United States · Santa Cruz & Bay

A Tribute to Grace Wine Company

Angela Osborne founded A Tribute to Grace in 2007 in Los Alamos, California, to make single-vineyard Grenache from multiple AVAs across the state. Every wine is biodynamically farmed, whole-cluster fermented with native yeasts, and aged in neutral French oak.

The producer

Angela Osborne moved from New Zealand to California in 2006 with one declared purpose: make Grenache. She founded A Tribute to Grace a year later, sourcing from Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyard and eventually building to eight single-vineyard bottlings drawn from sites across three distinct California geographies. There is no blended house wine to fall back on. Each designate carries its own argument for what Grenache does differently at altitude, on quartz, or in high-desert heat.

Osborne farms biodynamically across all her vineyard sources, works with Clone 362 as her preferred Grenache selection, and keeps the cellar close to the fruit: whole cluster fermentation at high percentages, native yeasts, twice-daily foot-treading, and neutral French barrique ageing. The label is named for her grandmother Grace and for grace as a quality. The Queen Anne's Lace motif on every bottle comes from a dried flower she found at a Dublin vintage market before she left for California. Around 3,000 cases leave Los Alamos annually.

Known for

Single-vineyard California Grenache

Notable facts

The story

Sand and a Dried Flower

Angela Osborne had already decided to name the label before she had a bottle to put the name on. She was in Encinitas, at Moonlight Beach, and she wrote the word grace in the sand: for her grandmother Grace, and for the quality itself. A few years earlier, before she left for California, she had found a dried Queen Anne's Lace flower at a vintage market in Dublin. She had kept it. It became the motif drawn onto every label A Tribute to Grace has produced since 2007. A pressed flower from a Dublin flea market and a word written in wet California sand are now the permanent mark of a wine label built on single-vineyard Grenache from the high desert to the Sierra Foothills.

Sand and a Dried Flower

Angela Osborne had already decided to name the label before she had a bottle to put the name on. She was in Encinitas, at Moonlight Beach, and she wrote the word grace in the sand: for her grandmother Grace, and for the quality itself. A few years earlier, before she left for California, she had found a dried Queen Anne's Lace flower at a vintage market in Dublin. She had kept it. It became the motif drawn onto every label A Tribute to Grace has produced since 2007. A pressed flower from a Dublin flea market and a word written in wet California sand are now the permanent mark of a wine label built on single-vineyard Grenache from the high desert to the Sierra Foothills.

From the atlas

A Tribute to Grace Wine Company

At A Glance

Producer: A Tribute to Grace Wine Company Winemaker: Angela Osborne Founded: 2007 Base: Los Alamos, Santa Barbara County, California Grape: Grenache, Grenache Blanc Range: Eight single-vineyard Grenache bottlings, Rosé of Grenache, Grenache Blanc Farming: Biodynamic across all vineyard sources Annual production: Approximately 3,000 cases

The Producer

Angela Osborne arrived in California from New Zealand in 2006 with one declared purpose: make Grenache. A year later she had a vineyard source, a first vintage, and a name. A Tribute to Grace has been one grape, one winemaker, and eight single-vineyard sites ever since.

The label draws fruit from across California, from high-desert Santa Barbara County to the Sierra Foothills of Amador County and the cooler coastal influence of Santa Ynez Valley. Each site goes into a separate bottle. There is no blended house style to fall back on, which means every vineyard designation has to carry its own argument. They do. The range is among the most forensic explorations of what Grenache does differently at altitude, on quartz, or in heat across the state.

Osborne farms biodynamically across all her vineyard sources, uses Clone 362 as her preferred Grenache selection, and keeps the cellar work close to nature: whole cluster, native yeasts, foot-treading, neutral French oak. Around 3,000 cases leave Los Alamos annually.

Place

A Tribute to Grace is not a single-appellation producer. The eight single-vineyard Grenaches span three distinct California geographies, and the differences between those geographies translate directly into what goes into each bottle.

Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyard, in Santa Barbara County, is a high-desert site. The combination of intense heat and strong light creates the conditions Grenache needs to ripen fully while holding acidity. This was Osborne's founding source, the vineyard she turned to in 2007 when the label was new.

Shake Ridge Ranch sits in the Sierra Foothills AVA in Amador County, at altitude. The soils are rose quartz, vertically tilted shale, slate, and metamorphic rock. Altitude slows ripening, and those fractured mineral soils drain fast and push roots deep. The wine from this site opens with early delicacy and builds toward weight and body with bottle age.

Thompson Vineyard is in the Alisos Canyon appellation within Santa Ynez Valley AVA, a cooler site influenced by marine air from the Pacific. This is where the Grenache Blanc comes from. The lower temperatures here preserve the acidity and freshness that a white wine from Grenache requires.

Soil And Site

Shake Ridge Ranch is the most documented of the sites: rose quartz fragments, vertically tilted shale and slate, and metamorphic rock together create a fast-draining, low-fertility growing environment. Clone 362 Grenache grown on these soils produces fruit with the transparency and fine tannin that neutral oak ageing is built to preserve rather than cover.

Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyard operates differently: the high-desert heat drives Grenache toward full physiological ripeness, and the intensity of California light at this latitude concentrates the fruit. The resulting wine has the weight and generosity that marks Southern Rhône Grenache, but the elevation keeps it from going soft.

