Craig Jaffurs sometimes delights is describing himself as “a refugee from the aerospace industry,” where he spent a good number of years as a cost analyst. The story of how he got from scrutinizing cost data to wine fermentation science is a long one, but here’s the Cliff’s Notes version: he caught the wine bug bad enough that he worked as a cellar rat at Santa Barbara Winery (under winemaker Bruce McGuire’s direction) for five harvests. At the same time, he was doing that home winemaking thing. He took a couple classes at U.C. Davis too, but Santa Barbara Winery was really his school of higher learning.

The Rhones were his favorites and he felt he could help fill a niche for Rhone style varietals in California. His first commercial vintage under the Jaffurs Wine Cellars label was 1994 and his Santa Barbara County Syrah was an immediate hit. Jaffurs owns no vineyards. Instead, he sources from many of the top winegrowers in all three Santa Barbara appellations: Santa Rita Hills, Santa Ynez Valley and Santa Maria Valley .

With the success of his wines, Jaffurs was confident enough, in 2001, to construct his own winery, located in the heart of the city of Santa Barbara. He says the new, climate controlled facility allows him to make the wines at a natural and careful pace. Plus, it’s only seven minutes from his house; some days, when the surf’s up, it’s important that it’s also only four minutes from the beach. Go figure: how many former cost analysts do you know who are both winemakers and surfers?