Pelican Ranch Winery

This is the most welcoming wine tasting room in the Santa Cruz area and well worth the visit. The wine maker Phil is a world renowned chemist and this directly translates into complex wines worthy of a wine club. Overall, Pelican Ranch is quite a gem.

Go see the mad scientist and get some barrel tastings. Pelican Ranch wines are all made on site and you’re always treated like family. Known for their Burgundy/​Rhone style wines, Pelican Ranch never ceases to produce fresh new takes on Pinot Noir and Chardonnays:
Also the only winery in the areas that makes a Torrontes and a Cinsault Blanc.
Epic. The End!

Avoid this place at all cost! The guy that works there is a total prick and probably the rudest person I have ever encountered. Don’t waste your time bothering with this place and go have a drink next door. I would give this place no stars if I could.

If you want to encounter a jerk go here. Don’t waste your time, but if you do please bring a dog and have them pee out front.
Go next door and have a beer to save the experience.

Love these guys!!! The raspberry wine is what started us going here but the Zinfandel has kept us coming back. Peg in the tasting room is amazing. We love heading down to visit her on Saturdays. Sunday’s Mac is there who is just as fun to talk with. Peggy and Phil who own the place are great. Phil is always ready to impart new wine knowledge to us. I highly suggest joining the wine club as the events are great– everyone who goes is great.

#Ihatedogs
Aside from their awful wine, the owner is a totally rude jerk. Don’t bother with this place.

Small place but good wines. Our wine pourer was awesome. Not sure what his name was. The guy with the cool hair.

It’s always good to try products that are very local to you. From Capitola, Pelican Ranch represented locally at a dinner I attended. We got to try:
–NV Maritime White Blend
–2011 Rose of Pinot Noir — Monterey
–2010 Chardonnay — Santa Cruz
–2009 Grenache — San Anselmo
–2009 Pinot Noir — Santa Cruz
–2008 Chardinnay — Santa Lucia
–2011 Rose of Pinot Noir — Amador
–Raspberry Dessert Wine
It was a crazy array of selections. Now as taste always is, it was fairly subjective with what we did and didnt like. I happened to be sitting next to a sommelier from a high end restaurant and it was interesting to see how different our opinions were. It was unanimous amongst the group the Raspberry wine was so different and tasty. The Grenache was a bit on the oxidized end. Being summer I guess the mood dictated the Rose’s as the winners. The folks are very nice, especially Peg, one of the Sales reps. 3.5 stars

I’m gonna be honest, I was disappointed when they moved from their location on the West Side, but I was pleasantly surprised about how nice and easy to get to their new location is!
My girlfriend and I have been wine-​tasting here a few times before, but this last trip was so much fun I had to write a review. We were served by a younger dude (Mitch?) who was awesome. It was refreshing not being talked to condescendingly, as we are young and most wineries act like we’re wasting their time.
The real highlights were the raspberry desert wine (AMAZING) and the pinot noir. I wish I could have walked away with a few cases, but the few bottles we got will have to do until the next time we drop by.

It’s not your typical wine tasting experience but I think once you taste and visit with the staff you will be pleasantly suprised by the product. Make this the last stop on long road trip or wine tasting trip through the mountains. Most of their wines pair well with a special meal. I especially liked their Chardonnay. It’s a typical California Chardonnay, which they do well.

Zak & I just love going here and chatting it up with Peg! We even met her brother one one randomly rare day when he was in the tasting room.
THAT day was unforgettable. He had walked us through the tasting and we were really interested in how they came to make certain blends etc. He then asked if I’d had their Raspberry Dessert wine — nope. They were fermenting some currently and he offered to show us. I knew VERY LITTLE at that time about the wine making process so all he had to do was say Raspberry wine & lift the lid of the barrel and away I went — FULL SNIFFER up to the barrel! YOWCH!!! I told Peg this last visit that if I knew what it felt like to actually snort cocaine and feel that burn? I’m about certain that THIS was that burn times 10! haha i just rememeber Peg’s brother as well as Zak saying that you dont get that close to fermenting wine and you sure’s heck don’t need to take such a big whiff! Whoopsy
Lesson learned.
So the fun side of this story is that just last weekend we went in for another tasting with friends & i got to taste the Wine that was fermenting on that visit. It was MUCH sweeter to my sniffer & we even walked away with our own bottle.
They always have tasty blends there at Pelican that we can count on for an excellent addition to a dinner party or a nice picnic at the beach!

