Sta. Rita Hills to Toast Hitching Post Wines

You’d be hard-pressed to find two more generous and gracious winemakers and bon vivants than Frank Ostini and Gray Hartley, the friends who started Hitching Post Wines way back in 1984. So there’s no question why the Sta. Rita Hills Wine Alliance will be toasting the duo as the Vintners of the Year during their annual Wine & Fire celebration this August, specifically as part of the BYOB “La Paulée” dinner on August 16 at Babcock Winery. 

Buy tickets and see a full schedule, including the “Barn Party” kickoff on August 15 and tasting opportunities on August 17, at staritahills.com/wine-and-fire-2024. 

To celebrate their legacy, we are publishing an excerpt of the Hitching Post chapter from Vines & Vision: The Winemakers of Santa Barbara County, which I published with photographer Macduff Everton in 2020. Though we sold out of the book almost two years ago, I have learned that there are still a few copies available at some tasting rooms, including Au Bon Climat in El Paseo and Foley Wines in the Sta. Rita Hills. Or you can buy the ebook here.

Pairing Pinot Noir with Barbecue 

Not only does running the Hitching Post II Restaurant give Frank Ostini the perfect platform to sell the wine he’s crafted for four decades with salmon fisherman Gray Hartley, but being one of the world’s foremost barbecue chefs also informs his winemaking.  

“The seasoning, the smoke, the caramelizing that happens on the grill, it combines to make complex flavors, just like winemaking,” says Ostini, ever clad in his pith helmet and bushy mustache. “If you use too much oak, it overpowers, but it can be a nice accent. I’m used to doing that. We blend the vineyards of pinot noir together to make more complex flavors and more complete wines. That’s part of being a chef who likes to put things together.”

It goes the other way too, with winemaking offering lessons for the live fire cooking. “Traditional barbecue can be a bit more bold than elegant,” says Ostini, whose family has owned the original Hitching Post steakhouse in nearby Casmalia since 1952, the year of his birth. “But like our pinot noir, we have elegant barbecue that is flavorful but balanced, and not too smoky.” 

Ostini’s restaurant experience started in 1964 at age 12, when his dad finally allowed him to work the night shift. He became the restaurant’s first busboy, and was soon promoted to dishwasher, which he “thought was a promotion.” 

He went to UC Davis to study environmental planning, where he took wine tasting classes and visited Napa a few times. When Ostini returned to Santa Barbara County in 1976, his brother Bill was already running the restaurant’s kitchen, so their mother taught Frank how to bartend. Soon he was managing the wine list. 

“I made it my mission to learn about wine,” says Ostini, who took an extended wine buying trip around California in 1978. ”I came home and I got the hankering to try to make wine.”

The only friend who offered to help with that 1979 vintage was Hartley, who captained a commercial salmon fishing boat in Alaska and had plenty of time when the season ended each fall. They played with merlot blends from Firestone Vineyard until a friendly winemaker hooked them up with their first pinot noir in 1981.  

“As soon as we made that 1981, it was so delicious — from the grapes to the fermenting wine to the finished wine,” says Ostini. “That was delicious for 30 years.”

They went commercial in 1984, when Ostini enlisted the services of Lane Tanner, who he soon married. His family also opened the Hitching Post II in 1986, where Ostini started spending much of his time. Tanner made the wine for a half-dozen vintages, right up until their divorce. 

In 1991, Ostini moved the operation to the new Au Bon Climat/Qupe facility on Bien Nacido Vineyard, and Hartley officially became a partner; the winery officially became known as Hartley-Ostini Hitching Post Wines. Two years later, Ostini took on full ownership of the Hitching Post II in Buellton, which granted him the freedom he needed to explore more gourmet menu items. 

Along the way, the health department said that for Ostini to continue being the chef, he needed to either cut his long black hair or start wearing something to keep it snug. So Frank’s wife, Jamie, bought him six different hats to try out. Suddenly, Ostini was pictured in the Los Angeles Times and Gourmet magazine with the pith helmet she’d bought, and the look stuck. 

“Everyone got the biggest kick out of it,” says Ostini, who now wears a branded version and says it works great for going between the hot fire and freezing ice box. “I’ve never had it catch on fire!”

Wine sales through the restaurant grew steadily into the early 2000s, when the wines were made at Central Coast Wine Services. Then came the 2004 Hollywood film Sideways, which escalated the Hitching Post restaurant and wines to unprecedented popularity, for the bar was a primary setting in the film. Ostini had gotten to know the film’s writer, Rex Pickett, quite well over his years of visiting the region. 

“He’d hang out at the restaurant, and we all knew he was writing a book,” recalls Ostini, who was surprised the project went anywhere and went to see the premiere at the Arlington Theater in Santa Barbara. “I was in shock at how much we were featured. You couldn’t pay a company to do that for you, and we didn’t pay anything. I still didn’t think anyone was going to see it, but I realized that I needed to put our yellow sign on our website.”

People saw it, the film won an Oscar, and business boomed. Ostini moved operations to Buellton’s brand new Terravant facility in 2005, expanding production from 5,000 to 15,000 cases in two vintages. “I had to remember the values instilled by my parents about the hospitality and the quality of the food,” explains Ostini. “I would focus on that during the busiest of times. The movie is going to come and go, but we can’t forget what’s important.”

In 2018, after many ups and downs at Terravant, Ostini and Hartley moved their operations once more, back to the Au Bon Climat facility when Qupe was purchased and moved out. It was a mutually beneficial opportunity. “We’ve come full circle,” says Ostini, who moved 1,000 barrels that year. “They’ve been our savior and we’ve been their savior. It’s been a wild ride.” 

In an era where many winemakers claim that their wine goes with food, Ostini’s chef-vintner combination is a portrait of authenticity. “I bill myself as a chef who makes wine,” he says. “That’s my sensibility about winemaking. I just want it to be served in my restaurant.’

Retired after 28 years of fishing, Hartley still smiles broadly when discussing the hobby-turned-business he started with his friend so many decades ago. “We’ve been having a lot of fun,” he admits. “Commerce drives it, but we have a lot of fun.”

More than 40 years in, Ostini actually gets giddy. “Grape harvest makes us feel like kids,” he says. “To take grapes and make a beverage? It’s magic.”

See hpwines.com