Co-owners Louis Lucas and Mike Lewellen of Buellton-based Lucas & Lewellen, like many viticulturists and growers across California, face a predicament: They grow more grapes than there are buyers.

For several years, California’s industry specialists such as Allied Grape Growers, a grower-owned wine grape marketing association with offices in Fresno and Paso Robles, have warned vineyard owners to lighten their loads and pull out entire vineyards to ease the statewide grape glut.

However, since Lucas & Lewellen sells more than half of its grapes to other producers, selling off some acreage made better business sense.

“We have 380 acres planted and own eight separate parcels. Of that, we have listed one 25-acre parcel (Ron’s Vineyard, along southbound Highway 101 south of Los Alamos) and, within Los Alamos Vineyard, combined two 50-acre parcels, one with a house, for a total of 100 acres,” Lewellen said. Those two parcels contain 91.4 acres of vines.

According to the parcels’ listing site, Ron’s Vineyard is under contract.

That 100-acre parcel is part of the company’s Los Alamos Vineyard, located on Alisos Canyon Road just south of the town of the same name along the highway frontage. It was initially planted by the Carrari family.

“We have put up a portion of our vineyards for sale, but not all. We refer to our Los Alamos Vineyard as one vineyard; however, we currently own six legal parcels there,” Lewellen noted. “When you add Goodchild (in the Santa Maria Valley) and Solvang’s Valley View (not listed to sell), we own eight parcels.”

His and Lucas’ goal, Lewellen said, is twofold: to “right-size the business until the state oversupply slows, and to keep the brand thriving.”

Slightly more than half of the grapes Lucas & Lewellen grows are sold to other wineries, he said, adding that just 15% are used for the estate labels, and 30% to 35% are sold to custom crush clients or as bulk juice.

I met with Lucas and the younger Lewellen — his late father was winery co-founder and retired Santa Barbara County Superior Court Judge Royce Lewellen — on a warm July day. We sat in Lucas’ backyard, which overlooks Valley View Vineyard, stretching south toward the Santa Ynez River.

Mike Lewellen calls the current state of the wine industry both a “difficult market plus one that offers good things” — Lucas & Lewellen’s chenin blanc just won Best of Show in the Central Coast Wine Competition, part of the recent California Mid-State Fair.

“We got a distributor to carry it (at Vons/Pavilions),” he noted.

The two were especially pleased by their chenin blanc’s big win, in part because the winery had grafted over some earlier chenin rootstock with pinot noir. Going forward, “we’ve pulled the pinot noir graft and will ‘restart’ the chenin blanc vines,” Lewellen said.

The chenin blanc was not Lucas & Lewellen’s first winning rodeo at the Central Coast Wine Competition. During the 2024 event, the winery’s 2023 viognier won Gold, and in 2023, its 2022 viognier scored a Gold and Best of Show/Best White/Best of Class.

Winemaker Megan McGrath started in 2007 and “runs a good ship, and makes clean wines,” Lucas said.

“We are a smaller, family-owned business that during ‘normal’ years would produce 15,000 to 20,000 cases annually,” Lewellen noted. He estimated that this year’s production would be less by half.

Given that, the company remains focused on selling the grapes it doesn’t need as well as sales via both distribution and direct-to-consumer (DTC) via its two tasting rooms, both in Solvang — and literally across Copenhagen Drive from one other. Toccata, the Italian wine-based label, moved to its current location in 2020.

“We remain focused on both DTC and distribution sales of our label — challenging in the current environment but something we can do while owning less vineyard.”

The winery has multiple clubs, including one that focuses on library wines.

Lucas has employed the same ranch manager for more than 20 years, and some tasting room employees and vineyard crews have equal longevity with the company, he said.

Lucas himself has no plans to slow down.

“When someone asked me when I’d retire, I said, ‘I guess I’ve missed my date,’” he said with a laugh.

A native of Delano, Lucas was born into a family that farmed mostly table grapes on 40 acres. “Table grapes are harder to grow, since they need to be prettier (for display) than do wine grapes,” he mused.

After graduating from the University of Notre Dame with a degree in finance and business economic, Lucas returned to Delano but set his sights on a region where premium wine grapes would thrive.

When he moved to Santa Barbara County, there were only 80 acres of vineyards planted, Lucas told me. The rest — to use an over-used but entirely apt phrase — is history.

Lucas became one of the first commercial wine grape growers in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties. He developed Tepusquet Vineyards in Paso Robles and in Santa Maria (now Cambria), as well as Edna Valley Vineyards in San Luis Obispo and River Bench Vineyard in Santa Maria.

By 1970, 80 acres had grown to 800, mostly still in the Santa Maria Valley, home of what would, in 1981, be designated as California’s third AVA. In 1970, Lucas was the first to plant pinot noir grapes in Santa Barbara County; Richard Sanford and Pierre Lafond planted in 1971 for Sanford & Benedict and Lafond vineyards, respectively, he recalled.

During the 20 years before he co-founded his namesake winery, Lucas worked with producers throughout Central and Northern California, selling them grapes.

In 1996, he and Royce Lewellen launched Lucas & Lewellen, and today, the label grows 24 varieties for sparkling, red, white, Italian varietals and dessert wines.

Lewellen recalled a longtime club member saying, “Lucas & Lewellen is the only wine club you’ll ever need” — because of the diversity of the wines produced.

Lucas counts his summers traveling through Europe — in 1974 and ’75 — as his best training to understand what grapes thrive in what regions of the world. For example, he played a big hand suggesting that chardonnay would thrive in the Santa Maria Valley, and it has.

Lucas & Lewellen is a proud member of Notre Dame’s 10-year-old wine club, and Lucas frequently participates in blind tastings with the likes of Sonoma’s Paul Hobbs, and Gallo.

Another grape variety close to Lucas’ heart is cabernet sauvignon, one that requires a fair amount of seasonal heat to optimally ripen. In the 55 years he’s worked with that grape, the region’s cabernet sauvignons, especially Clone 6, are “better than I ever thought they’d be.”

One needs to take care of cabernet sauvignon “differently” here than in other regions, especially those with more sustained heat than Santa Barbara County experiences.

Lucas & Lewellen grows pinot noir on two of its estate properties, from Los Alamos to Santa Maria, but focuses on Bordeaux reds at the two warmer sites. Petit Verdot “is the last grape we pick,” Lucas told me, noting that the region produces an outstanding version of the hearty Bordeaux red.