Dare I say Raspberry desert wine? Oh, it is tasty…
I’ve been a long time Pelican Wine Club member and really like the wines Phil and crew put out. Their strongest are their chards and pinots which they produce from a couple of different regions. Occasionally they have other surprises that they are pouring or are part of the wine club shipment.
Phil the owner is a chemistry professor up at UCSC and as part of his wine club, he puts on an interesting twist to an event. He has people get together and design their own blend. Then people do a blind taste test and choose a winner.
Most everyone at Pelican is friendly and personable. There was a period of time last year where they had an individual working for them that lacked in the customer service department, but that person is long gone. If you have had a bad experience service wise, I would say go back and try them again.
Nice people, good wines, reasonable prices.

Hello, my fellow winos. Do you like wine produced in small batches (only 1000 cases a year)? Do you like wine made by someone who doesn’t make wine for a living, just for a passion (who I had the privilege of meeting and getting all my tastes poured by)? The owner is in fact, a chemistry professor at UC Santa Cruz and also teaches an intro to wine and wine chemistry class. Sign me up!
The tasting room, in all its chaotic glory, is in the same warehouse where they make the wine and the owner even pulled out his wine IQ game during the tasting to check our level of competence. It was an educational experience as well as a supreme tasting.
The wines:
2007 Chardonnay, Dry Creek Valley, Kreck Vineyard: Not a big fan of whites, but this chard was really impressive. It didnt have any buttery taste, but a nice toasty feel to it.
2007 Gewürztraminer — Monterey, Rio Del Vista Vineyard: a really lovely smell, like roses and something tropical, but not slightly dry and acidic to taste.
2007 Pinot Noir, Santa Rita Hills, Babcock Vineyard: This is one of their best wines, and of course most expensive at $ 45 a bottle. Nice berry luscious flavor, beautiful color and quite silky going down.
2006 Pinot Noir, Santa Lucia Highlands, Sleepy Hollow Vineyard: When I see something this light in color I usually run the other way, but I stuck with it and had a taste — it was a lovely fig induced splash of color with exponential food friendliness potential.
Raspberry wine: throw some semi sweet chocolate chips and stick a knife in me and I’m RIP with a smile. I don’t know how they captured that fresh raspberry taste, but they done good. WOW. And with chocolate together? WOWNESS maxed out.

I will start off by saying that I haven’t tasted their wines, this review is based on service (or lack thereof) alone.
Some friends went wine tasting with my husband and I. We’d planned out all the places we’d go to, and this was the last stop. It was a good thirty minutes before closing time.
We are walking up to the door and were about 20 feet away when the lady doing the pouring SCREAMS at us «I’ve stopped pouring for today!!»
We kind of stood there for a second, not quite sure what to do. She screams AGAIN «I stopped pouring!» And then …“There’s a bar around the corner!!“
What?
I understand if you’ve had a long day, and you want to go home. Especially if it’s the end of the day and you are used to people being quite drunk at that point. We were not drunk in the slightest. And you could have waited until we actually got to the door and said «I’m sorry, but we’re done pouring for the day»
The winery was NOT crowded. There was ONE couple there. TWO people. It’s a small place, but four more people would have not been difficult to fit.
Further, most wineries that I have visited near closing time still let you in up until it’s actually closing time. You are more likely to sell a bottle if you let someone in. We probably could have been done with the flight by the time to close up, so she still would have gotten to leave on time.
But the last comment was really nasty, rude, and totally unwarranted.
Based on that alone we will not come back again.

I am a member of their wine club so I enjoy their wines. Some of their prices are a bit high for what you get. One thing I thought was funny is that their wines taste better in the tasting room. I buy the same bottle and get it home & for some reason, it doesn’t taste as good. But I like them and want to support it.
I don’t think you need to have good wine tasting in a winery to be fun. I love that they’ve opened up a number of winery tasting areas in one safe area. I wish more places would do that. So I give them extra points for being on the cutting edge. They were the first. And all of the wineries in that area work together and help one another. I also love that about them.

Interestingly I really like this area, maybe it is because there is a cute boutique and a lovely bakery nearby but I stopped in since I have not gone «wine tasting» since the time Megan and I stopped and actually used our spittoon this one time on our way back from Estes Park in CO. (Actually we went one other time in Georgetown and we didn’t have to use the spit buckets then which was nice.)
So anyways, of course I walk in there thinking obvi I will stop by. A lovely lady greeted me and I paid $ 3 to try as many wines as I liked (as long as there were offered that day). So I probably tried 6 or 7 which was nice. They outsource there grapes but produce the wine right there on site. This tasting room is pretty small so they only produce very small case productions.
Grapes come from various strong wine regions of CA. Monterey — Arroyo Seco area, Santa Barbara area, etc… I learned that Gold Country is another place they get their grapes from.
To be honest not too many of the wines were memorable. A couple of their Pinots and their only Syrah were a bit too peppery from my liking but would go well with peppered salami or steak encrusted in pepper. Their Chards were ok but I thought they were a bit too mineral-​ly for my liking. The only wine that really stood out was the Raspberry Desert Wine not bad. Recommended to pair with chocolate, I’d rather pour it over some vanilla ice cream or some kind of warm bread pudding.

