In 1984, “Byron” Ken Brown, the founding winemaker at Zaca Mesa Winery, left the operation to start his own winery and label, Byron Vineyard & Winery . His facility was situated on the far reaches of Tepusquet and Santa Maria Mesa Roads in Santa Maria Valley. Ken Brown did such a phenomenal job with his label that he attracted the attention of Robert Mondavi, who bought the winery in 1990 and kept him on, providing the capital to take the vineyards to the next level. In late 1995, Mondavi funded the building of a new 32,000 square foot, multi-level, gravity flow winery, designed by the same architect who did Opus One.

Most recently, Constellation Brands made a successful takeover bid for Robert Mondavi. In the acquisition, Constellation made it known that they intended to sell Mondavi’s individual winery holdings. Byron was sold to a seemingly well-capitalized farming family, who defaulted on their loan and declared bankruptcy. A protracted bankruptcy auction ensued, with Byron once again up for grabs. Kendall-Jackson was the highest bidder and Byron now joins the neighboring Cambria Winery in the Jackson Family Farms portfolio.

Through it all, winemaker Jonathan Nagy and his winemaking team have persevered, despite all the financial uncertainty. Jonathan Nagy graduated from U.C. Davis in 1997 and, ironically, put in a couple of harvest seasons at Robert Mondavi in Oakville. After graduation, he took a part time job at Cambria, where he worked his way up to full time enologist. In spring 2001, he was hired as assistant winemaker at Byron by winemaker Ken Brown, who eventually left to start his own label again. By 2003, Nagy was director of winemaking at Byron.

I talked with Nagy about the distinctiveness of the fruit from Santa Maria Valley, where he has spent nearly his entire winemaking career.