“This is really like old California out here,” says Blair Pence, driving an off-roader up through the hills on the back of his 200-plus-acre ranch off Highway 246, where a 1907 homestead is headquarters to Pence Vineyards & Winery. He’s mostly right — aside from some cannabis hoop houses in a neighboring canyon, this part of the two-mile-long ranch doesn’t have much more than oak trees, sagebrush, and the occasional steer chewing on dry grass, one of the 30 head of Black Angus he raises.
Like an old California rancho, Pence is diversifying the land, albeit with contemporary tastes and organic methods. Alongside 44 acres of grapevines, which sit on the eastern edge of the Sta. Rita Hills, the Bakersfield-raised, USC-educated, 59-year-old commercial real estate developer is growing 12 types of olive trees from six different countries as well as marcona almonds, hay for cattle, rye for bread, vegetables for restaurants, chickens for eggs, and pesky peacocks for, well, no one remembers why. There’s also an extensive equestrian center with two trainers and 40 horses — six of which are his, as cutting horses were the passion that originally lured him to Los Olivos from Los Angeles in 1999.
“We’re about 90 percent self-sufficient,” explained Pence, who employs a full-time farming staff of 10, led by Francisco Ramirez and Daniel Garibay. “People like that. It allows precision.”