From Medieval Manuscripts to Moonlit Vines: Greg Brewer’s Winemaking Odyssey
Greg Brewer was working on his master’s degree in medieval French literature at UC Santa Barbara when the wine bug bit him. What started out as a side job as an estate host at Santa Barbara Winery would catapult a more than 30-year winemaking career.
Photo by Jeremy Ball
In 1996, while working as the winemaker at Melville Winery, Greg created his eponymous label, Brewer-Clifton, with original partner Steve Clifton. Instead of translating medieval French texts, Greg found himself interpreting the dialects of different vineyards in the Sta. Rita Hills—an appellation he helped to map, define, and establish in 2001.
Greg has since created the label, Diatom, a starkly raised Chardonnay; Ex Post Facto, a cool-climate Syrah; and, most recently, PERILUNE, an artistic collaboration involving a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay that represent a dialectical shift from Brewer-Clifton.
Among the countless high scores awarded to his wines, Greg was named Winemaker of the Year in 2020 by Wine Enthusiast Magazine. He is also one of a select few winemakers worldwide chosen to speak this October as a “Wine Star” at Wine Spectator’s New York Wine Experience—the most prestigious consumer wine tasting event in the United States.
For Greg and his small team, when it comes to winemaking, place is paramount. “We don’t see ourselves as making anything,” he explains. “We’re deliberate in the location of our vineyards…but at the winery it’s about removal of self, maintaining a quiet voice. Everything is raised in neutrality. Our barrels are 15-20 years old. Everything is raised the same each year, so there is no prejudice from vineyard to vineyard, or block to block.”
A corollary to this extremely disciplined winemaking approach is an utmost respect for nature. This means surrendering to the beauty of nature’s imperfections—an ethos grounded in the Japanese concept of wabi sabi. “That is ultimately the intrigue in wines,” Greg explains, “The intrigue in nature is that level of something which is a little askew, a little off kilter, a little out of tune, deliberately so. And that’s actually the perfection. That’s the beauty.”
Although Brewer-Clifton is his life’s work, Greg is quick to clarify that it never has been, nor will it ever be, about him. Rather, it is about illuminating the irreplicable geographic, geologic and climatic uniqueness of the Sta. Rita Hills through its wines. Situated a mere 18 miles from the Pacific Ocean, the vineyards benefit from a unique transversal mountain range that runs east to west, allowing cold ocean air to funnel into the vineyards.
The marine layer cools the vines, extending the growing season and promoting maximum flavor development. The ocean’s influence extends to the soils, seen in one of the rare deposits of diatomaceous earth, or fossilized plankton, in the United States. The resulting Pinot Noir and Chardonnay embrace the power, pedigree, and richness of the Sta. Rita Hills that have become the trademark style of Brewer–Clifton.
PERILUNE
This year, Greg released his newest label PERILUNE. The brand and the vineyard share the name, which means a spot in orbit closest to the moon. Greg chose the name because the stark, empty, and contemplative landscape of the Sta. Rita Hills reminds him of the moon.
Working closely with Greg, Senior Designer Tami Lovett-Brumfield explored concepts that would convey PERILUNE’s lunar-like topography and space-like feel of the concrete eggs used to make the wine. A designer and illustrator by trade, Tami handcrafted textures with sumi and Indian inks, black gouache, and acrylic paints, applying the media with traditional sumi brushes, sticks, natural sponges, and handmade circular stamps. The final art is a digitized version of the tactile media, exploring the interplay of dark and light or yin and yang. It conveys stillness and calm with smooth black areas balancing warm gold textural spheres meant to evoke the sun and the moon.
In bringing PERILUNE to life, Greg and his team deliberately chose a singular concrete egg because it is a neutral vessel that offers a different, yet clean expression of the grape and its terroir. The egg’s symbolic representation of birth was also important. PERILUNE Chardonnay is harvested early and malolactic fermentation is inhibited to capture a higher octave and less fruit-forward voice of place. The wine has a subtle quietness about itself and a feeling of serenity. PERILUNE Pinot Noir is fully destemmed prior to fermentation, after which the wine is pressed into the egg for it to evolve within, yielding an expression that is a bit racier with a bigger personality. Only 75 cases each of PERILUNE Pinot Noir and Chardonnay were produced for the inaugural 2022 vintage.
To learn more about PERILUNE and Greg Brewer’s portfolio of wines, visit: bygregbrewer.com