartz 1:04

I couldn't agree more. He's super passionate. He loves his craft. He maybe loves skiing and his kids a little more, but that's it.

Harmon Skurnik 1:12

Good for him.

Jamie Schwartz 1:13

Yeah. Justin is truly a craftsman and an artist, and I think that really comes through in our episode.

Harmon Skurnik 1:20

Totally. And he now has three brands. Tyler was the original one based in the Santa Rita Hills. And then he started Lieu Dit, which is the French term for "vineyard place," and that's dedicated to Loire varietals mostly. And then, later on, he created another brand called Ad Ripa, which is Cabernet- and Merlot-based, as a homage to his dad or something like that?

Jamie Schwartz 1:47

Exactly right. The origins of that label do begin as making Cabernet under the Tyler label. After Justin's father had passed—it was his favorite grape—at a certain point, Justin recognized how successful Cabernet grows in the eastern part of Santa Ynez. He's really betting on that and has decided to make Cabernet a focus for this new label.

Harmon Skurnik 2:09

It's kind of counterintuitive. When you think of Santa Barbara, you don't think of Cabernet or Merlot, but if you go east to Happy Canyon, it actually is really great terroir for red wine there, isn't it?

Jamie Schwartz 2:20

Exactly right. He's actually gone from being a negotiant to now an estate holder. And that's not just with Chardonnay and Pinot Noir for the Tyler label, but also Ad Ripa has an estate vineyard out in Happy Canyon too. Not only is he an incredibly talented winemaker, but he has really gotten into the vineyard development and farming side of things.

Harmon Skurnik 2:42

I didn't realize that he had vineyards out there as well. I know that he has his own vineyards in Santa Rita Hills, and he also recently purchased the Fiddlestix Vineyard, which is quite a famous vineyard. His style of wine is, in my mind, very European-style. He spent a lot of time in Burgundy. He's got a lot of friends in Burgundy. And I think the cool climate of Santa Rita Hills really helps him achieve that, don't you think?

Jamie Schwartz 3:07

I couldn't agree more. We see these beautiful, energetic, high-acid wines that are a hallmark of our U.S. portfolio in general, and Justin's wines are very much a part of that.

Harmon Skurnik 3:18

I started this session by saying I think he's one of the most thoughtful and intelligent people I know in this business. Why don't we listen in to your interview with him and see if everybody agrees?

Jamie Schwartz 3:27

I hope so. Here we go.

Harmon Skurnik 3:29

Let's go.

Meet Justin Willett

Jamie Schwartz 3:31

Hi everyone. I'm Jamie Schwartz, U.S. portfolio manager here at Skurnik Wines & Spirits. I'm joined by my friend Justin Willett, who's visiting us from Santa Barbara. As many of you know, Justin is responsible for the Tyler wines, Ad Ripa, as well as Lieu Dit. Justin, you're from the Santa Barbara area, and it's an amazing place to grow grapes. Can you take us through the beginnings of your winemaking career and how you found your way into making, like, every possible wine imaginable in Santa Ynez and in your home turf? There's a lot to cover, but let's start at the beginning.

Justin Willett 4:06

Man, the beginning. Okay. I started making wine in 2005. I came from restaurants. My background, though, was in art history and architecture. Wine wasn't in the family at all; my dad was a contractor, my mom was a nurse. There's no real multi-generational wine people in Santa Barbara. We've only got, like, 50 years of wine-growing tradition today. I just got the bug waiting tables in college and soon thereafter decided that I didn't want to go to grad school and instead just wanted to make wine, but I thought I had to go to school. To go to school, I thought I had to take organic chemistry and microbiology and all these things. I figured I should just go get dirty first, to make sure I really wanted to do it. I waited tables at night and apprenticed during the day and started the end of 2004. Joe Davis from Arcadian, who I was working for, pulled me aside before the 2005 vintage and said, "You really get this, and you're not going to learn faster than if you just put your dollars in the middle and make a little of your own wine. You'll actually have to think for yourself." And so I did. Not at all thinking I was starting a wine brand, thinking this is just a step along the journey of learning how to do this. It turns out, a barrel of wine makes 24 nine-liter cases of wine—a lot more than you're going to drink with your buddies. Very quickly, it became like, not a need to start a brand, but the wines turned out well, and so Tyler was born. Tyler's always had a focus on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Then maybe six years later, I started Lieu Dit, which focuses on Loire varieties—Sauvignon Blanc, Chen Blanc, Cabernet Franc grapes originally from the Loire Valley, but grown in the Santa Ynez Valley. Today, I'm also focusing with Ad Ripa on the Bordeaux set of varieties, growing from the eastern end of the Santa Ynez Valley.

