The Wines of Malibu. Yes, Malibu.

It’s easy to think of Malibu as nothing but beaches, bikinis and endless summers while celebrities stroll oceanfront properties, dodging the paparazzi and living the good life.  And whereas that’s partly true, Malibu is also embracing its agricultural roots.  Long before Westerners came to Malibu sporting convertibles and Speedos, the Chumash Indians lived peaceably along the coast and throughout the stunningly beautiful mountains that make up the Santa Monica Mountain range.

Prior to prohibition, L.A. County was a top grape growing region, but that faded away with the urbanization of the land.  After a devastating fire in the mid 1980s, Ron Semler purchased 1,000 acres of charred land in the Santa Monica Mountains.  Some questioned his sanity, after all, the land was decimated and appeared unusable, but he saw an opportunity.  Ron Semler is not a farmer, he’s an entrepreneur and things he touches seem to work right.  He bought the land, in part, to provide his daughter Tami a place to ride her horses and to provide land for his nine children. The kids have since grown up and while horses are still boarded on the property, it is grapevines that are taking over.

But before the vines came into being, Semler planted avocado trees, 15,000 trees in fact.  At the height Semler’s Saddlerock Ranch operation he was the largest producer of avocados in Los Angeles County.  But avocado trees, like any crop, are susceptible to weather, and weather, as any good farmer knows, can be your best friend or your worst enemy.  After one particularly bad year, Semler lost over a millions pounds of fruit.  Added to that was the increasing expense of water.  “I’m done, let’s find another crop,” he told his family.  And it could have been most any crop.  “The more research we did the more we realized that red wine grapes fit the bill,” explained Tami Semler, vineyard manager for Malibu Family Wines and Semler’s eldest daughter.  “In 1992 we started cutting down dead avocado trees and planted 14 acres of cabernet sauvignon and merlot.”