The Los Olivos District: a visitor's guide to the valley's middle ground

If you have tasted wine in Los Olivos, Solvang or Santa Ynez, you were probably standing in the Los Olivos District. It covers more of a typical wine day than its name suggests. Here is what the federal record says about it, and what our listings show inside it.

What the AVA is

The Los Olivos District became an American Viticultural Area effective February 22, 2016. Its boundary is in the Code of Federal Regulations at 27 CFR 9.253, and it covers about 22,820 acres.

The name comes from the town, which took it from a ranch. Per the proposed rule, Rancho Los Olivos was a 5,000-tree olive grove planted in the late 1800s.

The petition came from the owner of The Brander Vineyard, inside the area. It counted 12 bonded wineries and about 47 commercial vineyards on roughly 1,120 acres. All 76 public comments supported it.

How it fits inside the Santa Ynez Valley

The Los Olivos District sits in the middle of the Santa Ynez Valley AVA, which in turn sits inside the much larger Central Coast AVA. It shares its western edge with Ballard Canyon and its eastern edge with Happy Canyon of Santa Barbara, without overlapping either.

The rulemaking sets it apart on three counts:

• Terrain. A broad, nearly flat terrace plain sloping south to the Santa Ynez River, its southern edge. Elevations run from about 400 feet by the river to about 1,000 feet in the northern foothills. Higher, more rugged ground surrounds it.
• Fog. It is about 30 miles from the Pacific, so the marine fog arrives thin, late in the day. The record describes it as getting less fog than the valley's western end and more than its eastern end.
• Soil. More than 95 percent of it belongs to one soil association, made up of gravelly sandy loams and clay loams.

A wine labeled "Los Olivos District" must come at least 85 percent from grapes grown inside the boundary. The same wine may also be labeled Santa Ynez Valley or Central Coast, so the district name is a narrower claim, not a different place.

Three towns, one district

On our map, 73 of the places we list sit inside the boundary, all of them in three towns:

• [Los Olivos](/towns/los-olivos): 40. Mostly tasting rooms on Grand, Alamo Pintado and San Marcos avenues. Six Los Olivos estates farther out on Foxen Canyon and Zaca Station roads are outside.
• [Solvang](/towns/solvang): 21. Every downtown Solvang listing is inside, plus Alamo Pintado Road estates such as Blackjack Ranch, Lincourt Vineyards and Rideau Vineyard. Four Solvang listings are outside, two in Ballard Canyon.
• [Santa Ynez](/towns/santa-ynez): 12. The town center and nearby estates, including Sunstone Winery, Vincent Vineyards and Gainey Vineyard. The six other Santa Ynez listings are in Happy Canyon.

Three of the 73 are producers that do not take visitors.

Walk in or book ahead

Of the 73, 24 tell us on their own sites that walk-ins are welcome. Solvang has the most with 12, then Los Olivos with 10 and Santa Ynez with 2. Another 24 recommend a reservation, 4 require one, and for 21 we do not know yet. The walk-ins welcome in Los Olivos and walk-ins welcome in Solvang pages keep the current lists.

What they pour

The proposed rule tied the district's warmth to grapes such as Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. Among the 70 places here that take visitors, Syrah is the grape listed most often, by 35 of them, followed by Pinot Noir with 33, Chardonnay with 31 and Cabernet Sauvignon with 23.

A tasting room inside the district is not the same as wine from it. Many of these rooms pour wine from vineyards across the county, and 15 of the 73 do not name their grapes yet. On the other side, 14 places we list name the Los Olivos District among their sources, and seven of those are outside it, in Lompoc, Buellton, Santa Maria and Santa Barbara. Ask in the room which bottles are from the district.

Plan it

• Start on [the Los Olivos District page](/avas/los-olivos-district): the boundary and every listing in it or pouring its wine.
• Walk a town with Los Olivos on foot or Solvang tasting rooms, or cross the valley with One day across the Santa Ynez Valley.
• Build it in [My day](/my-day), which checks each stop against its posted hours for your date.

A note on these numbers

Counts come from the 220 approved listings we hold today, October 13. "Inside the district" means the listing's address falls within the federal boundary on our map. Walk-in and reservation counts use what each place states on its own site; grape counts use the grapes each place names, wherever they were grown. The AVA facts come from the federal rulemaking listed below.