Credit: Macduff Everton
What follows is an edited excerpt from Vines & Vision: The Winemakers of Santa Barbara County, published in 2020 by Matt Kettmann and Macduff Everton.
“I really had no idea that I would become a winemaker, but I’ve been immersed in wine country from a young age,” says Blair Fox, who was born in Santa Barbara’s Cottage Hospital and grew up in Montecito. “I was riding my bike around the Santa Ynez Valley with my parents when there were like 10 tasting rooms. It was a long way between them!”
Water polo was Fox’s first love. He excelled at the sport while at Santa Barbara High and was accepted to Johns Hopkins, Harvard, and Brown upon graduation in 1993. “But I was a California boy, and I couldn’t see myself going back east,” said Fox. Also keeping him home was his girlfriend, Sarah, who’d become his wife a few years later.
He had been heavily recruited to play on UCSB’s team, so he stayed in town to play water polo for the Gauchos. Three years in, the head coach that Fox liked was fired, so he decided to transfer to UC Davis, where Sarah was a soccer star. Then he stumbled into his first viticulture class.
“I just fell in love with that,” said Fox. “At first, I just liked being outside and being in the vineyard.” Then he realized that, even if he grew perfect grapes, he could sell them to someone who didn’t make great wine. So he started studying winemaking too, and he graduated in 1999 as the first UC Davis class to earn dual degrees in viticulture and enology.
“Once I did figure out that I wanted to be part of this business, I wanted to come back to this area,” said Fox, who found a harvest enologist job with Fess Parker Winery right after graduation. “I knew there was something special here. It was still kind of undiscovered.”
While learning from mentors like Brett Escalera and Dan Gehrs, Fox wound up working at Sunstone Winery, which was closely tied to Fess Parker back then. Sarah also got a job in the Sunstone tasting room. Right before the harvest of 2002, Fox went back to Fess Parker to manage the vineyards, as Escalera and Eli Parker were so busy in the cellar.
The next year, he worked a vintage at Haselgrove Winery in South Australia’s McLaren Vale region, and then traveled around the country with friend and winemaker-to-be Dave Potter, who was studying there. When it was time to come home, Fox was hit with multiple job offers, but he went back to Eli Parker. “We always have had a great relationship,” said Fox, who was offered the job as Rhône varietal winemaker and has been at Fess Parker ever since, becoming head winemaker in 2005.
Sign up to get Matt Kettmann’s Full Belly Files, which serves up multiple courses of food & drink coverage every Friday, going off-menu from our regularly published content to deliver tasty nuggets of restaurant, recipe, and refreshment wisdom to your inbox
Sign up to get Matt Kettmann’s Full Belly Files, which serves up multiple courses of food & drink coverage every Friday, going off-menu from our regularly published content to deliver tasty nuggets of restaurant, recipe, and refreshment wisdom to your inbox
His own label, Blair Fox Cellars, actually goes back to 2001, when Sunstone paid part of his salary in a ton and a half of grapes. He chose syrah. “In my final winemaking class, I was told that syrah was going to be the variety that overtakes cab in popularity,” said Fox with a smile. “I’ve always been hoping that would happen. I don’t know if it ever will.”
He started thinking of a name for his personal winery while drinking beer with other winemakers in Australia, where friends gave him some very frank advice. “The guys were looking at me, and said, ‘Mate, your name is Blair Fox. That’s like a Hollywood name. Why wouldn’t you just use your own name?’” recalled Fox, who thought that sounded pompous but begrudgingly took their advice. “So that’s what happened.”
Today, the lineup at Blair Fox Cellars includes six different vineyard-designated syrah bottlings and estate wines from his parent’s 20-acre Santa Ynez Valley ranch, which they bought on the east side of Highway 154 in 2004 after selling their Montecito home. The three-acre, organically farmed vineyard, which features syrah, grenache, petite sirah, zinfandel, and vermentino, rises up an incredibly steep slope. “Almost every tractor rolled down the hill,” explained Fox, “so we figured we had to do it by hand.”
Blair and Sarah, who handles the marketing and business sides of the family winery, also own Fox Wine Company, which opened a tasting room in Santa Barbara’s Funk Zone in 2013. “We wanted to get back into Santa Barbara and become part of the scene,” said Fox. “Both of us just love the Funk Zone and its resurrection.”
Compared to the singular focus of Blair Fox Cellars, “Fox Wine Company concentrates on the various appellations of Santa Barbara,” he said. “Being a native, I have a good understanding of all the different areas.” So there is cab and sauv blanc from Happy Canyon, chard and pinot from the Sta. Rita Hills, and Rhône wines from Ballard Canyon and the Los Olivos District, among others.
The couple and their two teenage daughters live in downtown Los Olivos, which is home to the Blair Fox Cellars tasting room. Their eldest, Rylee Dare Fox, just graduated from Santa Ynez High and is entering Cal Poly to pursue a viticulture and wine degree this fall. “It was the only college she applied to,” said Fox. “We are very excited and proud to see our next generation involved in the family business!”
Perhaps more than any other family, the Foxes are a truly complete product of Santa Barbara wine country, from when Fox was one of the youngest faces on the scene until today, as his experience is starting to match his age.
“Even today, people say, ‘Wow, you’re so young,’ but I’m not that young anymore,” he laughed, before getting more thoughtful. “I’ve always really worked my ass off,” he said. “It is great to see that hard work pay off.”
2477 Alamo Pintado Ave., Los Olivos, (805) 691-1678; and 120 Santa Barbara St.; (805) 699-6329; blairfoxcellars.com and foxwineco.com
Support the Santa Barbara Independent through a long-term or a single contribution.
Support the Santa Barbara Independent through a long-term or a single contribution.