Our Story
Wine is our passion, and that spark spurred us to take a leap, creating Lyons Vineyard, and bringing our dream to reality.
Lyons Vineyard is a result of years of working, dreaming and planning; family-owned by us, and organically farmed with passion.
We are life-long learners, and the education about how wine is made, where it comes from, the effects of terrior, variety and clone, long ago ignited a thirst to learn more! We hope to share this gift of knowledge to make wine easier, fun, approachable...and to create amazing memories together with you.
Lyons Vineyard
Wines coming soon!
We began making a little wine from our grapes this harvest - and can't wait to share our wines with you! Join our list to be notified when our wine is for sale, and to find out about our future launch.
Lyons Vineyard
The beautiful 10 acre property was first planted in 2009 with one acre each of Grenache and Viognier, and expanded in 2017 to nearly 6 acres planted. Currently we focus on Rhône varietals including Grenache, Syrah, Mourvèdre, and Viognier.
The soil is a mixture of sandy loam, clay, and ancient riverbed with rich nutrients and great drainage.
With 3,000 vines per acre in the two original blocks, this high density vineyard produces fruit destined for premier cuvées in the Santa Ynez valley. The vines are tightly spaced at 5′ x 3′ apart, which creates competition between the vines that results in high quality, small, dark-skinned grapes. Grape berries like these, that have a higher skin-to-juice ratio, create more complexity of flavors and texture in the resulting wines.
Los Olivos District AVA
Lyons Vineyard is located in the Los Olivos District AVA, in Santa Barbara County and is a sub-region of the Santa Ynez Valley AVA. It is slightly warmer than its western neighbor, Ballard Canyon, and cooler than its eastern neighbor, Happy Canyon. The AVA is located on a broad alluvial bench composed of well-drained alluvial soils, mostly fine sandy loam and clay. The gently to moderately sloping terrain encompasses the towns of Solvang, Los Olivos, Ballard and Santa Ynez.
Here in Santa Barbara Wine Country, we benefit from a transverse valley—a coastal valley between two east-west oriented mountain ranges. Because Santa Ynez is the only stretch of land in the Western Hemisphere constituting a true east-west traverse, the corridor created by these mountain ranges allows cool fog and ocean breezes to moderate the temperature. As a result, large diurnal temperature swings (warm days and cool nights), preserve acidity and produce wines with great ageability. At Lyons Vineyard, we typically see a 30 - 40 degree difference between day and night temperatures. This cooling phenomenon also helps to extend the growing season enabling the grapes to fully ripen without excessive sugar levels, which ends up producing very elegant and balanced wines.