John Wright

The Climb

Training at the Wharton School gave Wright a business foundation before his early work moved through volunteer service with the U.S. Army in Germany's Rheingau region and then as an employee at management consulting firm Arthur D. Little. The long stretch that followed at Domaine Chandon in Napa Valley, California, added production experience at scale; from 1973–1995, he ran Domaine Chandon's Napa sparkling wine business. The sequence reads as accumulation: commercial discipline, international exposure, and years spent inside the practical cadence of wine production. Today, John Wright is founder, owner, and winemaker of Standing Sun Wines.

Today

Buellton is where that method becomes visible in the winery. Wright, as founder and winemaker of Standing Sun Wines, works in small lots with Rhone variety wines from Santa Ynez Valley vineyards, keeping fruit identified as vineyard-specific varieties and handling each ferment individually. The wines are described as pure and unmanipulated, then held in neutral French oak barrels for 11 months. The space follows the same logic. “This place was built so that people could sit, taste wine, and see production.” It is set up to show the work, not hide it, and Wright names the daily reality plainly: “Part of making wine is making a mess.”

Signature

Grenache is among John's signature wines, and it fits a cellar program centered on Rhone variety wines and the discipline of small-lot work.

In Their Words “This place was built so that people could sit, taste wine, and see production.” “Part of making wine is making a mess.”

Recognition

Wright is the owner and winemaker of Standing Sun Winery and the founder and winemaker of Standing Sun Wines in Buellton.