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Our Story

From Los Olivos to the White House

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The Beckmen Family

Beckmen Vineyards began after Tom and Judy Beckmen left their innovative electronic music company Roland Corp, US to become pioneers of California wine. With youngest son Steve as Winemaker, and oldest son Jeff joining as Director of Sales later on, Beckmen Vineyards is a family owned and operated winery. Since 1994, we’ve established ourselves as a benchmark Santa Barbara County grower and producer. Our consistent quality vintage after vintage keeps us a favorite of critics, tastemakers, and collectors. Our wines have filled the cellars and tables of the country’s finest restaurants and houses (including the White House).

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. Farming over 150 acres of vines, we view every vintage as another opportunity to grow our legacy as a world-class winery by creating wines that future generations will enjoy. Currently, we’re proud to be hosting wine lovers seven days a week, providing unforgettable experiences at our beautiful winery and tasting room in the Santa Ynez Valley.

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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.

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.

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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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The Vineyards

As our name implies, Beck­men Vine­yards con­sists of two sep­a­rate vine­yards, each with vary­ing soils and cli­mates. On the west­ern side of Bal­lard Canyon AVA lies our acclaimed 365 acre (125 acres plant­ed), cer­ti­fied Bio­dy­nam­ic Purisi­ma Moun­tain Vine­yard. With peaks reach­ing 1,150 feet, Purisi­ma Moun­tain is a winemaker’s dream, boast­ing almost 500 feet of ele­va­tion change with mul­ti­ple expo­sures across its slopes. 


Purisi­ma Moun­tain Vine­yard is home to a diver­si­ty of grape vari­eties, includ­ing Sauvi­gnon Blanc, Grenache Blanc, Viog­nier, and Chardon­nay, as well as Syrah, Grenache, Mourve­dre, and Counoise. The most unique fea­ture of the site is its lime­stone sub­soil. Lime­stone soils aren’t com­mon­ly found in Cal­i­for­nia, most­ly in 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, great acid­i­ty, and stur­dy structure.

Wine can only be as great as the vine­yard where it begins, and the vine­yards that we farm are tru­ly what sep­a­rate us from oth­er wineries.

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. Most­ly plant­ed to Caber­net Sauvi­gnon with small amounts of Grenache, Mourve­dre, Mer­lot, and Syrah, this vine­yard has a slight­ly warmer cli­mate and a grave­lly, well-drained soil which allows us to craft wines with a dif­fer­ent pro­file. Tend­ing vines from dor­man­cy through har­vest since 1994, we’ve dis­cov­ered, row by row, the unique soil and micro­cli­mate that best hosts each grape vari­ety, ensur­ing every block in the vine­yard con­sis­tently pro­duces the high­est qual­i­ty fruit pos­si­ble. We can uti­lize each of our vine­yards’ strengths to bal­ance and com­ple­ment each oth­er when blend­ed into wines like Cuvee le Bec or allow them to express their indi­vid­ual per­son­al­i­ties in our range of sin­gle vine­yard wines.

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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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.

Winemaking

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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Our Wines

Beck­men Vine­yards wines are sold in 25+ 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, locat­ed on the Thomas and Judith Beck­men Estate Vine­yard out­side of Los Olivos, CA. 

Our ele­gant wine­mak­ing style was devel­oped from the char­ac­ter of our pris­tine vine­yards and shaped by our love for qual­i­ty food and fla­vors that make a state­ment. Enjoy our wines on their own to appre­ci­ate their orig­i­nal­i­ty and com­plex­i­ty, or do as som­me­liers across the coun­try do, pair them with great food to ele­vate the expe­ri­ence and height­en your sat­is­fac­tion. The best way to enjoy Beck­men wines is to become a mem­ber. Four times a year, mem­bers receive a curat­ed selec­tion of wines, most of which are not sold in stores. Mem­bers also enjoy com­pli­men­ta­ry tast­ings, videos about each new release, rec­om­men­da­tions for how long to cel­lar your wines, invi­ta­tions to events plus more surprises. 

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