EDIBLE PROFILE
Winemaker Matt McKinney by Adam McHugh PHOTOGRAPHY BY JOSHUA CURRY
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o many winemakers arrive at the world of wine by surprising paths, called out of usually more sensible life directions to the pursuit of the right place and the perfect wine. Matt McKinney’s path to making wine began on the back of a Ford F150 on a closed-down freeway in San Juan, Puerto Rico. In January 2010, the professional volleyball team he starred on won the Puerto Rican Superior League Championship. The local police shut down the freeway, so McKinney and his teammates could take a victory lap in the bed of a pickup truck with seemingly the entire volleyball-crazed city parading behind, horns honking. Hours before, his team had trailed 2–0 in the best-out-offive championship match. There was more than volleyball hopes at stake for McKinney. His family owned a ranch in the Santa Ynez Valley, and before the season began, he made a deal with his dad, Harry, and mom, Lee Ann, who moved their family from Woodland Hills to Santa Ynez in 1992. 24 | EDIBLE SANTA BARBARA WINTER 2019
“We had 10 acres and we weren’t doing anything with it,” McKinney explains. “I had been asking my dad for years if we could plant a vineyard on our property, but he had always shrugged it off. I made a deal with him that year that if we won the championship, I could plant the vineyard.” Perhaps with the aid of the wine gods, the team rallied to win the final three sets and the match. The frenzied celebration, and McKinney Family Vineyards, was begun. That spring, back in bucolic and much quieter Santa Ynez, the family planted a quarter acre of Syrah and a quarter acre of Viognier. Considered the #1 volleyball prospect in the country coming out of Santa Ynez High School, McKinney was recruited to play volleyball and basketball at UCLA. He broke his foot on the first day of fall practice his sophomore season. In his junior year he led the volleyball team into the NCAA quarterfinals, only to tear the labrum in his shoulder. The injuries, combined with nagging stomach ailments, forced him to medically retire before his senior year.
