Ahead of this Sunday’s Super Bowl, SoFi Stadium has unveiled a Santa Barbara-focused wine program. Curated by culinary operator Legends, the wine selection offers guests the opportunity to enjoy exceptional wine in a stadium setting and places California’s world-renowned viticulture on a global sports and entertainment platform.
“Santa Barbara County is a diverse and dynamic wine region that goes head-to-head in quality and artisanal craftsmanship with any wine region in the world,” says Ryan Tawwater, VP of Special Projects for Legends. “While 65 percent of the wines we selected are from Santa Barbara County, the wine list we curated features more than 21 different grape varieties from Santa Barbara County.”
Throughout the stadium, 90 percent of the wines offered are from California, with 65 percent of the selections hailing from Santa Barbara County.
“We challenged Legends, our culinary operator, to put together a wine program that was as unique to Southern California as the project itself,” said Jason Gannon, Managing Director, SoFi Stadium and Hollywood Park. “The program Legends created will introduce a large audience to groundbreaking wines from just north of us in Santa Barbara County. We look forward to our guests sampling the unique flavors local to Southern California.”
The wine selection in the stadium’s clubs and suites highlights Santa Barbara County and its six American Viticultural Areas (AVA). The wine list in these spaces is organized for guests by the distance of the vineyard to SoFi Stadium. Producers and vineyards featured include the original pioneers of Santa Barbara County (Sanford, Au Bon Climat), trailblazers (Andrew Murray, Lane Tanner), and the top winemakers from the next generation of Santa Barbara County producers (The Hilt Estate, Holus Bolus, JONATA, Tyler, The Paring, Chanin, Deovlet).
Legends also selected Northern California and Paso Robles stalwarts, including Turley, Kistler, Kosta Browne, Paul Hobbs, and TOR. The SoFi Stadium reserve wine list, meanwhile, has hard-to-source bottles of impeccable provenance including Bond, Harlan, Peter Michael, Promontory, and Screaming Eagle.
International wines and sakes round out the selection of bottles, with six different sakes and wines from some fabled wineries such as Gaja, Penfolds Grange, Domaine Bonneau du Martray, Louis Roederer Crystal, Billecart Salmon, and Dom Pérignon.
Several wines from The Paring as well as Nomadica’s sparkling white are available throughout the stadium and in all its concession areas. The Paring wines are from the coastal vineyards of Santa Barbara County. The wines embrace the region’s “refrigerated sunshine” and trademark freshness. Selections include Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and a Rosé of Pinot Noir. Complementing the wines from The Paring is the Nomadica sparkling white, from Northern California. Nomadica’s sparkling white blends chardonnay with a hint of muscat to bring out flavors of nectarine, citrus and melon.
In conjunction with the wine program’s official debut, SoFi Stadium created a wine bar in the Google Cloud Club and Suites on the second level of the stadium to feature world-class wines from California’s finest wine producers. The club features a hand-painted mural based on the legendary Hilt wine label and incorporates imagery of the rugged Sta. Rita Hills AVA landscape in California where the Hilt Estate, and many other top California vineyards are located. The wine bar features a highly curated list of wines, including the bright and well-structured Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from The Hilt Estate in Sta. Rita Hills; a sublime red blend, “Todos,” from the JONATA estate in Ballard Canyon; the mouth-watering “Vandenberg” Riesling from Tatomer; and a single-vineyard Chenin Blanc from Foxen.
For more information, head over to SoFi Stadium’s official website.
