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.