San Luis Obispo: Excellence Hiding in Plain Sight 

BY JOSH RAYNOLDS | JANUARY 13, 2021

It’s an ongoing mystery to me that, aside from a small handful of producers, San Luis Obispo hasn’t received the attention it deserves for its almost universally high quality wines. In the excellent 2018 vintage, SLO’s wineries outdid themselves.

The cool, windy and generally Pacific Ocean–exposed vineyards of the San Luis Obispo winegrowing region produce some of the New World’s most impressive Pinot Noirs, with Chardonnay very close behind. The history of high-quality grape farming and winemaking here stretches back to the early 1970s, making the region a pioneer of Pinot Noir production, while its Rhône-variety heritage is among the longest and most admirable in the United States. So why the relative lack of attention from many wine lovers? It sure isn’t because of a scarcity of high-quality wine. I suspect that a big factor is that most of the wineries in the region are spread out across a relatively wide swath of land rather than in clusters, as is the case in the Willow Creek and Adelaida Districts of Paso Robles, not to mention its Tin City wine playground, or the stretch between Solvang and Lompoc down in Santa Barbara County. There are a few tasting rooms set up in the city of San Luis Obispo itself, but hitting more than a handful of wineries in a day or two can involve a fair amount of driving.

Some of the United States' coldest vineyards lie in San Luis Obispo, where long growing seasons often make harvest extend into November.

Pinot Noir and Chardonnay Lead the Way