paul wellman
wine
MIDWEST DYNASTY MOVES TO LOMPOC: Pierre LaBarge IV is a St. Louis scion who is using his family wealth, education, and hard work to build an exciting winery on the western end of the Sta. Rita Hills.
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here’s bound to be a bit of healthy sus- ing down the winery, which is impeccably clean. picion when a brand-new winery comes “Sanitation is our biggest thing here,” said LaBarge, out of the gates charging $60 for a bottle to which Brad Potter, LaBarge’s sales and marketing of a rarely planted white wine grape from man, adds,“We’re all professional moppers.” Spain called albariño, not to mention $100 for I first met LaBarge in 2014 at a private Portupinot noir and cool-climate expressions of syrah guese-style St. Valentine’s dinner in Napa, where and grenache. But the reasons why reveal them- we dined on bacalhau and listened to Azorean selves within seconds of walking into LaBarge folk guitar with a handful of the top Santa Barbara Winery, where meticulous control over grape- County winemakers as well as legendary wine growing, winemaking, and even sales and market- critic Robert Parker. Well-dressed, expertly maning meet with the dedication to classical elegance nered, and articulate then as now, LaBarge only that only old money can achieve. slightly exhibits the airs that come from dynastic Located on the westernmost flank of the Sta. wealth, perhaps because his path to winemaking Rita Hills, atop a bend in was as down-to-earth as it Sweeney Canyon Road, gets. upScalE with views of Lompoc, After graduating from the Santa Ynez River, Holy Cross, LaBarge moved to San Diego, realized he and the waves of Surf SparES no ExpEnSE in producing Beach in the deep disdidn’t want a desk job, and tance, LaBarge’s facilstarted working at Fallbrook aLBariño, PinoT noir, and morE Winery, where he caught ity was one of the last the bug. After meeting the projects designed by by Matt kettmann woman who would become renowned Santa Barhis wife (and mother of their bara architect Barry Berkus, whose reverence to Spanish Colonial son, Pierre V), they moved to San Luis Obispo, Revival is only upstaged by his subtle mastery of where LaBarge got a master of science in soil scimodern touches. Laid out on a cross of sorts that ence and viticulture. He then worked at Shadow adheres to the four cardinal directions, the main Canyon in Paso Robles’s York Mountain AVA, and room features a glass floor with views into the for Ventura’s legendary Manfred Krankl, whose barrel room below and a large glass window on Sine Qua Non is arguably the most expensive the adjacent wall, looking directly into the active American wine in the world. In 2009, with help from his dad— dad whose love winery itself. “The idea was to stand here and see the whole of good wine opened Pierre’s eyes at a young age process,” said proprietor Pierre LaBarge IV, 35 —LaBarge purchased the estate as well as another years old, a scion of the St. Louis family that made vineyard located in the heart of the Sta. Rita Hills, fortunes in defense contracting and steel pipe between Fe Ciega and Mt. Carmel vineyards. The sales. “It’s a very private facility,” he replies when I next year, he started planting pinot noir, of course, ask if he ever plans to open his masterpiece to the but grenache and syrah, as well. And based on a homocline analysis that showed the Sta. Rita public.“We feel like it’s our house.” And for about three months of the year, it is in Hills is most like Rías Baixas, the chilly region fact where the otherwise resident of Santa Barbara’s of northwestern Spain that’s the ancestral home Mesa neighborhood sleeps while he manages har- of albariño, LaBarge decided to plant that grape, vest. Unlike so-called“vintners” who merely put up as well. the cash and watch the wine flow, LaBarge is the He was also excited to try albariño because he hands-on winemaker on each part of the process, didn’t have much experience tasting it, so there from vineyard plotting to racking barrels to wash-
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LaBarGe Winery
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independent.com
November 17, 2016
THe INDePeNDeNT
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