Bruce McGuire

Coming Up

Bruce McGuire’s work is defined by the requirements of two winery settings, where winemaking is shaped by both site and process. He is winemaker of Santa Barbara Winery and has served as winemaker of Lafond Winery & Vineyards since 2000, a long run that points to continuity in the cellar and repeated decisions made against the same vineyards and the same standards. In that kind of work, experience is cumulative: it builds familiarity with fruit, structure, and the limits of what a site can give when handled with restraint and purpose. At Santa Barbara Winery, McGuire’s role carries the practical demands of production and the pace of an active cellar. At Lafond Winery & Vineyards, his tenure since 2000 shows a commitment to shaping wines over time, with the kind of consistency that comes from staying close to a place and its fruit year after year. The two roles together reflect a winemaker working between scale and specificity, where the cellar’s output still has to answer to the character of the vineyards. The reasons for that split are stated plainly in his own words. Capacity, geography, and control over sourcing are not abstract ideas here; they are the framework behind how the work is organized. McGuire’s perspective is clearest in the decisions that govern where the wines are made and how the fruit is secured for the final blend.

In Their Words “We also need to make more red wine than we could in the Santa Barbara Winery facility, and we wanted to have a presence in this part of the valley, where our vineyards are.” The line reads like a working winemaker laying out the constraints: production needs, facility limits, and vineyard geography. More red wine, a larger footprint than the Santa Barbara Winery facility could support, and a presence in the valley where the vineyards sit all point to a straightforward relationship between winery and land. “We wanted to control more of our Pinot Noir sourcing because there's a severe shortage of available fruit, and Pinot is one of the most important grapes to grow oneself.” Here the focus shifts to sourcing and stewardship. Pinot Noir, in McGuire’s view, is too important to leave exposed to scarcity in the market. The point is not romantic; it is practical. It is about securing fruit, understanding availability, and growing what matters most.