Rick & Aurora Grimm

The Owners

Aurora was one of 7 daughters raised in Islington, London by her parents who emigrated from Italy in the late 1940’s. Food, farming and family wine making were an important part of their lives. She met Rick in 1984, while working in the oil business.

Rick grew up in West Virginia, and worked in the oil business for most of his career. He moved to London in 1983. In 1993, he and Aurora launched their own petroleum products, blending and distribution company in London. Their company eventually focused on blending environmentally friendly road fuels, using biofuels as a constituent in the gasoline and diesel blends.

After spending 4 years in Monaco, they were fortunate enough to sell their successful family run London based petroleum product businesses, and in the fall of 2007, Rick and Aurora decided to take up a new life in California and moved to Santa Barbara with their 3 children, Henri, Gabriella & Sam.

In the summer of 2010, they purchased 135 acres on Kentucky Road in the Santa Ynez Valley.With their appreciation of European wines and food in mind, a year later, they bought an adjoining 108 acre parcel and decided to try their hand at farming on the mesas of the 1st parcel. While initially dedicating a “couple of acres” to wine grapes and a “couple of acres” to olives, after several consultations with Jeff Newton & Ben Merz of Coastal Vineyard Care, the project almost immediately grew to 16.6 acres of grapes & 5 Acres of Italian varietal olives.