California Wine History

José María Soberanes arrived in the Salinas Valley with the Portolá Expedition, the first organized overland exploration of Alta California. Drawn to the fog-shrouded Santa Lucia Mountains and fertile valley below, he made the region his home. His son Feliciano's bust still stands in the Soledad Mission today. The family name endures in the land itself.

The Spanish established Monterey in 1774, and by 1777 it had become the capital of Alta California — the region's political, military, and commercial center and its only official port of entry.

The story of wine in Monterey County begins with the Franciscan missions. Friars carried cuttings of Vitis vinifera north through Mexico, the variety that would come to be known as the Mission grape. In 1791, Mission Nuestra Señora de la Soledad was founded just a mile from today's Santa Lucia Highlands. Grapevines took root in the valley that would, two centuries later, become some of California's most celebrated wine country.

Under Spanish and then Mexican rule, the Salinas Valley was divided into vast land grants — ranchos spanning tens of thousands of acres. Cattle grazed the open benchlands. Small irrigated plots grew grain and vegetables to feed mission communities. The slopes above the valley floor, fog-cooled and wind-swept, went largely unfarmed — but not unnoticed. The bones of the land were already speaking to those who would listen.

California's statehood brought a new wave of settlers to the Salinas Valley. Rancheros subdivided their lands as drought, debt, and the Homestead Act opened the valley floor to incoming farmers. Wheat and barley took hold first, were harvested by hand, and shipped from Moss Landing by steamship to a state hungry for food. By the mid-1860s, thousands of acres had been put into grain production.

The Southern Pacific Railroad reached Salinas in 1872, fundamentally reshaping what could be grown and how far it could travel. Farmers could now reach markets in San Francisco and beyond with perishable crops. The valley began its transformation from a dry-farming grain economy to something far more intensive — and far more valuable.

Swiss-Italian immigrants, many from the canton of Ticino, arrived in Monterey County as dairy farmers and gradually acquired land across the Salinas Valley and the benchlands that would become the Santa Lucia Highlands. Families including the Pisonis, Franscionis, and Caracciolis put down roots here in the early 1900s, eventually creating new agricultural legacies in the wine industry.

In 1897, Claus Spreckels built a sugar beet refinery near Salinas that would grow into the largest of its kind in the world — processing more than 3,500 tons of sugar beets per day at its peak. The operation transformed irrigation technology in the valley, drilling deep wells and engineering water delivery systems that made intensive agriculture on this scale possible.

The first wagonload of lettuce shipped from the Salinas Valley in 1916. By 1931, improved refrigeration put Monterey County at the center of the American produce industry. Twenty thousand refrigerated rail cars of lettuce a year were bound for tables across the country from Monterey. The Salinas Valley became known as the Salad Bowl of the World. The families farming these fields, including many who would later plant grapevines in the Santa Lucia Highlands, built the economic roots that make multi-generational land ownership possible.

As dairying declined after World War II, farmers shifted to vegetables. Broccoli acreage expanded from 6,000 acres in 1951 to 24,000 by 1971. Cauliflower, celery, and strawberries followed. In the early 1960s, the first lemon orchards were planted on the valley's western hillsides. Commercial lemon plantings surged in the 1980s and 1990s alongside grapevines in the Santa Lucia Highlands.

In the early 1960s, investors and growers arrived in Monterey County armed with the most authoritative viticulture science of the era: the Winkler Index, the definitive system for classifying wine regions by climate. Monterey's numbers looked promising. Much of the Salinas Valley is registered as Region II and III, the same range as Bordeaux. The conclusion seemed clear: plant Cabernet Sauvignon, and Monterey would become California's next great wine region. Tens of thousands of acres went in. The Winkler study proved to be wrong. Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot struggled to ripen. The wine region wasn't Bordeaux. It was something colder, wilder, and ultimately more interesting.

Early visionaries recognized the potential of the windswept benchlands above the Salinas Valley. Jerry McFarland and Phil Johnson planted Pinot Noir and Chardonnay at Sleepy Hollow, La Reina, and La Estancia vineyards. In 1973, Rich Smith established Paraiso Vineyard, and in 1979, Nicky Hahn purchased Smith & Hook Vineyard. These pioneers laid the foundation for the Santa Lucia Highlands' reputation for world-class Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

The Highlands attracts California's top winemakers who see potential in the region for coast-cooled Pinot Noir.

