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Our Story

We don’t make great wine. We grow it.

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Under Santa Barbara Skies

In this day and age, wines just aren't made the way they used to be. Wine brands compete for your attention with glossy labels, impressive promises, and an array of award stickers that can leave you feeling intimidated and stuck. We don’t blame you if you feel dumbfounded by the paradox of choice! Call us old-fashioned, but at Beckmen Vineyards, we don’t chase the latest trends but stick to our traditional family values to produce estate-grown premium wines made in harmony with nature that reflect a sense of place.

That place is right here in the Santa Ynez Valley. As the first biodynamically farmed vineyard in Santa Barbara County, we focus on what counts: growing great grapes. As a result, our critically acclaimed wines have been served in the finest restaurants and houses in the country (including the White House). Our priority is to produce a broad yet deep portfolio of Rhône-style wines to consistently provide a definitive wine experience you can trust - each and every time.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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Our Vineyards & Wines

Beck­men wines are craft­ed almost exclu­sive­ly from our two vine­yards: the Thomas and Judith Beck­men Estate Vine­yard in Los Olivos Dis­trict AVA and Purisi­ma Moun­tain Vine­yard in Bal­lard Canyon AVA. Tend­ing vines from dor­man­cy through har­vest since 1994, we’ve dis­cov­ered, row by row, the unique soil and micro­cli­mate that best hosts each type of grape vari­etal ensur­ing every block in the vine­yard con­sis­tent­ly pro­duces the high­est qual­i­ty fruit possible.

On the west side of Bal­lard Canyon AVA lies our acclaimed, cer­ti­fied bio­dy­nam­ic Purisi­ma Moun­tain Vine­yard. The most unique fea­ture of this vine­yard is its lime­stone sub­soil which is only found in a few cor­ners of the cen­tral coast. These soils are prized in regions like Cham­pagne, Bur­gundy, and the South­ern Rhône Val­ley for pro­duc­ing wines with intense fla­vors and com­plex­i­ty. The 125 acre vine­yard runs up the south­west­ern slope of a moun­tain gain­ing 500 feet in ele­va­tion with mul­ti­ple expo­sures across its slopes. We have found that our white wine grapes and Rhône-style grapes such as Syrah, Grenache, Mourvè­dre, and Counoise thrive in our Purisi­ma Moun­tain Vine­yard. Over the years, Syrah has risen in the ranks to become our flag­ship vari­ety, loved for its con­sis­ten­cy and com­plex­i­ty.

Over time, we’ve let expe­ri­ence be our guide in deter­min­ing which grapes thrive best on our vineyards.

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. This top-tier sin­gle vine­yard has a slight­ly warmer cli­mate and a grave­ly, well-drained soil, which allow us to focus on Caber­net Sauvi­gnon, as well as small amounts of Grenache, Mourvè­dre, and Syrah. Our San­ta Ynez Val­ley wines, such as our sin­gle vari­etal Grenache and Cuvee le Bec blend, are pro­duced from fruit from both our vine­yards, offer­ing the per­fect intro­duc­tion to Beck­men Vine­yards. Our sin­gle vine­yard bot­tlings form the apex of our port­fo­lio, pro­duc­ing com­plex wines that are emi­nent­ly suit­able for cellaring.

Today, our wines are sold in 20+ states and can be pur­chased at bou­tique retail­ers and fine restau­rants across the Unit­ed States. The best place to sam­ple our wines is where they’re grown, at the Beck­men Vine­yards tast­ing room, or ordered through our online store and enjoyed in your home.

Committed to Biodynamic Farming

As the first bio­dy­nam­i­cal­ly farmed vine­yard in San­ta Bar­bara Coun­ty, we focus on what counts: grow­ing great grapes. We go beyond organ­ic farm­ing by treat­ing the farm as a liv­ing organ­ism, avoid­ing the use of her­bi­cides, insec­ti­cides, pes­ti­cides, or nitro­gen based fer­til­iz­er in our vineyards.

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Winemaking

As we guide the grapes from the vine­yard to bot­tle, our mis­sion is to show­case the dis­tinct qual­i­ties expressed by each grape vari­ety, and the unique char­ac­ter of both vine­yards. We fer­ment and age our wines in small lots of 1 – 2 tons in order to cap­ture the indi­vid­u­al­i­ty of each block in both of the vine­yards. We age and blend most of our wines from this col­lec­tion of small lots, so that each bot­tle of fin­ished wine receives the same metic­u­lous atten­tion to detail that the vine­yards receive year round. 

Rather than being locked into a rigid process or time­line, 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.

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Traditional Craftsmanship

We’re fas­ci­nat­ed by the ways in which wine­mak­ing has evolved over the last 8,000 years. That’s why we con­sid­er the wis­dom of ancient tra­di­tions when we craft 1NGREDIENT wines by hand. From our com­mit­ment to chem­i­cal-free farm­ing to the use of cus­tom ampho­ra, we’re a win­ery ded­i­cat­ed to redis­cov­er­ing and pre­serv­ing ​“slow” agri­cul­ture and folk crafts­man­ship. Learn more.

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