Solminer, a Santa Ynez winery helmed by the husband-and-wife team David and Anna Delaski, was the third Regenerative Organic Certified (ROC) awardee and, like Tablas Creek and Troon Vineyard, had gained organic and biodynamic certification prior to embarking on this path. I chatted with Anna via Zoom to gain insight into the estate's ROC journey.
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| Anna and David Delaski (Source: solminer.com) |
Anna is Austrian and, she says, has always had an interest in sustainability in the broad sense. In addition, she has always been a passionate wine drinker. She met her now husband in LA in 2009 and, while traveling around, they fell in love with Santa Barbara. They became even more enamored with the region when they discovered Gruner Veltliner, one of Austria's native grape varieties, growing in the area.
Their travels in Santa Barbara revealed that, though French varieties dominated, the Austrian varieties that they encountered were thriving. They began to entertain the thought of making Austrian varietal wine in Santa Barbara and brought the fantasy to reality in 2012 with the purchase of a 4-acre property, 2.5 acres of which was planted to Syrah. In that their intended focus was Austrian wines, they had to purchase grapes initially to get their feet on that path. They purchased Gruner and other Austrian varieties which, when combined with the Syrah, allowed them to produce 400 cases in their first vintage.
The property had been farmed conventionally and they sought to change that by pursuing organic certification. In 2016 they bought a 7-acre horse farm which featured compacted soils. They added calcium and compost to build up the soils and planted 2 acres of Blaufrankisch and Gruner Veltliner.
Not being formally trained as winemakers, they sought to improve their winemaking skills by taking the UC Davis course Introduction to Winemaking. They were somewhat disappointed as the focus was on industrial winemaking, rather than the artisanal approach that they were pursuing.
Solminer began practicing biodynamics in 2016. They purchased some sheep and a couple of donkeys, ceased tilling, and began making their own compost. At around this time Steve Clifton became their mentor; they were much more in tune with his intuitive approach.
They are seeking to farm as an entity and minimize external inputs. For example, the use of manure as fertilizer minimizes external fertilizer purchase and transport. They initially applied their preparations to the understory of the vines using a backpack dispenser.
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| Anna applying preparations using a backpack dispenser (Source:solminer.com) |
One of the keys for Solminer was creating/adding organic matter as food for the soil. Even with these efforts, however, they still experienced a drop in yield in the year after no-till was introduced. The estate was CCOF Organic certified in 2014 and Demeter Biodynamic certified in 2018.
As far as their ROC is concerned, they became interested once they found out that the owner of Patagonia was involved (they knew he was very serious about regeneration). As they looked further into the program, they realized that it covered the things that they had been doing over the last 10 years. So it was a no-brainer; especially as the ROC Administrators make it so easy to come onboard.
They met the ROC requirements at the Silver level. The Social Welfare Pillar was hardest for them because they do most of the work themselves and when they do bring on workers at harvest, they contract through a middleman.
This is a great program, according to Anna, for a larger company seeking to make the transition from conventional farming. Solminer, she says, may be too small an entity for it.
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