2013 Longoria Wines Pinot Noir Fe Ciega Vineyard Sta. Rita Hills 750 ml

The Lompoc Wine “Ghetto,” Fragile Shale, and Fog Called “Sea Smoke”

Rick Longoria woke up early to meet us at his winery in a place they call “The Wine Ghetto.” The “Ghetto” is really a converted industrial park where 20 of the more talented winemakers in Santa Barbara County have fitted out wineries for a pittance. But we hadn’t taken the United hop from SFO to Santa Barbara on that noisy prop plane just to tour warehouses in the sleepy town of Lompoc. We’d come to see the “smoke.”

We got to Longoria’s “Ghetto” door at 8 a.m. Rick was waiting, three thermoses in hand.

We made our way out of the park in Rick’s truck at 8:30 a.m. and jumped on Sweeney Road. A thick blanket of “smoke” covered the Santa Ynez riverbed below. To our left, the craggy Santa Rita Hills were covered with a bright yellow wild mustard on top, but still showed off the fragile shale underpinnings below. When Rick pointed to the fog, then to that fine shale, we had learned all we needed to know about Fe Ciega and the fog the locals call “sea smoke.”

“Everyone talks about the Santa Rita Hills. But there are two parts, the north and the south. In the north, the soils are sandy, really great for Chardonnay, but without the clay composition needed for dark-fruit Pinot. In the south, we have the clay and shale. The colors are deeper, and, if farmed rigorously, the flavors are far deeper and more intense.” Then he pointed down towards the river and smiled. “Of course, we have the ‘smoke,’ too.”

By the time we climbed up a small mesa that dominates the vineyards below and reached Fe Ciega Vineyard, the fog was still as thick as pea soup. We sat with our scalding coffee and chattering teeth, breaking thin pieces of shale in our hands as we waited. Then, as if on queue, the fog began to lift at 10 a.m. As the sun broke through, the majesty of Fe Ciega came into perfect focus.

What makes this spot so incredible? Why are the big spenders at Le Bernardin, Daniel, and Eleven Madison Park testing the limit of their AmEx cards on Mt. Carmel, Fe Ciega, Sanford & Benedict, and Sea Smoke Pinot Noirs? The mountains up here run east/west, allowing the fog to flow freely over the hills and keeping things chilly until mid-morning, as we witnessed that morning at Rick Longoria’s Fe Ciega. Then brisk winds usher the clouds out to sea, while the Santa Barbara sun burns holes through the fog in less than 45 minutes. Those persistent summer winds cleanse the vines, yet temperatures rarely top 80 degrees.

In good vintages, Longoria’s Fe Ciega, Sea Smoke, and Mt. Carmel give birth to some of the most elegantly refined wild-berry Pinot Noirs on the coast. And in ultra-ripe vintages like 2013? Only the likes of Kosta Browne, Peter Michael, Luc Morlet, and Radio-Coteau measure up.

The 2013 Longoria Pinot Noir Fe Ciega Vineyard may well be the most extraordinary Pinot Noir ever crafted by one of Santa Barbara’s most brilliant masters of the variety. Dark purple. Gorgeous aromas of black cherry, black raspberry, violets, sweet spice, a faint hint of new-wood cedar. Big, broad, and exceedingly rich, packed with wild-berry preserves, dark plum, a splash of framboise liqueur, finishing with terrific tension and tautness and arguing eloquently for 7-10 years of cellar slumber! (LOVED this wine.)

$56 at the Longoria tasting room. Just $44 today — ONLY on WineAccess. 480 bottles, and YES, buy every bottle you can stuff in the cellar. You’ll be thanking us well into the 2020s!