Maybe 2.5 to be nice since it’s a smaller winery, but the service and lack of wine knowledge of our pourer is where this place is getting their ding.
Highlights:
— Tasted a lot of wines – I believe 6 or more. I was daunted by the line of wines that greeted us at the tasting bar as we walked in.
— Raspberry wine: too sweet for me but definitely different – tasted like a chambord but made from chardonnay and raspberries. My friend and the hub loved it and we took home a bottle.
— Snacks: very low key and open-​housey placed on paper plates on the side of the room but good big grainy crackers, some little squares of orange cheese, as well a pasta (pretty random) that I hear was good as well.
— Price: tasting was only $ 3 but we had our passport that day and they had extra passports for our one friend who didn’t get one at Storrs.
— My friend could bring her dog in
Lowlights (my flip side to highlights):
— Service: the guy who poured our wines didn’t explain any of them – he just poured. They weren’t even busy and he looked bored but we still had to read the paper in front of us while he just stood there waiting for us to drink up. When we asked a few questions, he stared at us blankly. We didn’t even ask any stumpers. Luckily the lady at the cashier seemed to know more and came in to pinch-​answer rescue style. I think if we take the time to come out to your winery, at least have the courtesy to give us an experience and talk about your wines. Yes, we’re there to drink but we want to hear about your wines. Besides the wines themselves, the people that work there represent your winery. Even devoid of wine knowledge, maybe try and be pleasant or friendly. I heard later that a professor owns this winery and has his students pour there for credit. I don’t have a problem with that, as long as they are educated on the wines and can explain them to potential customers.
— Atmosphere: Like we were tasting in someone’s small garage – complete with the steel-​like accordion orange garage door we could see covering half of the high wide door entry
— Wines: none were to my taste and some were even quite watery
So it may only be that one guy and he was just putting in his time, but I didn’t care for the wines so I’ll probably not be back.

The wines here are on the pricey side and not nearly as tasty as the ones we had tasted throughout the day yesterday on our Passport Saturday Santa Cruz wine tour. We tasted the following:
’07 Viognier — no thanks
’07 Chardonnay — good
’07 Gewürztraminer — dry, good
’06 Pinot Noir — yummy but $ 45 a bottle!
’06 Syrah — eewww
’05 Zinfandel — Red Bell pepper, even, unoffensive, more tannins the more you drink it
Raspberry — Heritage: Pure Jam!
We didn’t end of buying anything here. Instead we went around the corner to the bakery and got something there (I think we were inspired by the Raspberry wine and it made us want a tart). We then headed over to the other side and bought something at the Santa Cruz brewery (to go of course).

Pelican Ranch makes great wines, is a small, local operation, and is always a fun visit. Pelican Ranch is on my «must see» winery tour of the Santa Cruz mountains. It’s on the north side of town, so if you’re heading up to the much larger Bonny Doon winery, stop by Pelican Ranch to get an idea of the other end of the scale.
The winemaker (I’ve met him a couple times but can’t remember his name, probably because I’m usually throwing his wine down my throat) is really nice and you can tell he just loves what he does. You’ll see Pelican Ranch represented at most local wine-​related events. If you want to go to a wine-​themed night at a local restaurant (Michael’s and Shadowbrook have them), Pelican Ranch is a good one to go to.
I had the same experience as Shanna K — not usually a white drinker but really like their Chardonnays. Many of their wines are priced $ 20 to $ 30, with some of the Pinots in the $ 40 range. I think this would be a good wine club to join because it’s a small winery and you could really get a lot out of a membership with them.
They are open Friday, Saturday and Sunday from noon to five.

We’ve had some very nice wines from these folks. including some great surprise vertical tastings on Passport Program days. (Passport Program is a Santa Cruz Mtn. Winegrowers Assoc. event 4 times a year… check it out at
)
… more than that, this is a great place for folks who want to know more about the winemaking process and terrior. The winemaker here loves to talk to folks who visit about where the grapes for each bottling come from, the flavor profiles, what’s typical of the region etc…
I’m more of a red drinker but I’ve found nice Chardonnay’s here.
And don’t forgot to stop by Santa Cruz Mountain Brewing for some beer tasting while you’re here. They are right around the corner from the Pelican Ranch tasting room in the Swift Street Courtyard.