Gary Pisoni, the son of Swiss-Italian immigrants who began farming vegetables in the Salinas Valley in 1952, plants his legendary vineyard at 1,300 feet — one of the highest-elevation vineyards in the Santa Lucia Highlands — using budwood sourced from Burgundy. The steep, terraced hillside will become one of the most sought-after sources of Pinot Noir in California. Critics call Pisoni Vineyard "some of the most highly sought in California" and "Grand Cru terroir in the Santa Lucia Highlands." Pisoni puts the remote wine region on the map.

Dan Lee, a Central Coast native, and his wife, Donna, founded Morgan Winery and made their first wines from Santa Lucia Highlands grapes. Their very first Monterey Chardonnay won a Gold Medal at the Los Angeles County Fair, a decade before Santa Lucia Highlands became an official AVA. Fourteen years later, they purchased a hillside in the Santa Lucia Highlands and planted the Double L Vineyard. Double L would later become the SLH's first organic-certified vineyard.

Monterey County becomes an officially designated American Viticultural Appellation.

Steve McIntyre came to the Highlands first as a winemaker at Hahn. Realizing how much he preferred sunshine to the wet cellar, he purchased an abandoned vineyard in the heart of the Santa Lucia Highlands and founded McIntyre Estate in 1987. The 80-acre property, first planted in 1973, remains home to some of the region's oldest Pinot Noir and Chardonnay vines. McIntyre would later be named California Wine Grape Grower of the Year.

Chuck Wagner of Caymus Vineyards, one of Napa Valley's most notable wine families, planted Chardonnay in the Santa Lucia Highlands and founded Mer Soleil, helping elevate the region's profile. That same year, Robert Mondavi Winery leased 800 acres of the Bianchi Bench, planting Pinot Noir and Chardonnay and bringing another major Napa Valley name to the appellation.

After years of effort by local growers and winemakers, including Barry Jackson, Rich Smith, and Nicky Hahn, the Santa Lucia Highlands was officially recognized as an American Viticultural Area. The designation affirmed the region's unique growing conditions and established its identity as one of California's premier cool-climate wine regions.

Childhood friends of Swiss-Italian descent, Gary Franscioni and Gary Pisoni plant 50 acres of Pinot Noir and Syrah on a shared parcel — a handshake partnership that began in 1996 and whose name honors both men equally. Garys' Vineyard will become one of the appellation's most celebrated addresses, its fruit sought by some of California's most acclaimed winemakers.

Santa Lucia Highlands single-vineyard bottlings — particularly from legendary sites like Pisoni, Garys', and Rosella's Vineyards — regularly command top scores from Wine Spectator and Robert Parker's The Wine Advocate. Wine Spectator rated Santa Lucia Highlands Pinot Noir the highest of all California Pinot Noir vintages for the fourth consecutive year in 2015. Wine Enthusiast named Monterey County one of the Top 10 Wine Travel Destinations in the World in 2013, the only California region on the list that year.

Growers and winemakers form the Santa Lucia Highlands Wine Artisans, a not-for-profit association dedicated to promoting the region's grape growers and wine producers and maintaining the highest standards of quality.

The Caraccioli family founded Caraccioli Cellars to craft world-class méthode champenoise sparkling wine, enlisting renowned Champagne Louis Roederer winemaker Michel Salgues and planting the Escolle Vineyard two years later. Today, under fourth-generation General Manager Scott Caraccioli, the winery has earned six Best U.S. Sparkling Wine and Best California Sparkling Wine titles at the London-based Champagne & Sparkling Wine World Championships.

The Santa Lucia Highlands embraced SIP (Sustainability in Practice) Certified, a rigorous third-party program built on the principle that great wine and responsible farming are inseparable. Steve McIntyre's McIntyre Estate Vineyard in the Santa Lucia Highlands is among the first properties in the appellation to earn the designation.

Talbott's Sleepy Hollow Vineyard, located in the Santa Lucia Highlands, was named one of California's Grand Cru vineyards by Wine Enthusiast in 2016.

Soberanes Vineyard was featured in Wine Spectator, highlighting California's Greatest Chardonnay Vineyards in July 2023.

Near-perfect growing conditions deliver one of the finest vintages in the appellation's history. Winemakers declare it a benchmark year — the harvest that will define the decade.