Jamie Schwartz 5:49

I love that you highlighted the bookends of Santa Ynez. To the west in the Santa Rita Hills, we have the Burgundian varieties, and then we get into Bordeaux varieties on the eastern side of the valley.

Mapping the microclimates of the Santa Ynez Valley

Jamie Schwartz 6:04

What's that drive like? I have an understanding from being there, how close in proximity everything is, but can you give us a lay of the land?

Justin Willett 6:12

Sure. The town of Santa Barbara is basically at the top of what would be considered Southern California. I feel like as you work just up past Santa Barbara, you really begin the central coast of California. Santa Barbara as a town is about an hour and a half's drive up the coast from Los Angeles. And then, as you drive another 45 minutes or so up the coast and turn just inland, you find the Santa Ynez Valley, and that's really the wine country that people are referring to when they're talking about Santa Barbara. There's valleys up above that, the Los Alamos and Santa Maria Valley, but really the lion's share of what's happening is the Santa Ynez Valley. Right here, you have this unique character where the mountain range is rotating 90 degrees from what's normal on the western seaboard, which typically is a north-south orientation. Because of the south-facing coastline of Santa Barbara, things rotate 90 degrees and work east-west. So we have what we call the Transverse Mountain Ranges, which really allows for the strong onshore flow coming off the Pacific Ocean. Wherever you find a transverse mountain range in a Mediterranean climate, you're going to find wine grapes. Right where we are is where the coastline corrects from that south-facing coastline to a more west-facing coastline. You have this right angle that kind of looks like a nose on the map. That's called Point Conception. And right there is where the warm coming up from Mexico is colliding with all the cold coming down from Alaska. The result is very severe weather patterns, a lot of wind, a lot of fog. Though we're further south than what a lot of people think of as California wine-growing regions, we're actually the coldest region in California. There's this open mouth to the Pacific that's pretty intensely windy and cold. But within this valley, because it's so close to the coast and because we have the coast on two sides of us, as you work inland, you gain temperature quite quickly. On a nice sunny day, the summertime temperature might be 75 or 80 ºF out in the Santa Rita Hills. But just as it's hitting those peak temperatures, the wind's picking up off the coast, and fog and breeze are pushing back in and really cooling that off quickly. And while that's happening, you drive just 20-30 minutes inland and you find Happy Canyon where it's over 95 ºF. This really allows for us to grow a lot of different varieties. And, like I was saying earlier, it's a blessing and a curse. It's hard to really define what is or isn't Santa Barbara because with these really unique marine sedimentary soils and varying degrees of temperature based on where you are, you can kind of grow whatever you want, whether it's the Pinot Noir or Chardonnay out to the west or Rhône varieties in the middle, say Ballard Canyon zone, plus or minus east and west of there. And then as you work further inland, the Loire set, the Rhône set, the Bordeaux set, all grow quite well. I can't think of anywhere else on the West Coast that's got anything in the same way.

Jamie Schwartz 9:02

It's an incredibly diverse area.

How does a grower decide what to plant?

Jamie Schwartz 9:06

You've done a lot of vineyard development in the course of your 20 years as a winemaker and a lot recently. You have several estate vineyards now. You began as a négociant and now you're an estate holder. What's that transition like? How cool is it to develop a vineyard? I have a sense that really gets you going.

Justin Willett 9:25

It's the best. Every young winemaker hopes and yearns to be in a position to plant their own grapes and be able to control them. That's really why we talk so much about buying grapes versus estate situations—it's a control thing.

Jamie Schwartz 9:40

We were speaking earlier about what's growing in California at large, and we're seeing new varieties pop up regularly. You just touched on the Mediterranean climate. We're seeing Italian varieties and things like that crop up more and more on the West Coast. Would you dare speculate, as someone who handles so many different grape varieties in the region, what do you think is going to happen?

