Full Belly Files | Can Santa Barbara Wine Country Go Regenerative?

Jordan Lonborg talks about his path from pesticides to regenerative farming to a workshop at Zaca Mesa Vineyard.

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I’m pretty sure that the first time I heard the word “regenerative” in the context of wine was when I visited David and Anna deLaski of Solminer Wine Company a decade ago while reporting this 2015 profile piece about their natural-leaning wines and biodynamic viticulture ambitions.

Toward the end of our walk around their Los Olivos property, they mentioned the word while explaining their desire to move even beyond biodynamic farming by integrating livestock into the vineyard, not tilling their land, and growing grapes even more in tune with nature. It was such a new concept in wine at that time — and one that I didn’t yet feel the need to explore more, after years of writing about biodynamics — that I didn’t even mention it in the article.

A few years later, however, “regenerative” was on the lips of every sustainably minded farmer I talked to, from grape growers to cattle ranchers. It was spreading much more virally — and with less political/spiritual/scientific baggage — than organics or biodynamics had ever done.

Broadly speaking, that was thanks to 2018’s super popular documentary Biggest Little Farm about Apricot Lane Farms in Moorpark, which, incidentally, is now managed by former Sea Smoke Vineyard manager Julian Malone. (I mentioned that in last week’s article about his wife Kira Malone’s Pars Fortuna wine label.)

In the wine world, especially here on the Central Coast, the popularization was thanks to Tablas Creek Vineyard in Paso Robles. The ever-pioneering property on Paso’s westside started working with the Regenerative Organic Alliance in 2018 to develop the world’s first certification system, and then became the first Regenerative Organic Certified vineyard on the planet in 2020.

Early results from Robert Hall Winery’s side-by-side regenerative experiment.

Hot on the heels of Tablas was a regenerative push by O’Neill Vintners & Distillers at Robert Hall Winery on Paso’s eastside. In 2021, under the direction of the company’s sustainability director Caine Thompson, the estate started a multi-year, side-by-side experiment, farming one block to basic sustainable standards and the adjacent block to regenerative principles. The results have been pretty stunning — more vigorous plants and nutrient-rich soils that better protect grapes against hot days, retain more water, etc. — so that experiment now encompasses the entire 140-acre property.

This year, Thompson and the Regenerative Viticulture Foundation are challenging the rest of the world to do the same. This past January, they launched the One Block Challenge in Paso Robles, enlisting about 50 vineyards to implement three regenerative practices on their properties for one year. And they’re taking that show abroad too, with plans to kick off the same challenge in South Africa and New Zealand soon.

Workshop attendees smell and poke the soil samples at Zaca Mesa.

Enlisting Santa Barbara County vintners is this challenge is why Thompson, viticulturist Jordan Lonborg (formerly of Tablas Creek, and now working with Robert Hall in his new job with Coastal Care Vineyard Associates), and Charlie Dubbe from the regen consulting firm Agrology were at Zaca Mesa Winery last Thursday. With about 20 wine industry professionals in attendance — the bulk were from either Zaca Mesa or Coastal Vineyard Care — Dubbe, Thompson, and Lonborg spelled out the impressive and immediate positive impacts of going regenerative while also discussing the potential pitfalls and confused conceptions that come with the new farming practice.

“There are no silver bullets in the world,” Dubbe said, explaining that regenerative farming is more of “an enigma” than a “check-the-box” system. It’s based on flexible principles more than specific practices, focused on the positive outcomes versus the negative inputs, and must be entirely context-specific — what works in Paso, for instance, may not fly in the Santa Ynez Valley.

Jordan Lonborg (right) prepares a soil sample test as Caine Thompson (center) talks to attendees like ONX’s Jeff Strekas (left).

Context, in fact, sits atop of seven key principles. The others are to minimize soil disruption (though the “no till” mantra is not dogmatic; again, context); to have a diversity of plants, be they cover crops, fruit trees, native species, etc.; to keep soils armored against the elements, typically with cover crops; to promote living roots, which release powerful secretions called exudates that contribute to soil health and plant vitality; to integrate livestock in the vineyard (though, like no tillage, this is a goal, not an immediate implementation); and to reduce overall inputs, such as fertilizers, pest management applications, and so forth.

