WineInk: Matt Dees’ Long Dance

When winemaker Matt Dees talks about the grapes on the winery properties he tends, you might think he is talking about raising children:

“Over the last 20 years, the vines have gone from infants to toddlers to adolescents to kind of … well, young adults and maturity.”

To make great wine, Dees, who is in charge of two exceptional wine properties, The Hilt and JONATA, on the Central California coast, in the broader Santa Barbara Appellation, says one must look to The Long Dance. It is a metaphor and philosophy for considering the vineyards and the vines of a place as being multi-generational. “The Long Dance is how I view getting great at anything but especially wine production. Learning about a place takes time.”

“For me it’s about getting old with the vineyards, watching the vines year after year after year,” he says. “It takes time, but you really begin to notice the subtle differences, and to me, that is what makes the big difference over the long haul. That’s what makes your property unique, something special.”

Dees has the good fortune to have a pair of properties, both distinct and different, in which to dance.

JONATA (“Tall Oak” in the language of the indigenous Chumash Tribe) has 84 acres of vines planted to over a dozen grape varieties in the warm but temperate climate of Ballard Canyon in the Santa Ynez Mountains. Originally planted in 1998, the soils are noted for the underground layer of Careaga sands, which act as a water table. Here, Dees makes wines of character and substance that reflect the unique sense of place of the site. From a Cabernet Sauvignon labeled El Desafio (The Defiance) to a red blend under the moniker Todos, which features a number of different grapes, these wines are as earthy as the land they come from.

His other dance floor is about 25 miles to the north and west as the car drives, on the far west side of the Sta. Rita Hills sub-appellation, just a few miles from the Pacific Ocean. And what a dance floor it is.

Here, the wind blows, and the fog rises in a cool climate paradise for growing and producing world-class pinot noir and chardonnay. The Hilt (as in, taking it to …) has soils marked by white chalky diatomaceous chunks of rock, and the vineyards cling to the dramatic 40+ degree slopes of the surrounding hills. There is a state-of-the-art wine production facility (Both JONATA and The Hilt are made there) and a separate luxurious hospitality center in a building they call “The Barn,” which was designed by the late, great wine country architect Howard Backen, who left us this past June.

In all the world, it would be difficult to find a pair of vineyard locations so close together yet as diverse in their personalities as are these two. And Dees appreciates his position as the steward of both.

It has been just over 20 years now, since he first came to a wine region that was — and still is — in its relative infancy. He was recommended for a job at a vineyard in Ballard Canyon by Andy Erickson, a Napa Valley winemaking legend, friend, and mentor.

“It would have been late spring of 2004 that I first saw JONATA,” Dees said about coming to the region. “I didn’t know anything about Santa Barbara wine production, Santa Barbara, Santa Ynez were not really even on my radar. I had to ask Andy if Santa Barbara was nice.”

Yes, it was nice, and then the 25-year-old, up-and-coming winemaker settled in for the ride with the property’s Vineyard Manager Ruben Solorzano and, later, Associate Winemaker Drew Pickering, who remain the winemaking team to this day. “I remember feeling somewhat awed by the fact that there was just so much open land out there. There were other crops being grown. It wasn’t completely a monoculture (like, say, Napa Valley), and I remember being knocked out by that. In the best way, it felt like going back in time a little bit. It was an open world where anything was possible. I loved that.” 

Blink your eyes, and jump ahead a couple of decades, and Dees is as much a part of the land as the wines: “This is my 22^nd vintage at JONATA, so I go pretty far back with those vines. We are, at least, on a first-name basis. When I got to JONATA in 2004, we had a different set of creatures out there. Most of the current characters were here (cabernet sauvignon, cab franc, syrah, etc.), but there were semillon grapes and other things growing out there, as well. But now, 20 years later, and that may be an arbitrary number, we know a little bit more, and you can responsibly make some decisions about what works and what doesn’t,” he laughs. “I keep telling people we are still a couple of hundred years out. But we’ll get it right.”

For its part, the project at The Hilt is even younger. The historic 3,600-acre property was acquired in 2014 by Stan Kroenke, who is best known for his sports ownership and has ties to Aspen. The resources that ownership brings to the two properties are a significant factor in having the opportunity to participate in The Long Dance. “We have ownership that allows us — no, one expects us — to make the best wines. Period. They support what we do, but also expect a lot out of us. I wouldn’t have it any other way.”

Good land, solid resources, a supportive team, and, most of all, time — those are notes needed for Matt Dees’ Long Dance.

He may be a lifer.