“Finished in June 2013, the Presqu’ile winery is several things at once. It’s an impressive piece of architecture and design as well as a showcase of top-of-the-line winemaking equipment and the manifestation of the owners’ vision of an estate winery.

“Yet it’s also emblematic of the confidence of the company’s president, Matt Murphy, and his family have in the Santa Maria Valley as the best place to make Pinot Noir in the United States. ‘I prefer the style of wines that we get from Santa Maria Valley over anywhere else, and for my money I think it’s the best place on the West Coast for Pinot,’ Murphy says. I’m constantly being vigorously debated on that, but this is all about what we like and what we think we can make work, and where we think we can do that.’

“Presqu’ile (Press-keel) is located near the small town of Orcutt, California, a few miles south of the city of Santa Maria in Santa Barbara County on California’s Central Coast. The name is creole for ‘almost an island,’ or peninsula, and was also the name of the Murphy family retreat on the Gulf Coast that was destroyed by Hurricane Katrina in 2005.”

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