It’s also critical to understand that regenerative farming is not really a destination, but rather a dynamic, continual process of analysis and adjustments as the years go on. Said Dubbe, “There’s not a day when you wake up at your farm and say, ‘I’ve regenerated you!’”

Outside, the workshop included a hands- and nose-on demonstration by Lonborg, who spearheaded much of the Tablas Creek regen work before joining Coastal Vineyard Care and taking on the Robert Hall work this year. (He’s also working with Groundstar Vineyard, which I mentioned in this article.)

While preparing a soil test called “the slump,” Lonborg explained one of his own regen follies, when they went no-till on a block of Tablas, only to watch the grapevines suffer. That’s why these principals are “end goals,” said Lonborg. “You should move into them slowly.”

Attendees to the regenerative workshop at Zaca Mesa check out the slump samples.

The slump involved dropping four different dirt clods from various spots at Robert Hall Vineyard into a sieve sitting in a cup of water. The organic/regenerative soil samples left clean water as their granules dropped to the bottom of the cup — showing a heavier, more concentrated consistency — while the more conventionally farmed soils left their cups a bit cloudy.

We then smelled the soil chunks and, most instructively, poked the soaked soil samples as they sat on the table. “That’s wildly different,” said Zaca Mesa owner Stewart Cushman after touching the muds. Agreed ONX Wines’ director of operations Jeff Strekas, “It’s like going from beach sand to ice cream.” The ice cream consistency from the regen soil sample indicated a more aggregated, healthier soil.

Lonborg’s commitment to regenerative farming is personal. For years, he worked for a Monterey County company that spent $5 million in conventional pest control annually. Being around that poison eventually made him sick, even compromising his liver. When he came to Tablas Creek in 2016, Lonborg realized, “There was life.”

It’s now his goal — as part of Coastal Vineyard Care, which manages dozens of vineyards across thousands of acres — to spread that regenerative mindset across the Central Coast and beyond, to both small and large operations. To do so, especially to attract corporate growers that make most of the wine, he must show that regenerative farming can be cheaper than conventional. “It’s possible,” he said.

Caine Thompson agreed. “This can’t just be for elitist $50, $60, $70 bottles of wine,” he said during the last presentation of the day. He shared a number of the Robert Hall study’s ongoing results and said that they are planting fruit trees in the middle of rows at Ram’s Gate Winery in Sonoma County, another O’Neill Vintners property.

But the primary point of his talk — and really the main thrust of the entire workshop — was to promote the One Block Challenge. It’s already underway for 2025 in Paso Robles with 50 properties signed on, and they’re inviting South Africa and New Zealand later this year.

Thompson would like Santa Barbara County to be the next California wine county to sign up, with plans to start in January 2026. For a region that’s been a sustainability leader since the oil spill of 1969 triggered the nationwide environmental movement, it would be great to see Santa Barbara vintners rise to the challenge. To do so, see use this sign-up form on the One Block Challenge homepage, or email info@regenerativeviticulture.org

“The fact that you’re here means that you’re on the journey,” said Thompson. “If we really are gonna change the world, everyone needs to know about this farming.”

RIP Ron French of the Pine Street Saloon

Ron French of the Pine Street Saloon with two friends during happier times. | Credit: Courtesy Pine Street Saloon

I was bummed to see that Ron French, the owner of the Pine Street Saloon in Paso Robles, died on May 12. I first met Ron back about 15 years ago when his ghost stories about the bar led to me taking a bunch of friends on a trip to report this article for Smithsonian Magazine on the historic saloons of the Central Coast. We promptly turned a straight travel-history story into a ghost-hunting mission, and slept the night in the rooms above the Pine Street, which was reportedly a brothel in the past.

I’d run into Ron almost every time I stepped foot in the saloon, which is renowned as one of the best places to catch one last drink — or watch some serious, and seriously funny, karaoke — in all of Paso Robles. I didn’t care much for his politics, but he was always friendly to me and full of classic stories. It didn’t seem like an easy life — it always struck me as rather rough, honestly — but he certainly seemed to enjoy it. And his Coors were always ice cold. Cheers.

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