A Templeton farm brightens the horizon for a Santa Barbara County winery 

Blending wine is very common, but not the way Michelle Vautier does it.

She owns CrossHatch Winery and uses a method called co-fermentation. Instead of blending wines after they’ve fermented, her grapes—usually two or three varieties—are picked from their separate vines on the same day and start fermenting together right away. 

“I’m the only winery on the Central Coast that I know of that exclusively focuses on co-fermentation,” Vautier said. “A lot of wineries will do one or two in their whole library.”

CrossHatch head winemaker Ryan Carr started the label with his wife, Jessica, in 2011. Vautier met them after moving to Santa Barbara in 2020 and bought CrossHatch a few years later, still working closely with the Carrs.

The label is inspired by the creative technique of crosshatching. Artists who crosshatch draw intersecting lines to create depth, texture, and shading, as seen on the winery’s labels created by local artist Thomas Van Stein.

“I feel like co-fermentation is kind of a play on that,” Vautier said. “I ferment [varieties] together, and so they together, like lines and shades, create that product. You will never taste the same wine.”

Though there’s a lot of technical processes involved, she sees co-fermentation as a more playful way of winemaking than traditional blending. Even if she were to use the same percentage of each grape, Vautier said that she could never re-create a co-fermented blend. 

When she was growing up, she split her time between Argentina, where she was born, and Miami. She later lived in the Bay Area and then the Central Coast. Vautier speaks English and Spanish fluently and said she doesn’t feel like she’s from one specific place.

“Just like me. I feel like I’m a co-fermentation,” she said.

“Living in both cultures and being immersed in those two cultures throughout my whole life, I’ve been able to create that, so I feel like that’s what I always say with wine, it creates that intimacy,” she said. “You feel close to the process, the wine, the story, and that’s because it is just so intertwined together through the winemaking process.”

Vautier recently celebrated the release of her malbec, a variety she’s wanted to make since she joined CrossHatch, partly because of its connection to Argentina. After looking for vineyards that grow malbec, she settled on co-fermenting 60 percent malbec with 20 percent syrah and 20 percent cabernet sauvignon that were all grown in Santa Ynez and Los Olivos. There are 200 cases in the 2023 vintage.

“It’s not your traditional malbec in any way, and that’s why I call it mi versión, which means ‘my version,’ because there aren’t a lot of co-fermented malbecs out there, let alone with these varietals,” she said.

Ultimately, she wants to have fun with wine. Vautier left her tech career after almost 20 years because the wine industry kept pulling her toward it. 

Wine was part of the Argentinian culture she grew up with, and with a passion for traveling, she’s explored wine regions all over the world. She’d always return with bottles of wine to share with her friends at dinner paired with stories from her journeys.

“When I was traveling, I would end up in any vineyard talking to anybody who would talk to me about wine,” Vautier said.

Eventually, Vautier plans to have her own vineyard. Nearly a year ago she bought a 40-acre property in Templeton, Imagine Family Farm, where she’d like to plant 5 acres of grapes. On one hand, it’s a scary endeavor, but on the other, she said she’s excited to learn how to plant her own vines. Right now, she’s in the soil-testing phase to decide which varieties will flourish.

“When I saw this property, I fell in love.”

The farm produces apples, pears, peaches, cherries, and berries. In the spring, peonies grow to the size of Vautier’s head. Chickens also run around, and a hive of bees make honey. It’d make a good event space for CrossHatch, too, she added.

“It kind of creates a whole new era and full life cycle of the land, the fruit, the wine, the community, bringing everything into one place,” she said.

One of the reasons Vautier was drawn to the Central Coast was the community of small-production winemakers. She likes the camaraderie in Paso Robles, where she can call up winemakers for their suggestions.

“Most of them are owner-winemaker driven. It’s a true representation of what I feel winemaking is,” she explained.

But that side of the industry brings its own challenges. For her and other small wineries off the beaten path, business relies on local support and capturing the attention of visitors.

 “I’m so thankful for our local community, that they definitely keep us going,” the owner said.

Now with her farm in San Luis Obispo County and her tasting room in Santa Barbara County, she hopes to put down roots in both regions and continue experimenting with co-fermentation. 

“I need to play. I don’t want to be stuck in one thing,” Vautier said. “The tasting room in Santa Ynez is kind of my foothold within the Santa Barbara County. The farm, Imagine Family Farm, will be the foothold across the Paso, Templeton area. … Maybe my next co-ferment is from two different [places], something from Santa Barbara and something from Paso.” ∆ 

Reach Staff Sun Writer Madison White, from New Times’ sister paper, at mwhite@santamariasun.com.

This article appears in Dec 4-14, 2025.