The Sierra Pelona Valley is one of a cluster of new AVAs (American Viticultural Areas) created in the inland portion of central California. Located in the High Desert at the heart of Los Angeles County, this AVA covers 10 square miles (25 square km) and counts among its neighbors Antelope Valley of the California High Desert and Tehachapi-Cummings Valley.
The Sierra Pelona Valley is located at the heart of the Sierra Pelona Mountains, the range which runs from west to east between Los Angeles and the Mojave Desert. With peaks rising up to almost 5800ft (1800m), the Sierra Pelona form a substantial geological barrier between the ocean-cooled, low-lying Los Angeles Basin and the hot, dry elevations of the California High Desert. This fact is crucial to the local climate and viticultural conditions.
Bisecting the ranges is the Santa Clara river, one of the largest river systems in southern California. The river valley plays a significant role in the Sierra Pelona topography by connecting the mountains to the Pacific coast (the river meets the ocean at Pierpoint Bay, Oxnard). The resulting valley topography serves to funnel cool oceanic winds inland and up into the mountains, cooling as they go. What little moisture they carry this far inland (60 miles/100km) falls in the local valleys (Sierra Pelona included), to be returned to the ocean via the Santa Clara river.
Just across the mountains to the east, in Antelope Valley, the scenario is quite different. Vineyards there experience the flipside of the Sierra Pelona climate, and experience the rain shadow cast by the sierra and the hot, drying foehn winds which accompany this. The Sierra Pelona Valley, then, marks the boundary between maritime and continental, coast and desert, plains and plateaux.
Thanks to the sunny, breezy climate in Sierra Pelona Valley, vineyard management is a relatively stress-free enterprise. Warm winds keep the local vineyards warm and dry, tempering the risk of fungal diseases, and the destructive phylloxera mite (which is known to dislike sandy soils) is rarely seen here. From an agricultural point of view this is a welcome scenario, but viticulture and winemaking demand more than just healthy vines; after all, stressed vines produce better wines. If quality viticulture were that straightforward, wine would not have the mystique it does. It will take at least several vintages before Sierra Pelona wines reveal how (and if) they will establish their own unique mystique.
