Located in northern Santa Barbara County on the Sisquoc River 18 miles east of Santa Maria, California, Rancho Sisquoc is part of an 1852 Spanish land grant. To the Chumash Indians of the area, "Siaquoc" meant "gathering place"--and today Rancho Sisquoc is again a gathering place, this time for wine lovers.

The 37,000 acre ranch was purchased in 1952 by James Flood. The cattle business is the same as it has always been, but the beans and barley have been replaced with vegetables and grapevines. Because the area's climate and soil compared favorably with the renowned growing regions of Sonoma and Napa, Flood decided to plant grape vines. The initial planting in 1968 consisted of nine acres of Johannisberg Riesling and four acres of Cabernet Sauvignon grapes. Current acreage is 320 and growing.

In 1972, then ranch manager Harold Pfeiffer produced the first wines. "The reason I started making wine was to show what you could do with the grapes. Of course I didn't know what I was doing," he says.

By 1974 wineries wanted more grapes and 141 more acres of vines were planted. In 1977 Rancho Sisquoc became a bonded winery and the tasting room was built.

Warmer than vineyards in the lower Santa Maria Valley, Rancho Sisquoc is not as warm as the Santa Ynez Valley only twenty miles to the south, thanks to what's known as the transverse range, coastal mountains running west to east that bring cold winds and fog inland from the Pacific Ocean.

Today, as you drive the road that snakes along the edge of the valley floor to the ranch headquaters and tasting room, you leave the rush of the late twentieth century behind. The farmhouse and barn date from the early 1900s, and artifacts of an earlier age lend the ranch a feeling of when the pace was slower and unrushed.