California’s Island Winery, Reborn

(Independent) - Santa Barbara Family Realizes Historic Dream of Growing Wine Grapes on Catalina.

After crashing through dry stalks of fennel, gingerly stepping over clumps of poison oak, and dodging branches of lemonade berry, Geoff Rusack crouched beneath a canopy of scrub oak, looked toward the sky, and pointed at a leafy green vine clinging to the top of a willow tree.

“That’s a zinfandel vine right there,” said the 57-year-old vintner with a boyish grin, happy to spend a spring morning trouncing through the foothills of Santa Cruz Island, the biggest of Southern California’s Channel Islands. “It’s crazy how this survives out here.”

One of only four grapevines known to exist on the island, the hidden zin is a remnant of when this remote, 97-square-mile chunk of land off the Santa Barbara coast was home to a sprawling, thriving vineyard. First planted in 1884, the grapes were processed by renowned wineries throughout California ​— ​including under the Santa Cruz Island Wine label until it shut down in 1918 ​— ​and the estimated 200-acre vineyard even kept pumping through Prohibition. But then came the Great Depression, and away went America’s desire for fine wine. Following one last harvest in 1932, the vines were left to wither away, although you can still easily spot the vineyard’s footprint while flying over the east end of the island’s central valley.