This week we’ve got a special interview with the fine folks over at Midtown Wines in Ventura! We discuss discovering new wine varietals, why they try to form a relationship with the winemakers they represent, and how surf sessions during the pandemic ended up creating their successful business.

Inspired by Midtown Wines and their love for the South of France, we are highlighting some of our favorite Rhone blends from the central coast.

Your Newest Friends at Midtown Wines

Leave pretentiousness and intimidation at the door, Midtown Wines is the wine shop that feels like a home away from home. From the moment you walk into Midtown Wines you can tell there’s intention in everything Jake Zylstra and Summer Staeb create. From the artwork on the walls, to the wines they source, everything in Midtown Wines comes with a story.

Q: Can you tell us the story of how you two met and a bit about each of your backgrounds?

Summer: I did 2 separate trips to France as I started getting more interested in wine. Jake and I were actually in France at the same time, but were on opposite sides of the South of France and hadn’t met each other yet. I reached out to him after a friend connected us on Instagram and told him I was looking for a job during my second trip and he recommended I work at this cafe. He had been there but he had to come back to California. During that trip, I was able to photograph and get to know some incredible wine producers all around the country. Jake and I both separately had these similar communities that eventually brought us together after France.

Jake: I've been working in the central coast wine industry since 2017. I had traveled and worked in France where I recommended Summer for the job at the cafe I was working at. But we wouldn’t actually meet until we were both back home, like Summer mentioned.

When I got back I started looking for natural winemakers to work for. Selfishly, I wanted to find a place to work that was close enough to the ocean to surf, while still being close enough for family (in Orange County) to visit. So I got a job at Pence by bringing a bottle of wine from my France trip to the interview. After that I worked at Solminer and then LoFi.

Q: How did the idea for Midtown Wines start?

A: It originally started during the pandemic. After working at LoFi, we had a lot of friends who wanted access to natural local wines, but weren’t able to access them.

We decided why not just load the car up with LoFi, come down to the beach in our van, bring some surfboards and hand it out in the parking lot. One day while handing off a bottle to a friend some other guy popped out of a car from a few spots over and was like, “Hey, are you guys selling wine?” We hesitantly said yes and sold him a bottle. That snowballed into having 30 people on a group text where every Friday we’d meet up. We’d say “Hey, we’ll be going down to C Street or Emma Wood from 9 to 12. Come surf and grab some wine.” That ended up becoming a consistent thing which led us to finding a space in downtown Ventura.

One of the people who came to our van consistently was a guy named Chris, and he and his partner owned a furniture design store. He offered, “Look, we're not using it on the weekends. Would you be interested in using it? You could come here instead of doing it at the beach.” We thought, ‘Well this is cool.’ Once a week for 3 months people would show up to the furniture shop on Saturdays. We’d have wine by the glass with my Dad (Jake’s Dad) cooking for our friends and essentially set up a makeshift restaurant.

We weren’t really trying to open something in the beginning. It just happened organically with the community here and it formed around a passion for food and wine. Once the biggest event was around 200 people we looked at each other and realized this was something the community wanted and something we could make really special.

Q: You have a really diverse set of wines you offer that aren’t just focused on California. What goes into your decision making when deciding to stock a particular wine?

A: With our California section specifically, we wanted to avoid promoting something that’s just trendy. We want to repay our consumers trust with well-intentioned products. A lot of people have questions like, “Why is your California selection so small? You live so close to the Central Coast. You guys should have a larger California selection.” And my answer to that is, we want to know everyone that's on our shelf. We have a wine shop here, we're close to wine regions, we should be spending our hard earned time and money to go visit these people. See what the farming is like and understand not only if the wine is good, but what's the human like that’s making it?

We’ve been really lucky to visit winemakers all over France, Europe, and here at home where we can see these people in their elements. It’s really special to be able to connect the community here in Ventura with these people making the wine.

At the end of the day, the relationships and community are the most important things for us and wine is just the conduit to that. So being able to connect people to these winemakers and regions we love adds another element of intentionality behind what we’re doing and the wine we’re selling.

Q: It sounds like you both travel quite extensively while looking at new wine regions. Any standout experiences?

A: In 2021 we went to Northern Italy by Piedmont and wanted to visit a few winemakers but it didn’t end up working out because we went in the middle of harvest. A local where we were staying ended up recommending us to visit her family’s restaurant in a nearby town since our day was free. So we pull up into the small town and it’s completely empty with not a soul in sight. It looked like the apocalypse occurred.

We walk into the restaurant and the owner comes out to bring us to the back patio with 10 to 15 locals. It was immediately apparent how out of place we looked to everyone. So we sat down to look at the wine list and asked the owner if there was a particular bottle that he really recommends. He excitedly runs to the back and comes up to us with a wooden crate with a bottle in the crate.

