Every Saturday, I host a vineyard tour.
You are invited. Ask anything. Learn everything. GUARANTEED A GREAT TIME.

THE HIT SHOW with KEITH SAARLOOS
on Santa Barbara County’s last independent Radio Station.

🎧 TAP HERE TO LISTEN ON APPLE

One small thing a day to FIX the world.

Winter is the season when gratitude gets loud. The rush slows, the noise fades, and you finally have space to see what held you up all year. Who stayed. Who showed up. Who believed when believing cost something. Winter has a way of making it impossible to miss the truth: none of this happens alone. Not the farming. Not the wine. Not the life built around it.

Around here, winter is when we say thank you the most. Not with words alone, but with work. With intention. With bottles made carefully and sent deliberately, knowing exactly where they’re going and why. These wines exist because you exist. Because you chose to stay connected in a world that keeps trying to pull us apart. Because you showed up for a small family farm and made it possible for us to keep doing this the right way.

That’s why this Winter Allocation is what it is. It’s not a release. It’s not a flex. It’s a thank-you note you can open. Every bottle in this shipment carries our gratitude—for your trust, your patience, your belief in honest work done by hand. These wines were made to be shared, because gratitude only makes sense when it’s passed around the table.

This allocation is our way of saying thank you for being part of this family. Thank you for choosing connection over convenience. Thank you for choosing people over transactions. Thank you for keeping real community alive—glass to glass, shoulder to shoulder, story to story.

These bottles aren’t celebrating what we made. They’re honoring what you made possible. And if we did our job right, when you open them, you won’t just taste the wine—you’ll feel the gratitude behind it. THANK YOU. THANK YOU. THANK YOU.

2023 ESTATE SYRAH - BALLARD CANYON - WINDMILL RANCH

These three labels are not artwork. They are witnesses. They are proof that time passed here—and that a man did too. One hillside. One tree. One wind that never learned how to quit. Larry Saarloos’ life is written into this ground the same way it’s written into our family—quietly, permanently, without asking permission or leaving instructions. Larry planted these hills after failure, when starting over wasn’t romantic and the future didn’t owe him anything. Ballard Canyon didn’t have a reputation then. No brochures. No buzzwords. No one calling it “special.” These slopes didn’t have a voice yet. They were just steep, cold, windy, and honest. Most people would have walked away. Larry didn’t. He believed—maybe not in success, but in the work. In showing up. In doing the job right even if no one ever noticed. I watched him do it. I learned by following behind him, by carrying things, by listening to what he didn’t say. He never gave speeches. He gave mornings. He gave calloused hands. He gave decisions made when nobody was around to clap. These wines come from the hardest hills to farm in the county. Steep enough to punish you if you get lazy. Windy enough to expose every lie you tell yourself. Thin soils that don’t care about your plans. But anything worth doing is hard. That’s where the best fruit comes from. The vine has to fight. Roots have to go deep or they don’t make it. Stress isn’t a flaw here—it’s the point. Nothing on these hills is given. Everything is earned. That’s not just farming. That’s a blueprint for a life. In the first image, the tree stands. Alone. Exposed. Still upright. That’s Purpose. Purpose is the moment you decide to begin without knowing how expensive the decision will be. It’s choosing the hill before you know how steep it really is. Larry planted here not because it penciled out clean, but because something in him said this was the ground that mattered. Purpose doesn’t guarantee comfort. It doesn’t explain itself. It just stands there, takes the weather, and refuses to move. Then comes the long middle. In the second image, the tree is bent and scarred. Changed forever. That’s Resiliency. This is Fat Man Terrace—the most photographed vineyard in Santa Barbara County. The cover of books. The image on banners and emails. The symbol everyone points to when they want to show how beautiful this valley is. And that’s the irony. Because beneath the beauty is pressure. Relentless wind. Steep ground trying to pull everything downhill. A hillside that looks effortless from the road and punishes you the second you step onto it. That’s resiliency. The part people don’t post. The years where the work stops being poetic and starts being necessary. Where plans fall apart. Where you take the hit, lose something you don’t get back, adjust your footing, and keep moving—not because you’re brave, but because quitting would mean the beginning was a lie. That’s how my father lived. No complaints. No drama. Just forward motion. And then, one day, the work is done. In the final image, the tree is gone. Cleared. Finished. And in its place, a golden eagle moves through the exact space it once occupied. That’s Legacy. Legacy isn’t memory. It’s motion. It’s what keeps moving after you’re gone. When my father died, the work didn’t stop—it landed on my shoulders. And now I see him everywhere. In my kids. In my nieces and nephews. In the way they show up early. In the way they don’t cut corners. In the way they carry the family name like it means something. His lessons didn’t disappear with him. They hardened. They became expectation. They were cast into the foundation of who we are, whether we talk about it or not. Purpose. Resiliency. Legacy. That’s the arc of building something real. Purpose is choosing to begin. Resiliency is staying when it costs more than you thought it would. Legacy is the quiet reward that only comes after you’ve run the race all the way through—and run it clean. These wines aren’t about nostalgia. They’re about responsibility. About choosing hard ground. About staying when it hurts. About leaving something solid enough that your children don’t have to start from scratch. A life like that doesn’t need monuments. It gets remembered in posture. In work ethic. In the way the next generation stands a little straighter because of it. That’s Larry Saarloos. That’s these hills. That’s this wine. No shortcuts. No bullshit. Just the work— done right, and carried forward.