Justin Willett 10:01

None of us have a crystal ball, so it's hard to really say. I know that a lot of places where it is getting much warmer, there's a lot more experimentation with varieties that are indigenously grown in really warm climates, as a way to hedge against whatever might be coming. But, as much as it is different varieties, it's also different rootstocks, planting densities, row orientation, access to water, etc. There's a lot of different factors that dictate what's going to be planted. The process starts with trying to understand your soils and what historically works well in that region. And then assuming you want to plant the traditional varieties, which I did—I mean, the Santa Rita Hills is a fantastic place to grow Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, so that's really what we focus on. Back in 2005, my wife and I were able to acquire our first estate vineyard, which is called Mae today. That was just an open field. It's really about understanding vigor and soil complexities and then trying to decide on rootstock decisions and then, even within Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, the specific selections that we're going to plant. The vine densities that we're planting, at least at Mae, are roughly half of Burgundy density, effectively two meters by one meter. That gets you about 5,000 vines per hectare or a little over 2,000 vines per acre. Burgundy is planted at 10,000 vines per hectare. The reason we do it this way is because, frankly, we use different kinds of tractors and it's what works for us. That's one of the things that is lost as you go to market—it's not a one-size-fits-all when it comes to farming and and wine growing. If we're talking about cultivation versus no cultivation in the vineyard, or we're talking about planting densities or what rootstocks or selections to plant, that's all specific to a place. And I think it's it's far more important to be objective about what we're trying to do and looking carefully at the equation in front of you and trying to play your best hand, opposed to just doing what you heard works well somewhere else. I think a lot of what is or isn't going to be planted has to do with the economics, unfortunately. Look at what it cost to plant a vineyard, install that trellis, that infrastructure a generation or two ago versus what it costs today. Look at the cost of steel, the cost of labor, diesel, etc. It's unfortunate because for a lot of these more esoteric varieties, when people do the math on what that esoteric variety is going to return in the market, the math equation's going to say: "Plant Cabernet." Because growing some random white variety where you're only going to be able to charge $25-30 a bottle is just not going to pencil, which is a bummer.

Jamie Schwartz 12:58

The cost of goods and all of those things... I mean, this is a business at the end of the day—

Justin Willett 13:03

Wouldn't it be cool if it wasn't? What if we just got to make wine? Hearing stories and finding out what's worked and what doesn't, I mean, Sanford and Benedict, the first vineyard planted in Santa Barbara that's really iconic. That was planted to all kinds of random stuff. Riesling, Cabernet, Merlot, and today it's Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, pretty much, that's it.

Jamie Schwartz 13:25

Is there anything else?

Justin Willett 13:27

Nope. I think there's maybe a tiny bit of Viognier, maybe?

Jamie Schwartz 13:35

We're talking 40 plus years at this point that it's been those two varieties?

Justin Willett 13:41

50. But yeah, probably. I'd say probably the last of some of the random stuff was probably removed in the last 10 years. But Cabernet, Merlot, Riesling—I think all that stuff has been out of there for quite some time. And again, it's just because Pinot Noir and Chardonnay were the most marketable varieties, because they were the most successful, no different than how we know Napa as equaling Cabernet.

Jamie Schwartz 14:08

My sense of the wine world—especially when we think about the wines of Europe and when it is generational and handed down and things of that nature—is things are word-of-mouth or how it was done by the generation ahead of you. We don't have wine law here, and you said earlier that you appreciate the creative freedom you're able to have by being a winemaker in California and not being hamstrung by tradition and wine law as a result. But we are seeing the natural selection to a degree that a region can be synonymous with a grape or a few select grapes. It's interesting, and yet there are more grape varieties that the average consumer is aware of, and we are seeing people experiment with different things. You have some experimental plantings as well, and you've got some alternate varieties going. What's going on there?

Justin Willett 15:02

I think the opportunity—and I think it's a very American perspective—to not have to be tied to tradition in the in these ways, but maybe a century or two from now, we've kind of all agreed that certain things work better than others. It didn't happen overnight in Europe and we're still really young. But I think the opportunity to explore and see what works or doesn't is a uniquely American thing, when it comes to wine at least. I can plant it whatever densities I want. I can plant this way or that way, and this clone or that variety, and and I love doing that. Out at Mae, that's predominantly Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, though. We've done a little massal of meter-by-meter, cross-staked, own-rooted Syrah—not at all how most things are planted today. It's what you find in the northern Rhône as far as the way it looks, the little A-frames out there. And not only do I think it looks cool, but it makes some really interesting wine. But it's been really slow to establish. I thought the vineyard would grow much better, much faster. Turns out, when you just slam sticks into the ground it's a slower go. We're still figuring it out. I said earlier today, it takes five to seven years to really see the full ramifications of your decisions in wine, by the time you commit to something, start something, produce the wines, get them in the market. I would say just now this year, this is the first year that I've really seen that vineyard pop and have a uniform bud break that looks like an established vineyard finally, now nearly 10 years into that planting. Fingers crossed it actually makes some nice wine. But there's only one way to learn that, and that's by doing it.

Acquiring Fiddlestix Vineyard

Jamie Schwartz 16:53

We've just talked about Mae estate and that there wasn't a history of growing grapes on the property before you took it over, but you've also recently acquired an established vineyard, Fiddlestix. What's the difference when you're working with a blank canvas versus coming in and taking over someone else's vision?

