Standing at the top of the ridge at Bien Nacido Vineyards, you can see across much of the Santa Maria Valley. This funnel-shaped valley in northern Santa Barbara County produces some of California’s finest pinot noirs and chardonnays, and for 50 years Bien Nacido has been its standard-bearer, supplying fruit to many of the region’s best wineries (Au Bon Climat, Foxen, pretty much anyplace that gets name-checked in Sideways). Yet the general public has never been able to visit the vineyard—until now.
This past May saw the opening of The Gatehouse at Bien Nacido, a hacienda-style tasting room at the famed vineyard, which crosses a creek that separates San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara Counties and then climbs rolling hills on the east side of the valley. First planted in 1973 by brothers Bob and Steve Miller, when the Central Coast wine industry was in its infancy, the 650-acre plot is the most vineyard-designated property in the world, thanks to all those local wineries using its fruit. The owners began producing their own estate wines in 2007 and built the tasting room for the vineyard’s Golden Anniversary.
“It was a big transformation for our family to finally open the door to the public,” says Nicholas Miller, Steve Miller’s son and the chief sales and marketing officer and executive vice president of Miller Family Wine Company. “But we couldn’t be more excited about the quality of wines that we’re making right now and the attention this region’s starting to get. It seems like it’s 50 years in the making, and it’s finally our time to really shine.”
Visitors to the reservations-required Gatehouse can taste various estate wines and also book tours, which is definitely worth it: Riding around the property on a golf cart, you truly get a sense for the site and how the cooling influence of the nearby Pacific Ocean and the topography of the estate combine to make it such a hallowed vineyard.
“The wines hit a little bit differently when you actually come to the property,” says Bien Nacido winemaker Anthony Avila. “I don’t think it demystifies the vineyard at all, because it really does live up to expectations.” Compared to some public-facing tasting rooms, Bien Nacido is a bit off the beaten path—about an hour’s drive north of downtown Santa Barbara, the last stretch of that on a winding road through agricultural land—but Miller says visitor response has been enthusiastic. “Our opening-day party, just internally with our employees, we had a family show up that had flown all the way from Korea to Los Angeles and drove up,” he recalls. “They bought a bunch of wine, joined the club, and told us what an incredible experience this was. That’s exactly what we wanted.”