MAYHEM

2023 CARBONIC* ESTATE GRENACHE NOIR - WINDMILL RANCH 

UM… what does carbonic mean? Alright. Here we go. Carbonic fermentation is not a winemaking choice—it’s a verdict. It’s the moment where farming and winemaking stop pretending they’re separate disciplines and stand shoulder to shoulder, under oath. Carbonic fermentation is when you take perfect, whole grape clusters—uncrushed, untouched, picked that very morning—and seal them in a tank filled with carbon dioxide. No smashing. No stomping. No stirring. No “we’ll fix it later.” No edits. No safety net. This is a full send. Fermentation begins inside the berry itself—quietly, naturally, on its own terms. Not because you forced it, but because the fruit was healthy enough to carry itself. That’s the purest handshake between farming and winemaking there is, because once that tank is sealed, your job is over. You don’t interfere. You don’t hover. You don’t pace the floor inventing contingency plans. You either believe in the truth of your farming—or you shouldn’t have sealed the tank in the first place. You say a prayer. And you wait.

And here’s the part most people won’t tell you—because it scares them. You can only do this if your farming is dialed. Not “pretty good.” Not “award-winning.” Dialed like standing behind your son while he signs a check that has real weight on it, and knowing in your bones that it’s going to cash. Dialed like when your son looks at you and asks, “Do you have my back on this?” and you answer instantly, without hesitation, because his last name is the same as yours. That’s not optimism. That’s conviction. Carbonic doesn’t hide flaws—it exposes them. Rot shows up. Stress shows up. Imbalance shows up. Shortcuts show up. This method doesn’t forgive any of it. It doesn’t soften the truth. It doesn’t negotiate. If you lied to yourself during the growing season, carbonic will testify against you—publicly, permanently. It will absolutely tell on you. And if you weren’t ready, it will absolutely destroy you. That’s why this is rare. That’s why almost no one does it. That’s why you don’t hear about it. Because this isn’t a trend. This isn’t a technique. This is a reckoning.

We went carbonic because our farming could stand in front of the good Lord and not flinch. Because Windmill Ranch isn’t a vineyard we “source from.” It’s our dirt. Our decisions. Our mistakes. Our corrections. Our early mornings and late nights. Every canopy pull, every water call, every pick date was made knowing this moment was coming—knowing that when the tank closed, the vineyard would speak without us interrupting. And that’s why this wine bears the name Cash Saarloos. Mayhem. Because carbonic fermentation and Cash are the same lesson told two different ways. Pure mayhem. Nothing came on a platter. Nothing was softened. Nothing was handed to him with a bow on it. If it came easy, he didn’t want it.

Cash learned early that effort is the only currency that spends. That work ethic is what gets remembered. That talent is meaningless if it isn’t backed by discipline. When Cash shows up, the question is never can he do it—the question is whether he’s willing to do it longer, harder, and cleaner than everyone else in the room. And the answer—every time—is yes. Again. And again. And again. He comes from Los Olivos, California—not the postcard version, not the tasting-room fantasy, but the earned one. Dirt under the nails. Early mornings that don’t care how you slept. Long days that don’t care how you feel. A place that teaches you to get dirty, get ugly, and finish the job whether anyone is watching or not.

Once the tank is sealed, there’s no reaching back in. Once you paddle past the break, you’re on your own. No hovering parents. No shortcuts. No half-steps. Life doesn’t forgive flaws. Carbonic doesn’t either. Cash chose the hard road because that’s where truth lives—discipline over noise, patience over panic, effort over excuses. That’s why this wine bears his name—because mayhem isn’t chaos. It’s contained power. Energy under control. Confidence earned the long way.

Look at the label. He’s sitting in the water, board under him, waiting. Not scrambling. Not chasing every wave like he used to. He’s reading the ocean. Feeling the timing. Understanding that forcing it is how you get wrecked—and that the right wave always comes if you’re ready to meet it. If you prepared. If you earned it. That image is carbonic fermentation in human form. Stillness instead of control. Trust instead of panic. Prepared, not passive. Head down. Praying. Double shakas. That’s gratitude and confidence living in the same body—faith without fear, humility without doubt. A young man acknowledging forces bigger than himself—the land, the ocean, God—and still knowing exactly who he is. That image isn’t decoration. It’s the personification of this wine: fire and restraint, calm and mayhem, power you can trust.

