Pinot Country

regionSta. Rita Hills

also: Santa Rita Hills

34.00°N35.00°NSanta Maria ValleyBien NacidoSanford & BenedictAu Bon ClimatSanta Maria tri-tipSanta Barbara VintnersSanta Maria Style Barbeque AssociationDine Out Santa Maria StyleWorld of Pinot NoirTri-tip over red oakSanta Maria tri-tipWorld of Pinot NoirSta. Rita Hills53 km
Sta. Rita Hills, and what else this directory knows within 240 km.

A wind tunnel between Buellton and Lompoc where the Santa Ynez Valley opens west to the ocean. Fog in the morning, thirty-knot afternoons, and some of the slowest ripening in California.

Written down by US Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau (2001)

The story Cited

Petitioned by growers inside the Santa Ynez Valley AVA who wanted their own name, and established as Santa Rita Hills in 2001. Chile's Viña Santa Rita objected; the TTB shortened it to Sta. Rita Hills in 2005, and the label now carries an abbreviation nobody says out loud.

Facts

countryUnited States
levelsub-ava
established2001
soildiatomaceous shale, sandy loam
regionSta. Rita Hills, Santa Barbara County, California
where34.6300, -120.4000 (region) · OpenStreetMap · open in maps Cited
confidencehigh · updated 2026-09-16

Numbers somebody published

AVA area at designation · 200130720 acres — Sta. Rita Hills AVA

Nothing in this table is estimated here. Where a figure is missing it is missing, and the row is not written.

Near here

Straight-line kilometres; the road is always longer. The finder sorts every cellar on the map from wherever you are.

Its kin

regionSanta Maria ValleyThe county's other pinot valley, half an hour north.and of this page it says: The county's other pinot valley, half an hour south.vineyardSanford & BenedictThe 1971 planting that proved the ground.and of this page it says: The AVA drawn around this ground thirty years later.personRichard SanfordWho read the weather maps and picked this gap.and of this page it says: The AVA drawn around that ground in 2001.

Who points back

organization · says of this pageSanta Barbara VintnersAnd the other.organization · says of this pageTTBAnd renamed by the TTB in 2005 after a trademark objection.event · says of this pageWorld of Pinot NoirAnd the other local AVA.story · says of this pageOne film, measuredWhere much of it was filmed.

Sources

Where it came from: Cited a source we name · Harvested pulled from an open dataset · Tradition what the tradition says, hedged · Inference this project's reasoning · Field somebody stood there. This record as JSON.

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