Delightful Wines

Us local winos are spoiled. Here in Santa Barbara County — one of the world’s most unique and diverse wine regions — it’s not hard to be sated the whole year through, from bottles grown and capped between Lompoc and Santa Ynez, Los Olivos, and Santa Maria. The variety in these 50-some-odd miles is nearly unparalleled anywhere, from the Cabernet Sauvignon–soaked hills of Napa Valley to France’s venerable vineyards. Crosby Swinchatt should know. He’s seen those storied places, not to mention the wine regions of New Zealand, Oregon, Australia, and Sonoma. And he came back to hang his hat where it all started.

A decade ago, the Maine-born, Georgia-raised outdoorsman and geography grad arrived at age 23 to work for one of the area’s most iconic producers — Sea Smoke, in the Sta. Rita Hills. That experience turned into seven years of globetrotting in the pursuit of taste. He credits the wine royalty for whom he’s worked — including famed Sonoma Coast cheerleader Ted Lemon of Littorai and Maggie Harrison, formerly of Ventura’s Sine Qua Non and now at Antica Terra in Oregon — with providing “very different experiences, both eye-opening in terms of [learning] the wine world and different winemaking techniques, as well as exposure to wines I’d never tried.”

Like many in this business, wine is a family affair for Swinchatt. It all started with his uncle. Jonathan Swinchatt literally wrote the book on Napa terroir and got his nephew jobs in Napa and Santa Barbara. His other nephew is Ryan Roark, who helped galvanize Santa Barbara’s natural wine movement with his eponymous Roark Wine Company, then paid it forward by laying the groundwork for the younger Swinchatt at Sea Smoke. The cousins’ rutilant hair betrays their relation, and easy smiles belie their grind. Both have an impressive output, and Swinchatt has grown his Entity of Delight label by five times in four years to about 700 cases total.

With feelers out all over the map, why Santa Barbara? “There isn’t the rigidity down here,” compared to the famous wine region to our north, Swinchatt said, though he speaks highly of his Napa education and lifestyle, stating, “if you don’t like living there, you’re crazy.” The Santa Barbara wine community — “a cast of characters,” as he puts it — spoke to him, and Swinchatt listened. “There’s so much difference in microclimates and [grape] varieties. It’s fun to buy grapes at reasonable prices, rather than having just a few varieties that aren’t outrageously expensive. [And] I like not driving in traffic,” he smiled.

Early on, Swinchatt also liked the idea of his own wine project. “I remember having conversations about it during my third harvest [season]. I always wanted to do my own thing, and I never wanted to know what it felt like to not do that.” Come 2020, he did just that, with tiny amounts of Sta. Rita Hills chardonnay and pinot gris from outside San Luis Obispo. Entity of Delight has since added pinot noir — made three ways as a punchy, ruby-colored sparkling wine, as one part of a peppery, chilled blend, and on its own as a tart, berry-fruited red — as well as lesser-known mourvèdre and even grüner veltliner to its repertoire. True to Santa Barbara, Swinchatt is keen on exploring the diversity of grapes and vineyards in his backyard with a fresh style. “I don’t see any reason to complicate it. I like clean, bright, pretty wines.”

[Click to enlarge] Entity of Delight 2022 Bossi Pinot Noir (left) and 2022 Mourvèdre | Photo: Crosby Swinchatt

Like Disko Wines’ Sean Hogan, Swinchatt’s cellarmate in the old Kenneth Volk building on Tepusquet Road — now owned by Lo-Fi Wines and Coquelicot Estate — Swinchatt embraces the natural wine moment. “I like the idea of things tasting as much like the grape variety as possible. My first experience was with my cousin making fully natural wines, and [Lo-Fi’s] Mike Roth was making natural wines before it was popular. Similar to Hogan, though, he’s quick to say it’s more opportunity, not fad. “To me, it’s funny how people made [natural wine] a new idea. I’m willing to try anything. I think being dogmatic about these things is silly. I make natural wines because I can, and it’s a testament to getting [high-] quality fruit.”

Swinchatt worked the last three grape harvests with Lo-Fi while holding down the tasting room on weekends. 2024 will see him striking out on his own. This vet didn’t seem to mind the frenetic, hair-ripping pace of two full-time harvest gigs; he just wants more time for sales trips. Like many millennial winemakers, Swinchatt has neither a tasting room nor distribution and sells most of the wine himself, though plans are taking shape. In the meantime, this entity continues to serve Swinchatt’s main goal — “To make wine my own way, working with good vineyards and good people.”

See entityofdelight.com and follow @entityofdelight