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Our Story

From Los Olivos to the White House

Beckmen men 2019

The Beckmen Family

After years as leaders and pioneers in the electronic music business, Tom and Judy Beckmen, joined by their youngest son Steve and more recently by their oldest son Jeff, set out to make wines as well-crafted and distinctive as the keyboards and synthesizers that built their successful careers as founders of Roland Corp, US. The Beckmens have established themselves as a leading grower and producer in Santa Barbara County, crafting wines of critical acclaim that have been served in the finest restaurants and houses in the country (including the White House) since their inception in 1994.

Beckmen wines are crafted almost exclusively from their two vineyards, the Thomas and Judith Beckmen Estate Vineyard in Los Olivos District AVA and Purisima Mountain Vineyard in Ballard Canyon AVA. With over 150 planted acres combined, the Beckmens look to continue their tradition of crafting world-class Santa Barbara wines and offering exceptional wine experiences at their beautiful winery in the Santa Ynez Valley.

Tombeckmen1

Tom Beckmen is the pioneer and leader that founded Roland Corp. US, one of the biggest names in the electronic music business. The heart of Tom's entrepreneurial success has always been his ability to look towards the future and embrace new challenges.

Steve Beckmen

Like his father, Tom, Steve also looked towards the future, pushing the winery to produce the Rhône style wines for which Beckmen and Santa Barbara County have become so well known, as well as establishing the first certified Biodynamic vineyard in the county.

THE-BECKMEN-9

After a 24-year career on Wall Street, Jeff Beckmen joined the family winery in 2016 to help with national sales. After working in a service business, Jeff is excited to be selling and marketing a product in which he and his family take great pride.

Beckman Mesa Verde

The Vineyards

On the west­ern side of Bal­lard Canyon AVA lies our acclaimed 365 acre (125 acres plant­ed), cer­ti­fied Bio­dy­nam­ic Purisi­ma Moun­tain Vine­yard. Com­prised most­ly of clay and clay loam, with vary­ing amounts of grav­el, the most unique aspect of this site is the lime­stone sub­soil. The lime­stone soil lim­its vine vig­or and pro­duces small­er vines with low­er yields and more intense­ly fla­vored fruit. 

With peaks reach­ing 1,150 feet, Purisi­ma Moun­tain boasts almost 500 feet of ele­va­tion change with mul­ti­ple expo­sures. Purisi­ma Moun­tain Vine­yard is home to our white wine pro­duc­tion includ­ing Sauvi­gnon Blanc, Grenache Blanc, Viog­nier, and Chardon­nay, as well as our Syrah, Grenache, Mourve­dre, and Counoise.

The Thomas and Judith Beck­men Estate Vine­yard is 40 acres (25 plant­ed) of rolling hills sit­u­at­ed on the west­ern bor­der of the Los Olivos Dis­trict, sev­er­al miles east of Purisi­ma Moun­tain. This vine­yard has a slight­ly warmer cli­mate and a grave­ly, well-drained soil which allow the Beck­mens to grow dif­fer­ent grape vari­eties at this site com­pared to Purisi­ma Mountain. 

Beck­men Vine­yards con­sists of two sep­a­rate vine­yards with dra­mat­i­cal­ly dif­fer­ent soils and climates.

The Thomas and Judith Beck­men Estate is most­ly plant­ed to Caber­net Sauvi­gnon with small amounts of Grenache, Mourve­dre, and Syrah. 

Tend­ing vines from dor­man­cy through har­vest since 1994, the Beck­men fam­i­ly has learned a great deal about their two dis­tinct vine­yard prop­er­ties. Over time they have dis­cov­ered, acre by acre, the unique soil and micro­cli­mate that best hosts each grape vari­etal, ensur­ing every block in the vine­yard con­sis­tent­ly pro­duces the high­est qual­i­ty fruit possible.