Story

Angela Osborne studied film at the University of Auckland and worked in an Auckland wine shop while she was a student. In 2002, she arranged to work the harvest at Simi Winery in California. One season was enough. She finished her degree, returned to New Zealand, and then came back to California in 2006 to stay, this time with Grenache as the explicit goal.

She spent several years working across California wineries, including Beckman, Casa Barranca, Salinia, Failla, Lioco, and Demetria, before founding A Tribute to Grace in 2007. The inaugural vintage came from Santa Barbara Highlands Vineyard. She has expanded the single-vineyard range in the years since, adding Sierra Foothills and Santa Ynez Valley sources, each bottled separately under its own designate label.

The decision to work with eight separate vineyard sites rather than consolidating into a blend was made early and has not changed. Each site stays in its own bottle. That choice is the architecture of the label.

Vineyards And Cellar

Clone 362 is Osborne's preferred Grenache selection across her sites. The clone is associated with smaller berries and more concentrated, transparent fruit character compared to some other Grenache selections, and it responds well to the biodynamic farming she applies across all her vineyard sources.

In the cellar, the red wines go through whole cluster fermentation at high percentages, documented at 67% for at least one cuvée. Native yeasts carry the fermentation over approximately 19 days. Foot-treading happens twice daily rather than mechanical pump-over, which keeps the extraction gentle and the tannin supple. Ageing takes place in neutral French 220-litre barrique for approximately 11 months. No new oak. The barrel role is to allow slow micro-oxygenation without contributing wood flavour.

The Grenache Blanc from Thompson Vineyard is handled differently: whole cluster pressing and lees ageing, which adds texture and mid-palate weight to a grape that can otherwise be lean.

Wines

The range is built entirely on Grenache and Grenache Blanc. Eight single-vineyard red Grenache bottlings form the core, each labelled by its source site. The Rosé of Grenache and the Thompson Vineyard Grenache Blanc complete the range.

Santa Barbara Highlands Grenache carries the warmth and generosity of its high-desert origins. The fruit is ripe and concentrated, with the lifted perfume characteristic of well-ripened Grenache: dried wild herb, red cherry, a hint of iron. The body is generous but not extracted.

Shake Ridge Ranch Grenache, from rose quartz and slate in Amador County's Sierra Foothills, shows differently. Early in its life it reads with delicacy, almost transparent fruit, fine tannin, and bright acidity. With time in bottle it builds toward greater body and power. The mineral soil signature stays through both stages.

The Grenache Blanc from Thompson Vineyard, in the cooler Alisos Canyon appellation, is whole-cluster pressed and aged on lees. It carries white floral character, citrus, and the texture that lees ageing builds in a white wine.

Additional single-vineyard designates include Vie Caprice and Besson. The range positions reflect the soil and climate of each individual site rather than a house profile applied across the board.

In The Glass

Shake Ridge Ranch Grenache opens with red cherry, fresh herb, and a floral lift. The nose is clean and bright, with no oak character to push through. In the mouth, the fruit arrives with more weight than the perfumed nose suggests, fine-grained tannin, and firm acidity from the altitude and well-drained quartz soils. The finish is long and mineral. The wine is not heavy, but it is not light either. It sits in that precise zone Grenache reaches at altitude when the growing season is long and the soils drain fast.

Santa Barbara Highlands Grenache is more generous in every dimension: deeper colour, riper fruit, rounder tannin. The acidity is still present but less prominent. The finish carries warmth.

The Rosé is pale and dry, with the cut and directness of biodynamically farmed Grenache rather than the sweetness of a sun-warmed rosé. The Thompson Vineyard Grenache Blanc has texture from the lees work, citrus and white fruit on the nose, and enough acidity to keep the whole-cluster richness honest.

A Bottle To Understand It

Shake Ridge Ranch Grenache is the clearest first bottle. Clone 362 on rose quartz and slate in the Sierra Foothills, whole cluster fermented at 67% with native yeasts, foot-trodden twice daily, aged 11 months in neutral French oak. No new wood. No extraction. The wine shows what Osborne is building toward across the range: Grenache that is transparent to its site, with the delicacy and acidity of altitude fruit and the capacity to develop further in bottle. Start here to understand what the label does and what California Grenache can be when it is farmed carefully and made with as little interference as possible.

Anecdote

Angela Osborne had already decided to name the label before she had a bottle to put the name on. She was in Encinitas, at Moonlight Beach, and she wrote the word "grace" in the sand: for her grandmother Grace, and for the quality itself. A few years earlier, before she had left for California, she had found a dried Queen Anne's Lace flower at a vintage market in Dublin. She had kept it. It became the motif drawn onto every label that A Tribute to Grace has produced since 2007. A pressed flower from a Dublin flea market and a word written in wet California sand are now the permanent mark of a wine label built on single-vineyard Grenache from the high desert to the Sierra Foothills.

Final Word

A Tribute to Grace is a single-winemaker, single-grape project that has grown without losing its original logic. Angela Osborne makes eight separate arguments for what Grenache does differently at eight California sites. The wines are biodynamically farmed, minimally intervened, and built to show the site rather than a house character. The range rewards attention from the first bottle.

Sources

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