As he pulls it out, every table starts looking at us just giving us thumbs up and smiling…approving of our decision. So we started sharing bottles with the other tables and getting drunk with the locals. We didn’t speak the same language, but we still feel like we could go back to that town today and recognize everyone we drank with that day. It ended up being one of our favorite varietals we’ve tried called Ruché. And that fits with what we’re trying to do here at Midtown with these odd varietals where we can tell a story about how we went to his village. It helps people to want to explore and discover more.

Q: Are there any particular producers or winemakers along the central coast that you’ve been liking a lot?

A: Forsu Wine has been a recent favorite (We featured Forsu a couple weeks ago!). To be able to see a younger winemaker evolve is really special. Two months ago we wanted to have her wine in our wine club and she had just bottled her wines before she had any labels. She ended up having to hand write on them the names of the wines which gave them such a cool look (pictured above). They ended up being a hit with everyone and people saved the bottles in their living rooms.

Q: What’s the best way for people to support you?

A: We’d encourage people to come meet us because everything we do here has intention and that doesn’t always come through on social media. If you can come meet us in person we can give you an experience that doesn’t traditionally come through in retail. By coming to visit us you can experience different wines and be part of something awesome.

We've also found a fun format for events where, because we have these relationships with winemakers in California, we bring a winemaker. And so in the spirit of how we originally founded Midtown Wines we’ll be doing an event the second and fourth Saturday of each month with food, music, and a winemaker presenting their wines for the community to enjoy.

We want to give a huge thank you to Jake and Summer for inviting us in to learn about their story. You can guarantee we’ll be frequent visitors to their summer parties (THIS SATURDAY) and hope to see some of you there! Check out their wine club and pay them a visit.

We’re also starting to schedule interviews for the rest of summer. Have a winemaker or brand in mind you’d like to see featured? Shoot us an email and let us know!

Uncorked

Frequency GSM

This 2021 traditional GSM blend from Frequency Wines is primarily sourced from the Los Alamos AVA. It is a 50% Grenache, 30% Syrah, and 20% Mourvèdre blend with floral chaparral character and is priced at $34.

Nose: cherry, sage, anise

Palette: white pepper, chocolate, raspberry, and cherry

Pairs well with: portobello mushrooms stuffed with olive tapenade

Available at: Frequency has a fun and funky tasting room in downtown Santa Barbara.

Dovecote Redtail

We’ve got another GSM blend out of Los Alamos for you. Sourced from Thompson Vineyard, part of the new Alisos Canyon AVA established in 2020, and named after the hawks that rule the area’s skies. This wine was produced with partial stem inclusion, which can impart earthy aromatics and add texture to the wine. At $65, we love this wine for its slightly bolder nature compared to the other GSMs shared this week.

Nose: spices, cherry, blackberry, leather 

Palette: black cherry, plum, tobacco, white pepper

Pairs well with: Throw anything you’d like on the BBQ with this one.

Available at: Only available at the winery in Los Alamos or online.

Muni Good Job Bright Red

The Good Job strays a bit from your typical GSM and replaces the Mourvèdre with Valdiguié, which is very similar to Gamay. You could put a chill on this if you’d like, since it is lighter than your average Rhone blend. It’s only $30 and honestly feels like the start to summer.

Nose: berries and baking spices

Palette: cranberry, pomegranate, raspberry

Pairs well with: sausage pizza…maybe from their Santa Barbara neighbor, Lucky Penny

Available at: They have a tasting room in both downtown Santa Barbara and Los Alamos or you can purchase online.

What’s happening

There’s some marquee events happening this Saturday. Pick and choose what you’re feeling up for!

• Los Olivos Jazz and Olive Festival: What better combo could you ask for. Wine, jazz, and olive oil. Happening June 10th from 1-4 p.m. in downtown Los Olivos. Tickets are $100 per person.

• Santa Ynez Polo Classic: The 11th annual Santa Ynez Polo Classic is occurring in Happy Canyon at Piocho Ranch. Grab your best hat and enjoy a day filled with polo matches on June 10th from 10 a.m.-4 p.m., for only $25/general admission ticket.

• Midtown Wines Parking Lot Party: Are you dying to visit Midtown Wines after our interview? Go check out their parking lot party this Saturday, June 10th highlighting Lo-Fi Wine and disko wines. Tickets are $30 for a private tasting with the winemakers before the free party opens up at 6 p.m.

• Monterey Winemakers Celebration: If you’re further up the coast, don’t miss out on the action with the Monterey Winemakers Celebration. Over 100 wines will be featured. Happening on June 10th from 1-4 p.m. for $75/ticket.

Cheers!

Issue #5