Justin Willett 17:12

Inheriting that history from Kathy Joseph, who planted the vineyard originally and was the custodian of it for the first nearly 30 years, I think there's something that feels like a passing of the torch, you might call it. Just think about all the time and energy that she and all the others out there have spent over the years. To inherit a vineyard that's in such a wonderful part of the Santa Rita Hills, but also in such great shape with such healthy vines, it's a privilege and an honor. And it's cool to think that Erik Mallea, my partner and vineyard manager in our farming company and in Fiddlestix, along with Bill, our other partner there, for the foreseeable future, we are the ones trying to push this place forward and improve it how we can and hopefully use it as a platform to help push the Santa Rita Hills. Fiddlestix has been a long-standing high-quality vineyard source for a lot of producers, and it's cool to now be in this position to where I can help direct the farming of fruit that's going to go into a lot of other people's programs, which is a unique position that I've never found myself in before. I was the one on the other side of the table trying to buy a ton or two of fruit from Sanford Benedict or La Rinconata or Bien Nacido or wherever. But today, to be the one selling fruit to, effectively, competitors is a unique position, but it's something that I relish. I think it's really cool to be part of the community in that way.

Jamie Schwartz 18:42

Is Mae Estate also going to be something that could turn into a vineyard source for other people? It's a smaller site.

Justin Willett 18:52

It's smaller. It's not small, but no. That feels personal in a different way. Planning it from scratch, we redid the house out there, brought kids home from the hospital there. That's home in a lot of ways. That is really the core of Tyler today, as far as I'm concerned. I mean, it's obviously a privilege to then also say that Fiddlestix is at that same level. But because of the history there with Kathy, the size of it, the fact that there's been this long-standing tradition of selling fruit there, it does feel different.

Bordeaux varieties in Happy Canyon for Ad Ripa

Jamie Schwartz 19:31

Justin, we've talked a lot about Tyler, of course, and the great plantings of Burgundian varieties on the western edge of Santa Ynez, but you've really started diving into the eastern part of the appellation, getting into Cabernet. Can you tell us about Ad Ripa and where that began? What's in store?

Justin Willett 19:52

Sure. I guess my journey with Bordeaux varieties really starts with Loire varieties, starting to work with the Lieu Dit wines, which I started in 2011, focusing on all these Loire varieties grown out in Happy Canyon. The vast majority of what we work with there is all grown in the eastern reaches of the Santa Ynez Valley. It's about a 20-30-minute drive out from the Santa Rita Hills, working due east. As you get out there, it turns out Cabernet, Cabernet Franc, Chenin Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc all grow really great. You've got these soils that are this really interesting kitchen sink of marine subsoil, clay, clay loam top soils, all this river cobble, volcanic material, serpentine material, really a random group. But the results are some really fresh, very interesting wines. First working with Cabernet Franc for Lieu Dit, that really transitioned into helping my wife's family with their estate winery. Their winemaker got sick back in 2012, so I helped them make a few vintages there. And in the process, I was like, "Oh man, like these Cabernets are killer." I don't get why the wines I was having from out that way didn't really do it for me. I think a lot of it had to do with people just picking hyper-ripe fruit and stuff out of balance. And the wines, while maybe ripe alcoholically, always felt hollow and disjointed. I didn't think much of it for a few years, and then my dad passed away in 2016, and the day he passed, I happened to be at the top of this block in this vineyard meeting, and just below me was this really beautiful block of head-trained To Kalon clone Cabernet Sauvignon. My dad wasn't a big wine guy, but when he drank wine, he liked Cabernet, and so I thought maybe I'd do a little homage for him. I started making a little bit of Cabernet under Tyler in 2016, focusing on that head-trained To Kalon stuff that made these really lovely, very classically-styled Cabernets. I started going with that, had a lot of success, had a lot of nice scores, all that. now, in 2020, I started thinking to myself, these wines are really good, and I don't want these just to be the other thing that Tyler does. Because at a certain point, you've got to define a brand. So to better give these wines a real platform and voice, I decided to start Ad Ripa. Really with the 2021 vintage, we started this new label. Ad Ripa means "to the shore," talking about this coastal river valley with the ocean on two sides of us, where the Santa Ynez and the ocean both impact the style of Cabernet, which I would define as far more restrained, certainly powerful, deep, rich, impressive wine, but with a level of freshness and balance that you don't find in a lot of places that maybe feels a little bit more old school, Old World in size and shape. That's how we go. We make a couple different wines now from a younger planting called China Blue that I control. It's about a 10-acre vineyard today, planted mostly to Cabernet Sauvignon and a bit of Cabernet Franc. There's also a little bit of Sauvignon Blanc out there as well. And I'm working with this old head-trained stuff right next door at Happy Canyon Vineyard, which is the original planting out there in the Santa Rita Hills.

