Winemaker Dusty Nabor’s Powerful Pursuit of Every Passion

Credit: Courtesy

Winemaker Dusty Nabor’s
Powerful Pursuit of Every Passion

Why This Steel Pipe Professional Is
Crafting Santa Barbara County Wines
in a Camarillo Warehouse

By Matt Kettmann | May 16, 2024

Credit: Courtesy

Whether it’s flying or surfing or golfing, motocross or off-road racing or triathlons, Dusty Nabor goes all in on his pursuits to quench an inherently insatiable curiosity about how everything works. A decade ago, winemaking became his next quarry, and this one is sticking. 

“Everything that I have done to this point has been a massive money suck,” said Nabor, who makes his mostly Santa Barbara County–grown wines out of a warehouse in Camarillo. “This is the only thing that actually has the potential to survive on its own.”

A lifelong resident of the Conejo Valley corridor who runs his family’s steel pipe business, Nabor was introduced to wine by a Bay Area–based steel importer who took him to the Napa Valley, where Nabor started to wonder about all the idle cellar equipment. “As soon as I don’t understand something, that’s a lightbulb going off,” said Nabor. “It sends me down these rabbit holes I can’t explain.”

Starting on a ton of Paso Robles cabernet sauvignon in 2015, his dabbling quickly blew up a few years later, expanding into syrah, grenache, pinot noir, chardonnay, viognier, and more. The three brands are now topping out at about 2,500 cases combined, including the high-touch flagship Dusty Nabor; the smartly priced second label NSO; and the very small Bolt To, which changes offerings each year based on last-minute, word-of-mouth, one-off barrels that pop up. “It’s very opportunistic,” said Nabor. “It’s the catchall.”

Nabor sells out his wines each vintage due in part to customers he accumulated on social media through his previous endeavors, from off-roading to endurance sports. “People knew that if I was going to get into this, it was going to be good,” he said. “It got picked up by a fanbase and that fanbase grew organically.”

Credit: Courtesy

He’s blunt about his winemaking methodology. “My blending sessions are like five seconds,” he said. “What I’m trying to achieve is wine personality, not wine quality. All I care about is the reflection of the place that the wine comes from. When I have that in mind, it’s very apparent to me when the wine has the correct personality. It either has that personality, or it doesn’t. It’s a very black and white thing.”

Though wine will likely remain a lifelong pursuit compared to the other tracks Nabor has since abandoned, he sees similarities to previous passions. “For triathlons, you have to be training year in and year out, and the race is just an expression of that,” he said. “It’s the same thing with wine. I’m in it for the journey, the livelihood, the experience of doing it day in and day out. That’s what I love. Everything else is superfluous. Once it’s bottled, that’s just icing on the cake.”

See dustynaborwines.com.  

Return to the Taste of Santa Barbara 2024 cover story.

Credit: Courtesy

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