As his father, this is the kind of man anyone—anyone—would be proud to call son. But he is mine. And that is one of the highest honors I will ever be given. To point and say, “That is my son,” knowing the work behind him, the character inside him, the spine that doesn’t bend—that’s everything. He is the son of Keith and Heather Saarloos. The grandson of Larry and Linda Saarloos. Raised not on shortcuts or handouts, but on dirt, effort, and expectation. He does not use our name—he elevates it. He shines it. He is going to leave it better than he found it. Home grown. In the dirt. Nothing given. Everything earned.

That’s Cash. That’s carbonic. That’s Mayhem. Not a style. Not a flex. The pinnacle of farming meeting wine. Full send—without flinching. Pure mayhem

2022 ESTATE PETITE VERDOT - WINDMILL RANCH - BALLARD CANYON

love this photo. I didn’t for a long time—couldn’t even look at it, truth be told—but now I can, and now I need to. It was taken in 2020, during the lockdown, during the silence, during the year the world flipped the Closed sign, and if you want to know what grit looks like, it’s this photo. Not a movie still, not a posed portrait—just a real moment, a whole family holding their breath. Every grandkid of Big Lar stacked in the back of his old 1950 Chevy. No funeral procession, no crowd, no fanfare—just six kids and a legacy bouncing down the road in a truck built to last, because the world said we couldn’t gather, but we knew we had to say goodbye. That’s grit. Grit is a white rose in a child’s hand, wearing your grandfather’s cowboy hat like armor, standing tall when your knees want to buckle, smiling when you feel like crying, barefoot in the bed of a pickup, feeling the weight of the moment and holding it anyway. Grit is the reflection in the rear window—eyes hidden behind dark glasses, carrying the pain for two. This photo is the definition of grit, that split second where sorrow meets strength, when you don’t want to go but you do it anyway. You show up. You honor. You endure. That’s the cowboy way. Grit isn’t something you wear on your sleeve—it’s something you carry in your spine, in your guts. This isn’t a photo of mourning; it’s a photo of rising, because grit doesn’t look like perfection, grit looks like this. Grit is what gets you off the mat when you want to stay down, the end of losing and the beginning of the fight back, what you have left when you have nothing, the beginning of winning—down, but definitely not out. Grit is where you start when you begin sanding something raw into something beautiful, and where, after enough time, you can look back and finally see how far you’ve come, how much you’ve grown, how the scar became the medal. Petit Verdot is grit. Like that moment in the back of the truck, it holds its ground when everything else falls apart. It doesn’t lead with sweetness or ask for attention—it shows up when it’s hard and stands tall when the world says “sit down.” Petit Verdot is misunderstood, underestimated, and often cast into the background; most winemakers use just a splash because it’s stubborn, slow to ripen, too bold, too much work—just like grief, just like real strength, just like those six kids who climbed into the truck knowing full well what the day meant. It has thick skin, small clusters, and it takes heat, pressure, and time to become what it’s meant to be, and when it does, it doesn’t just exist—it commands. This wine is Cash’s stare in his grandfather’s hat, Emery’s white rose and brave smile, Brielle’s steadiness, Brady’s quiet grin, Lane’s barefoot courage, your brother silent in the window holding the weight with you. Petit Verdot, like that photo, isn’t about polish—it’s about presence. It doesn’t pretend or flinch; it carries the weight and holds the line. It’s the wine that says we may be down, but we’re not done, the wine that knows legacy isn’t something you talk about, it’s something you carry. Most people won’t make a 100% Petit Verdot because it’s too hard, it takes too long, and it fights you the whole damn way—but that’s exactly why we do it. At first it’s wild, like dragging a cat across the carpet—it bucks, it claws, it doesn’t want to be tamed—but with enough time it starts to settle, it starts to form its chains, the tread count goes from burlap to silk, and then one day you see it: a glint, a shimmer, that rock starting to shine. So you keep going, keep pressing, keep believing, until one day you look down and there it is—a diamond in your hands, because nothing beautiful starts that way. It all takes a little grit, a little fight, and a whole lot of faith and fire—charcoal to diamond, time and pressure. Same with people. Same with this wine. Same with Big Lar’s family. Grit—for Big Lar, for the grandkids in the truck, for everyone who’s been knocked down but chooses to rise. We live to honor those who have come before us and to prepare the way for those yet to come. That’s not just how we make wine. That’s how we live. True GRIT.