Funk Zone Pioneer Christian Garvin Dies

The vintner Christian Garvin — whose opening of a Funk Zone tasting room 20 years ago introduced the initial crowds to Santa Barbara’s now-buzzing waterfront neighborhood — has died. He was 51 years old, and passed away from health complications on September 30 in Christiansted, St. Croix, the U.S. Virgin island where he’d moved about a year ago. 

In 2005, Garvin and winemaker Ryan Carr opened a cooperative winery called Cellar 205 on the corner of Yanonali and Anacapa streets. Santa Barbara Winery had been making wine across the street since 1964, but the neighborhood was still mostly full of industrial warehouses and undeveloped lots where artists worked and sometimes lived. It was almost entirely avoided by both locals and tourists. 

“We were in our twenties, living in downtown Santa Barbara, and I always thought, ‘What if we had a winery downtown?’” Garvin told me for this 2011 article. 

Cellar 205, which became Oreana Winery in 2007 when Carr moved his business to Salsipuedes Street, revolutionized the wine tasting formula by making it fun and accessible. The affordable wines sported playful labels and the tasting room hosted frequent parties, concerts, and gatherings that resonated far beyond wine appreciation.

“We did things that pushed the envelope on a regular basis,” recalled Carr this week. “We did stuff that blew people away. I learned how to throw a good party. I was good at it before, but he was better.”

Oreana’s success triggered a tidal wave of Funk Zone tasting rooms — there are around 20 right now — as well as restaurants like The Lark, multi-tenant food halls like The Waterline, clothing and art boutiques, residential developments, and hotels. 

“This was the start of the Funk Zone,” wrote musician Tom Cantillon in a letter to his late friend on Facebook. “It doesn’t exist without your influence. There was Red’s coffee shop, the quiet tasting room at Santa Barbara Winery, and then there was Oreana. You didn’t just open the door to a new business, you knocked down the wall to an idea. Concerts, sea shanties, costume parties, all in the name of a good time and pumping some life into your adopted town.”

Garvin’s wine industry innovations actually go back further. While working for Fess Parker Winery in the late 1990s, he and Andy Kahn launched Kahn Winery, one of the first tenants of what would become the Lompoc Wine Ghetto. 

“Those guys always seemed to be right in front of everything,” said Carr. “They opened one of the first tasting rooms that wasn’t owned by a millionaire landowner. Assistant winemakers didn’t have tasting rooms back then. That opened the doors to this wave of people who never would have had an opportunity or even thought about it.”

Carr helped in the Kahn cellar. “The three of us became really tight,” he said. “That’s what got me hooked on the wine industry.”

Under the Kahn umbrella, Garvin found success with a cabernet franc brand called Cab Frank that he made for the family of Frank Sinatra. After Kahn Winery went into bankruptcy, he started over with Cellar 205 and Oreana, launching the wildly popular Question Mark and Happy Face labels that flew off the shelves in both Trader Joe’s and China, where he’d ship containers full of wine in the early 2010s. 

“He worked that one like a rockstar,” said Carr. “Garvin was quite the marketer, quite the salesman.”

But Garvin’s journey took a dark turn a decade ago in 2015 when he was arrested and charged for tax fraud and embezzlement related to his Oreana days. He was convicted in 2017 and sentenced to eight years in prison and charged nearly $3 million in fines and restitution. 

He was released from prison in 2019 after serving less than three years, then lived in Northern California, the Catskills, and Boston, working at one point for Total Wine. About a year ago, he sold all of his belongings and moved to Christiansted on the Virgin Island of St. Croix, where he got a job as the bar manager at Boots & Bones, owned by celebrity chef Melvin “Boots” Johnson. 

This past April, he started managing the bar at St. Croix Cellars. The business was for sale, so Garvin found a buyer in Texas financial advisor and entrepreneur Scott Barth and his wife, Tricia, who purchased the wine bar and shop in August. “Together, they were working with Christian to elevate the island’s wine scene and further develop the St. Croix Cellars signature label wines,” said Garvin’s friend and colleague Cindy Clearwater. 

“We lost him too soon,” she said. “St. Croix Cellars plans to continue in the direction Christian helped shape by honoring his vision through the laughter, the stories, the jazz, and the good wine he loved so much.”

Garvin struggled with alcohol over the years, which played a role in his death. “He ground himself down too hard,” said Carr. “I’m pissed at him for that.” 

He’ll remember the better days. “We had a lot of good times,” said Carr. “Those were the heydays of the wine industry in Santa Barbara. I’m gonna miss him.”

Wrote Cantillon in his letter, “For 20 years, I got to be in your orbit. I’m so thankful for that. We will all carry your spirit and memory with us forever. You’re too big to just go away.”