Disko: Santa Barbara County Natural Wine Is Stayin’ Alive

Disko has got people dancing again. No, that’s not a typo — while the once tragically unhip music genre is back in vogue, there’s another new take among the glitzy beats of Dua Lipa and Daft Punk. Just don’t imbibe this one through the ears.

Disko Wines is the one-man groove of Sean Hogan, who has been working wine harvests since before he could legally drink the result. That’s what happens when your uncle is Lo-Fi Wines cofounder and Santa Barbara natural-wine legend Mike Roth. Add in a fascination with food to the family connection — common in this industry — to open the door to a party Hogan doesn’t plan on leaving.

Uncommon, however, is the progressive-wine mold in which Hogan was brought up. After that first harvest in 2010 — at natural, biodynamic Demetria Estate in Santa Ynez Valley, where Roth was head winemaker while moonlighting at Lo-Fi — Hogan went to Pennsylvania’s East Stroudsburg University, and then working in restaurants put wine and California back on his radar. In 2015, he headed west, landing at Demetria before following Roth to another natural producer, Coquelicot Estate. After a harvest in New Zealand — “they’d all gone to other countries, and I didn’t know anything about that,” Hogan recalled of Santa Barbara winemakers — he was back at Coquelicot to stay. Uncle and nephew are now starting their 10th vintage together.  

“Life-changing” is putting it lightly. “Mike taught me everything I know. He’s a brilliant winemaker…. I’m still learning the way his brain works,” said Hogan. But still, he felt the itch to start his own label. “I wanted to make fun, lighter-style, Old World–style wines that I like to drink, and make them well.” During lockdown, he built a nest egg with the cash he would have otherwise spent going out, purchased a ton of gamay, grüner veltliner, and gewürztraminer, and Disko began. Take that for a pandemic hobby.

[Click to enlarge] Disko Wines | Credit: Courtesy

Three years in, Hogan’s output resembles a natural-wine bingo card. There are chillable reds, high-acid whites, even skin-macerated sparkling wine, not to mention “Flower Power” — Disko’s most popular and eye-catching bottle — a coral label with a warm, Woodstock-era print and honey-hued liquid inside. It’s an orange wine blend that changes every year. “The biggest challenge in starting a natural-wine brand is finding fruit I can grow with — organic grapes, the varieties that I want to make — then, having a vineyard that’s big enough and can produce enough fruit to grow that product.” Now, his 2022 lineup comes from two vineyards where Disko has plenty of room to grow, and grow the party has, from 130 to 1,400 cases produced each year.

Hogan admits leaning into the hype of natural wine. But for all the fun and simple, though often sour and borderline-lackadaisical examples the style can exhibit, he’s a winemaker’s winemaker — far from dogmatic, obsessed with cleanliness and prone to waxing on the chemistry. He’s also glad to be in Santa Barbara County. “We live in one of the best climates in the world. There’s no need to add acid out of a bag. You don’t need to add color, enzymes. You can make delicious wines here without that, and that’s all we’re trying to do — make fun, fresh wines that are inexpensive, with nothing added and nothing taken away.”

“We” is generous — Hogan does most everything himself, and that’s after making 6,000 cases of wine each year for his “day job” at Coquelicot. “Keeping up with it is stressful — not only the physical ability but the back end: sales, marketing, traveling, accounting, whatever it is. You’re putting more [money] than you’re making back in, and taking a risk on yourself.” He’s up for it, though, and so are his friends, often staying past midnight to help process and bottle wines.

As for the name? With a long, brown mane and tattoos gobbling up one arm, Disko’s leader leans more Deadhead than Sister Sledge. “I don’t gravitate toward disco music too much — a little bit,” Hogan smiles, “but the label needed to be something I wanted to have fun with.” He credits a random barfly who once called their shared bottle of Beaujolais nouveau — the juicy, chilled red that precipitated the natural wine movement — “so disco.”

Through the grooves and growth, Hogan looks to the simple things. “I’m just doing what I learned to love to do and enjoying it. Eating, drinking, and having good company are some of my favorite things in life. They’re not that difficult.” Neither is busting a move with his easygoing, dance-floor-destined wines.

Disko Wines are currently available at local retailers, restaurants, and diskowines.com.