Admitting her blueberries tend to be the main attraction,
Sandy says, “it’s what people are so taken by. Everything is
hand-picked and hand-packed.” Entering into a the six-acre
net-covered blueberry field, to pick, taste, and learn, Sandy
points out that they have three main varieties planted, named
Jewel, Sapphire, and Emerald; introducing each, she says,
“Jewels are the largest of all the plants and the juiciest. When
I make my blueberry dessert wine, it is made from these. They
love to grow. Sapphires we grow because it keeps flowering
and because it produces so heavily all year. They are a smaller
fruit with all kinds of different flavors from sweet to sour. The
third main one for production is the Emerald. It produces
jumbo fruit. They are huge, meaty blueberries with texture.
The University of Florida is the one [which] bred and named
all of these. They really do look like gems. Emeralds are our
most popular one because people just go crazy about the size.
They’ll ask, ‘Do you have Emeralds?’ I feel like I’m dealing in
something underground.”
Sandy says people think blueberries are simply
blueberries, but that is not the case as she points to a special
picture-perfect row that comes in once a season: “We don’t
process these commercially. This is called South Moon, and
this is my personal row of blueberries. I always get first dibs.
These are to die for. I can’t tell you how many I eat.”
In praise of her workers, Sandy says, “It’s a hard job.
I’m so grateful for them. I don’t want them to be taken for
granted. I’m really an advocate for the people – they make a
living wage here.” Sandy reports they harvest every day, six
days a week. “At some point in July or August we will have no
fruit and will be pruning, then it will flower and come back in
October and November, and then because it’s cold, we don’t
get a big harvest and the fruit doesn’t ripen as fast, so we pick
for the farmers markets.”
Forbidden Fruit organic blueberries can be found up
and down the West Coast. “A good third of my fruit goes up
to San Francisco and is distributed as far up as Oregon and
on occasion down to Hawaii,” says Sandy, explaining her
blueberries usually show up at Whole Foods and Gelson’s; she
is in the farmers markets down south in Santa Monica and
Hollywood, and locally at Montecito Village Grocery.
Encouraging the tour along, Sandy notes, “It’s always
hard to get people to the vineyard after playing with the
blueberries.” Rows, clusters, pockets, and bundles of orchards,
flowers, and projects dot the dirt road up to the vineyards.
Sandy smiles and says, “I have a couple fun things on the
property,” pointing out an area of approximately 200 bushes.
She explains, “What you see in front of you is actually tea
being grown. The seed came in from Turkey and we’re trying
to see if it is a viable crop. It’s very slow-growing. It’s a project
I’m working on with UC Davis trials for small farms. I’m
hoping at some point when I build the tasting room and the
whole wine side of business that I can bring the tea in to sell.”
Next along the trip is a stop to taste fruit from Pakistani
mulberry trees. They are enormous and heavy with fruit.
There are 100 of them. “[Mulberries] is a flavorful nice
surprise? I’m selling to a lot of the big restaurant wholesalers
in Los Angeles and San Diego. The chefs like them for their
sauces because of the tartness,” says Sandy.
The variety seems endless as Sandy points to a small
portion of hops growing, the “kiwi project,” avocados, an
owl box, tomato plants, a vegetable garden, and her personal
“citrus row” – oranges, tangerines, tangelos, lemons, and limes
“for fruit juices and margaritas.” Sandy adds, “I grow a little
bit of everything. I have nine fig trees, four banana trees, one
walnut, and some apricots, pears, nectarines, and peaches.”
Then there are the bees. “The bees on the property are
for pollination. I have more bees coming in every year. We
lose our bees – we feed them, we do everything. It’s just been
too dry and not enough food. Everything you see, all my
rosemary along the road, all the Ceanothus I’ve planted, my
wildflowers, that whole big circle of lavender – that is all for
the bees and it’s still not enough. We usually have about five
hives; we need the pollination,” says Sandy.
Finally, reaching the seven and half acres of pinot noir
and chardonnay grapes lined with roses, Sandy says, “This
is my little vineyard. It is the most manicured spot on the
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