Alice Anderson probably doesn’t know that she has dirt and maybe even shit on her nose when she welcomes me to the Ibarra-Young Vineyard in the heart of the Santa Ynez Valley. But I don’t think she cares, either.
Her hands and shirts and boots and jeans are muddy too, and she’s beaming with delight about spreading the latest natural soil treatment on the vines. The first thing she wants me to see is her cow-pat pit — a brick-lined hole in the ground filled with manure for compost teas, a system she learned while making wine in New Zealand. Before I leave the property, which is near the Beckmen Vineyard inside the Los Olivos District appellation, we’ll have looked at how her chickens scratching the space between rows is better than tilling and why her colorful ducks are most valued in vineyards for their particularly fecund feces.
These are just some of the tools that Anderson is using to return this historic property back to optimal health. Planted as one of the earliest vineyards in the region in 1971 by owner Charlotte Young (who died in 2017) and vineyard manager Miguel Ibarra (who retired and moved to Mexico in 2016), the original cabernet sauvignon and sauvignon blanc vines were later grafted over to syrah, mourvèdre, and marsanne, with suitcase clones of tempranillo and graciano coming later in the late 1990s. The grapes were primarily bottled by Bob and Louisa Lindquist for the Qupé, Verdad, and now Lindquist Family brands.