Jamie Schwartz 23:18

And that was planted in the 1990s?

Justin Willett 23:20

Yeah, 1990s planting. Originally it was planted to a lot of Rhône varieties, but it turns out it's too warm for those to really do well. The Bordeaux set's been been really successful out there. I'm really excited about the project. This was about making wines in the style of these old California wines that I'd had that were really good. I've had the good fortune of trying a lot of wine from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, early 1990s from Santa Cruz or Napa or wherever that are fantastic. Then this era happens where there's economic benefit to appeasing certain critics, so the style changes to best position a brand to do well, and I get it. But those just aren't the wines I want to drink. I think there's this moment in wine now where people are being more honest with themselves. And my attitude's always been, I want to go make the wines I believe in and I want to consume, and then I'm going to go find my audience. I'm not going to make wine for an audience.

Defining perfection

Jamie Schwartz 24:26

I'm wondering about perfection in the sense of inheriting a vineyard versus the blank canvas and planting of one. Is there a perfect vineyard? Is there a perfect wine? How does that come into your vision and your process?

Justin Willett 24:44

I don't think there's a perfect vineyard site. There's not one that is "the one." I think there's this really cool combination of soil and climate, the planting itself, but then also the hands that are involved. And I think that's really the cool part. I could sit here, hand you the exact same fruit, write down the recipe. Okay, go do it. And you're going to make a different wine. There's all of these—call them X factor, call them intuition, whatever—that is what's so personal about winemaking. That's why we talk about the generational changes in these iconic regions. It's because when someone passes the torch—the same vineyard, same shop, same cellar, whatever—the wines are going to change one way or another. So, no, I don't think wines can be perfect. I don't think vineyards are perfect. I certainly strive for perfection in the wines that I make, but who am I to say if my wine's perfect or not? For me, it's more about a job well done. It's about getting up, doing the work, doing the hard stuff, doing the stuff other people talk about doing, but actually doing it. It's about the early mornings and the late nights and your hands hurting, and then going home and tucking the kids in and going back to the cellar and doing it some more. That's winemaking. That's the part that's so amazing about the process. It's the collaboration, it's the time spent with crews of migrant labor that are helping us do this process. So much of it is talking about a winemaker, but I'm one guy. I can't do everything. I've got a team in the cellar, they respect my aesthetic and hopes and goals for how we're going to do it. And they're proud of the end product. But takes a village. It's a lot of work making wine. The part that's perfect for me is, every year in harvest, there's this moment where the interns are up to speed and everything's just flowing, and I can look around and everyone's doing what they need to be doing, and the fruit looks great coming in and fermentations smell great, and you're like, Yeah, this is why I do this. This is as perfect as it gets for me. It's super rewarding. Now 20 years in—really having this moment to not only do the work, but also teach and share—if those around me are just there to clean up, it's going to get real boring. It needs to be about passing on what I've learned at this point, just like those early conversations with Jim Clendenen or Richard Sanford.

Jamie Schwartz 27:31

The flow, that peak harvest flow you were just talking about—I recognize that as something that I've experienced in my time working in restaurants, and it wasn't just at fancy ones, it was at bars early on in my career too. I think you hear musicians talk about that, artists talk about that. It comes in different fields, but we're dealing with human elements and a collaboration of people, and I think that is such a special thing when that flow locks in. I'm glad you brought it up and I'm glad you get to experience it. It's something that I maybe miss now. Is there anything else that you want to touch on today? Is there anything that we've missed? We had a beautiful bottle of your sparkling wine earlier. I think there's some Grüner hiding in one of your vineyards, too. There's a lot of rocks to still overturn. Any last thoughts on your end?

Justin Willett 28:30

This has been such a wonderful journey thus far. And, honestly, I just hope you can buy my wine because I'm totally unemployable at this point.

Jamie Schwartz 28:41

Well, you're Justin Willett, you're unemployable, but you make amazing wines. Long career ahead of you, new estate vineyards, legacy vineyards with some new vision and energy. It's a really exciting time. Thank you for joining us.

Justin Willett 28:57

Thanks for having me.

Harmon Skurnik 29:01

Skurnik Unfiltered is recorded at Skurnik Wines & Spirits headquarters in the Flatiron District of New York City. If you found the conversation interesting, please consider liking, subscribing, and leaving a review. You can stay up to date on our show and upcoming events by following @skurnikwines on Instagram and visiting our website at skurnik.com