We are Committed to Biodynamic Farming

Bio­dy­nam­ic farm­ing is organ­ic farm­ing, and then some. We go beyond organ­ic farm­ing by treat­ing the farm as a liv­ing organ­ism: self-con­tained, self-sus­tain­ing, and fol­low­ing the cycles of nature. We do not use her­bi­cides, insec­ti­cides, pes­ti­cides, or nitro­gen based fer­til­iz­er on our vineyards.

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The Vines

Over time, we’ve let expe­ri­ence be our guide in deter­min­ing which grapes thrive best on our two vine­yards. Since 1994, we have been in con­stant pur­suit of the ide­al palette that will por­tray the bal­ance of fla­vor, struc­ture, col­or, and com­plex­i­ty for which Beck­men wines are known. 

We have found Rhône-style grapes such as Syrah, Grenache, Viog­nier, Grenache Blanc, Mourve­dre, and Counoise thrive on our Purisi­ma Moun­tain Vine­yard. We have also found the grave­ly, well-drained soils of the Thomas and Judith Beck­men Estate Vine­yard to be the per­fect host to our Caber­net Sauvi­gnon vines.

Grapes
Harvest At Night

Harvest

At Beck­men Vine­yards, we’re work­ing year round to care­ful­ly nur­ture our grow­ing vines and mon­i­tor our aging wines, but no time is as excit­ing and vital as har­vest. Har­vest usu­al­ly begins in Sep­tem­ber and runs through mid-Novem­ber. Dur­ing these three months, we are bustling with activ­i­ty around the clock. For the last 15 years, all of our fruit has been picked under the spec­tac­u­lar San­ta Ynez Val­ley night sky. Har­vest­ing through the night ensures our grapes are picked at the low­est pos­si­ble tem­per­a­ture, when they are at the peak of their fla­vor, and affords our har­vest crew the com­fort of work­ing out of the hot Cal­i­forn­ian sun.

All of our grapes are care­ful­ly hand-picked in small lots of less than 10 – 12 tons per day. We con­trol the qual­i­ty of fruit that is select­ed, only pick­ing the ripest grapes on each vine, in every row and block. We com­mon­ly har­vest the same vine two or three times through­out har­vest, mak­ing pass­es to choose only the fruit that will make the high­est qual­i­ty wine. Har­vest is when the artistry of wine mak­ing comes alive, when we com­pose the foun­da­tion of what will one day mature into excep­tion­al wines.

Steve Beckmen Barrel

Winemaking

The focus of Beckmen’s wine­mak­ing team is to draw out the dis­tinct qual­i­ties expressed by each grape vari­ety, and the unique char­ac­ter of both vine­yards, as they guide the grapes from vine­yard to bot­tle. Each wine pro­gram is giv­en the same metic­u­lous atten­tion to detail that the vine­yards receive year round. By mak­ing wine in small lots, we are able to cap­ture the indi­vid­u­al­i­ty of each par­tic­u­lar block in both of the vine­yards. We blend most of our wines from this col­lec­tion of small lots, so that each wine has more depth and dis­tinct lay­ers of flavor.

Our wine­mak­ing is done through ​“smart inter­ven­tion­ism”. We make the best deci­sions at every step in order to cre­ate wines that bal­ance depth of fla­vor, com­plex­i­ty, and the ele­gance our vine­yards nat­u­ral­ly possess.

Winemaking
Pmv Grenache Clipped

Our Wines

Beck­men Vine­yards wine is sold in 25+ mar­kets across the Unit­ed States and can be pur­chased at many inde­pen­dent wine shops and restau­rants. You can sam­ple our wines at the Beck­men Vine­yards tast­ing room, locat­ed on the Thomas and Judith Beck­men Estate Vine­yard out­side of Los Olivos, CA.

We craft wines that leave an impres­sion. Enjoy our wine on its own to appre­ci­ate its com­plex­i­ty, or pair them with great food to enhance the expe­ri­ence and height­en your sat­is­fac­tion. The best way to drink Beck­men wines is by join­ing our Wine Club. Four times a year you will receive new wines not yet released to the pub­lic, along with videos about each new release, plus rec­om­men­da­tions for how long to cel­lar your wines, and more.

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