What’s being built on the hill overlooking vineyards in SLO’s Edna Valley?
Rising above the rolling vineyards of Edna Valley, a hilltop near the historic town of Edna has slowly taken shape over the past half-decade — but the story goes back much further than that.
Drivers passing through the intersection of Highway 227 and Price Canyon Road are no strangers to the site of the large, angular building rising on the hilltop that overlooks a few acres of vineyards.
Around two years ago, the structure was covered in construction wrap. Now, its entering what Sextant Wines director of sales and marketing Chris Blake said is likely to be the final year of construction on a new tasting room that will serve the original varieties of wine that put the town of Edna on the map.
Owned by Craig and Nancy Stoller since 2019 under the Sextant Wines label, Old Edna’s overall layout saw little in the way of changes until the new tasting room broke ground, Blake said.
“This is Craig’s vision coming to reality here,” Blake said.
New tasting room to offer exclusive experiences
The Old Edna property has a deep history with wine-making in the Edna Valley region, with Sextant occupying the buildings that made up the original township that was home to the first efforts to cultivate wine grapes in San Luis Obispo County, Blake said.
The vineyards surrounding the hilltop were planted in 1974 by Andy MacGregor, an aerospace engineer who retired to Edna Valley and took up farming, growing the first grapes in the valley since the establishment of the townsite in 1909, Blake said.
Blake said MacGregor planted just two varietals at the time — pinot noir and Chardonnay — and only got into growing wine grapes at the urging of his daughter, Cathy.
Sextant has maintained a handful of MacGregor’s original pinot noir and Chardonnay vines and sells the wine under the Windemere label, which takes its name from the MacGregor family’s ancestral hometown in Ireland.
Sextant owner Craig Stoller has continued to make Windemere since moving onto the property in 2006 and purchasing it in 2019, even as Sextant has produced more of its own wines, Blake said.
Blake said the Stollers have had the rights to develop the property since they bought the town in 2019 but only started to get the wheels turning on a new tasting room over the past few years.
“He’s always wanted a place to be able to have people and pour Windemere wines for people, just like we pour Sextant wines (at Sextant’s tasting room in Old Edna),” Blake said. “That’s where this is coming in — this will be the home of Windemere wines, which is really cool because it’s sitting over the original Windemere vineyards.”
In that time, the hilltop has started to take shape, fleshing out a modern design that incorporates more rustic themes inspired by the existing buildings of Old Edna, Blake said.
One of the property’s two main rooms will be a small, intimate setting for a handful of smaller parties, while the main room will be a full production and storage area for making and barreling the product, Blake said.
Alongside the Windemere pinot noirs and Chardonnays, the new tasting room will offer a selection of other low-volume, high-quality wines from the same varietals.
“We’re gonna showcase the very best of pinot and Chardonnay from the very best growing regions in California to not only give people an experience of in the valley, but give them a little tour California on the very best spots that are growing the varietals that they’re running into,” Blake said.
When will tasting room open?
Blake said progress on the tasting room has been slow going so far, but it is nearing its end sometime soon.
Though there’s no set date for the tasting room opening, Blake said the company is targeting a 2025 date, with interior work on the buildings gearing up.
“We’re not in a rush — we have plenty of other projects and properties and things,” Blake said. “We just keep chipping away at it, and we have a couple guys up here every day just turning some wrenches.”
This story was originally published August 27, 2024 at 5:00 AM.
