Jill Medinger
PHOTOS BY Elizabeth Hay
At Folded Hills, six generations of family devotion to animals, land, and extraordinary hospitality have produced something the Santa Ynez Valley had not yet seen: a winery with horses in its very bloodstream.
Beyond the Estate tasting room, which is open daily to the public, lies a magical private experience at Folded Hills: six hundred acres of coastal California at its most luminous, where the folded golden hills that give this place its name rise and fall like a slow exhalation, and the air carries the mingled perfume of ripening Grenache, organic orchard blossoms, and the particular sweetness of well-tended land. You have not simply arrived at a winery. You have arrived at a family’s life’s work, offered to you with the extraordinary openness of people who were born, quite literally, to welcome strangers and make them feel at home.
A FAMILY WRITTEN IN HORSES
Tucked into the rolling coastal hills of Santa Barbara County, a mere five miles from the restless Pacific, Folded Hills exists as something the modern wine world produces with remarkable rarity: a place of complete, unhurried integrity. This is a family-owned winery, organic farmstead, and working ranch in the truest, most uncompromising sense of each of those words, founded by Kim and Andrew Busch with the explicit intention of honouring the land, the family name, and the ancient, patient relationship between the two. What they have created here is not a brand. It is a life, generously shared.
The property itself carries the deep, particular authority of land that has been purposefully tended for well over a century. The original ranch predates the Busch family’s arrival by generations, its soils layered with the accumulated history of California agriculture, and it was into this richly storied earth that the family began planting vineyards in 2014, guided by the conviction that these rare limestone soils and the cool marine air drifting in from the Pacific demanded nothing less than the noble Rhône varietals. Grenache, Syrah, and elegant Rhône whites have rewarded that conviction extravagantly. The resulting wines are small-batch and expressive, shaped by native yeast fermentation, hand harvesting, and a minimal-intervention philosophy that trusts the land to speak for itself. Bright acidity, effortless balance, and a sense of place so specific it borders on the biographical: these are wines that could only have come from this hillside, this ocean-cooled valley, this family.
The farming itself is a statement of values as much as a viticultural method. Sheep graze the vineyard rows with unhurried purpose, naturally managing the cover and enriching the soil beneath their feet. Biodynamic principles inform every decision in the growing calendar, creating a rhythm of cultivation that aligns with the land’s own cycles rather than imposing upon them. To walk the estate’s organic orchards and row crops is to understand that Folded Hills is not a winery that farms. It is a farm that also triumphantly makes wine.
Beyond the vines, the property unfolds into an experiential landscape of extraordinary richness. Restored historic buildings anchor the farmstead with a sense of permanence and story. The estate’s beloved “farmily” of animals, among them the legendary Budweiser Clydesdales, miniature horses, donkeys, a camel named George, and a zebra named Zazu, animate the property with a warmth and vitality that no designed hospitality experience could manufacture. Vineyard hikes, farm tours, and tastings positioned against the estate’s sweeping panorama offer guests something the wine world’s more theatrical destinations rarely manage: genuine connection, to a landscape, to a working agricultural life, and to the family that has staked everything on preserving it.
That family’s presence is felt in every detail, from the organic vegetables Kim was growing before sustainability became fashionable, to the wines themselves, each named for a member of the Busch lineage as an act of tribute rather than branding. The award-winning Lilly Rosé honors great-grandmother Lilly Anheuser, born in 1844. The August blends carry the names of two formidable patriarchs. A century and a half of family history runs quietly beneath every label, giving each pour a resonance that no amount of clever marketing could replicate.
At its core, Folded Hills is a love letter: to agricultural land worth protecting, to wine worth making carefully, and to the enduring belief that welcoming strangers with warmth, honesty, and something genuinely good in the glass is among the most worthwhile things a family can do with its time on earth.
PRIVATE EXPERIENCES FOR THOSE WHO DESIRE A TRULY IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCE
What Folded Hills offers the sophisticated visitor goes considerably beyond a tasting. The farmstead presents a collection of stunning, one-of-a-kind event spaces across the 600-acre organic ranch and vineyard, available for the kind of deeply curated experiences. For the animal lover with a refined palate, there is simply nowhere in the Santa Ynez Valley that offers this particular, irreplaceable confluence of elements.
Imagine a private equestrian retreat, your morning spent with the Clydesdales and the miniature horses as the Gaviota fog slowly retreats, followed by a guided organic farm walk with the estate team, who speak of soil health, cover crops, and biodynamic farming calendar with the same fluency and passion that the finest sommeliers bring to a vertical tasting. A long lunch unfolds in the farmstead, unhurried and abundant, anchored by estate wines chosen with meticulous care to complement the season’s harvest. An afternoon at the estate tasting room offers the particular pleasure of doing nothing efficiently: a chair on the lawn, a glass of the Lilly Rosé catching the light, the sound of farm animals in the nearby fields.
For those seeking a more structured occasion, the estate lends itself magnificently to bespoke private events: intimate wine dinners staged in the vineyard rows at dusk, organic nourishment, and the profound restorative quality of this landscape, or exclusive small-group immersions designed around the harvest calendar, where guests participate in the actual life of the estate from vine to bottle. The team’s dedication to crafting each experience with genuine thought and personal attention is evident in every detail, from the organic flowers on the table to the handwritten notes that accompany each parting gift of wine.
This is not event hospitality in the transactional sense. It is the extension of a family’s most deeply held values to guests they have chosen, quite deliberately, to welcome into a place that means everything to them. One does not attend an event at Folded Hills. One is received.
Book your experience, or learn more at Folded Hills’ website.
