info • July 2, 2024

St. Avalo Wines win Peninsula Underground competition.

Being a boutique wine producer, you'll not find St. Avalo wines at supermarkets or restaurant chains. We take pride in personally visiting restaurants + bottle shops to develop relationships & ensure we're a mutually sound fit for our partners. When you're as passionate as we are about delivering on quality, it's critical to find those who share our values.


Our core focus when approaching our market is centered around partnering with those who share our appreciation for quality like our friends at Cuyama Buckhorn & many others. And the same goes for market feedback...


We recently had a chance to meet the Peninsula Underground folks & appreciated what they were doing with the boutique wine producer community in California. We entered the first 3 of our estate wines to be bottled in their 2023 California Underground competition—and were surprised to have won "Best in Class" on our 2021 Pinot Grigio & 2021 Vermentino.

"This wine is your summer go-to. It's bright, fresh, and just downright delicious. Lemon, pear, and honeysuckle, with a hint of apricot, followed by great salinity and mouth feel on the finish. Medium plus acid gives the wine structure and we detect tertiary notes of dried apple and nuttiness. A treat by the pool." - Peninsula Underground

Having already had great feedback on the Pinot Grigio, we were pleased to read this review & happy to win "Best in Class." For our Vermentino also being well-reviewed to date, we were happy to hear their thoughts & also win "Best in Class."

"Vermentino is a dry white wine grown mainly in Sardinia and Tuscany that has medium plus acid, medium minus body, and displays green apple, citrus, and floral notes. This top expression from St. Avalo transports their drinkers to Italy with a California twist. The nose is floral, with white blossom, then leads to green apple, pear, sweet grapefruit, lemon, and even a hint of nectarine building toward tropical notes. The wine is bright and fresh. There was is great salinity and mouthfeel and shows almond on the long finish. Floral and zesty. Delicious and Refreshing. A pleasure to drink." - Peninsula Underground

Outside of placing our wines in restaurants & bottle shops, we offer our wines to consumers directly from our website and rely on industry experts, publications & peer reviews to educate consumers on our wines. Make sure to follow St. Avalo on social media & subscribe to our newsletter for the latest announcements & releases.



As far as passion projects go, making the multi-year investment in cultivating an organic vineyard takes plenty of patience. Like so many other things in life, making quality wine can easily go awry; but receiving the market feedback we have makes it all worth it.

Recent Posts

By info February 2, 2025
A belated cheers to 2025 from your friends at St. Avalo Wines! As we kick off a new year, we're excited to add a splash of color to your Winter/Spring with a club pickup party on February 15th. Join us as we get a new season kicked off with Tony Ybarra, local Santa Barbara guitarist.
By info January 4, 2024
It's with great pleasure we're announcing the opening of our public tasting room at the heart of Los Olivos, CA in the Santa Ynez Valley!  While the Central Coast is often overlooked as a destination, we've set our roots deep into the community over the past 15+ years and count ourselves lucky to call the Santa Ynez Valley home. We're putting the finishing touches on what we aim to be a gathering spot for locals, a welcoming introduction to our brand for wine aficionados & a staple for all to experience while in our small town.
By info July 1, 2023
Since 2013 Peninsula Underground has strived to help their community find great wines of great value. We recently met the folks at Peninsula Underground & appreciated what they were doing with the boutique wine producer's community in California. We chose to enter the first of our 3 estate wines in their “2023 Under the Radar CA” competition—and were surprised to have won “Best in Class” on two of our wines!
By info June 4, 2023
By info May 30, 2023
This is a subtitle for your new post
By info March 6, 2023
As many of you know, last Spring we bottled the first of our estate wines from the 2021 harvest. After letting the wines cure from bottle shock, we did our best to share our wines with all of our Friends+Family around the world & were very pleased with all the warm feedback we had! Being the curious ones we are, we sought out an expert opinion last September to taste our wines & give us some professional feedback. If you’ve followed St. Avalo for some time, you’ll likely have already tried our 2021 Vermentino. A somewhat lesser-known Italian grape that is indigenous to Sardinia, we surprisingly have a similar climate & terroir here in the Santa Ynez Valley to the Italian island. Coming in as our top-rated wine of 2021 was our Vermentino with a score of 89! Here is what WineEnthusiast had to say: “Crisp apple, lemon blossom and lime peel aromas make for a zesty nose on this bottling of a promising grape for the region. There’s pear-like ripeness to the palate, which shows a light textural edge.” - Matt Kettmann