Runway to the vines

Located in California’s Central Coast, almost perfectly equidistant from Los Angeles and San Francisco, this private strip was developed in 1967 by then-owners the MacGillivray family. After greeting many visitors over the years and eventually falling into disrepair, the strip was reopened in 2021, 21 years after Swiss entrepreneur and pilot Hansjörg Wyss bought the property and renamed it in honor of his mother, Alice Halter. Eager to see the property buzz with pilot visitors again, Halter Ranch invited us to be among the first to check out the restored strip and recently opened pilot cottages.

On a preflight briefing call, the property recommends flying in to the northeast on Runway 4, and out to the west. The strip is 3,400 feet long—for reference, that’s 400 feet longer than Catalina’s Airport in the Sky, which has a similar slope to Halter Ranch’s 1.6 percent upslope when landing northeast. It stands to reason that as a vineyard, the area around it will be hilly, but from the Google Earth view, it doesn’t seem too steep.

The runway’s width gets my attention. The wingspan of a Cessna 172, which is what we are flying, is 36 feet; a Beechcraft Bonanza is 33 feet, 6 inches; a Cirrus SR22 is 38 feet; and a Piper J–3 is 35—Halter Ranch’s runway is 25 feet wide. This will be fun.

Director of Photography Chris Rose and I depart San Luis Obispo (SBP) after a fuel stop on our way from Zamperini Field in Torrance, California, to Halter Ranch. We fly the scenic route over Morro Bay before turning northeast, where scattered cumulus clouds shadow the rolling hills of Paso Robles, green from the summer rain. We’ll fly over the field and assess first, and make sure the recommended northeasterly arrival makes sense with the reality of the strip.

When we first see Halter Ranch, it takes doublechecking the GPS to confirm we’re in the right place. Twenty-five feet is not very wide at all, and the surface that must be the runway looks as narrow as the driveway leading to the property. It is slim, sloped, and the terrain around it is steep. There’s a building (the wine tasting room) in line with short final, as is a tree in a roundabout.

We circle the field, and from the still vines and sleeping midfield windsock it appears dead calm—good. There’s nonstandard terrain clearance, a narrow field, obstacles all around, no reported weather, no services on the ground, and ditches on either side of the strip. That the ditches lead to grape-heavy vines and a world-class winery is secondary—take these conditions and plop them in the more traditional backcountry, and you’d have fun.

I set us up for the approach, which won’t be the standard rectangle. On short final I maneuver around the roundabout tree, briefly unloading the airplane’s wings by lowering the nose to gain a knot or two as I add bank, then straighten out, holding us in that sweet spot between the POH’s recommended approach speed and dirty stall speed. The power is at idle, and I feel that drop-drop-drop of airspeed decay as we’re over the threshold, let the nose lower again, then straighten us out and flare into the upslope.

The vines are now at eye level, and I taxi back to the approach end of Runway 4, shut down, and see our hosts, Gracie Nino and Kristen Troxell, waving to us, next to two late-1990s Land Cruisers with the Halter Ranch “H” on the doors.

“We didn’t even hear you!” says Nino happily.

“And then we just saw you fly by, so we came over. Welcome to Halter Ranch.”

We load up our gear in a Land Rover that we’ll get to borrow while on site and drive to the cottages. With the pilotage out of the way and the keys to the airplane safely tucked away until departure day, we can enjoy all that the winery and estate has to offer. We pass the pond, hills of vines, olive groves with their silvery leaves. We go down a hill to the two pilot cottages. Each is numbered after one of proprietor Wyss’ airplanes—mine is N919SA. There’s wine waiting inside and string lights going from one expansive porch to the other and across a picnic table in between. Nino and Troxell let us know the gate code, and that Instacart delivers. With a space as welcoming as this, Rose and I decide to order groceries and cook rather than eat in town, and with a bottle of Halter Ranch CDP, a red blend, to go with dinner, we’re putting the porch to good use. We are in heaven under the stars, which we are actually far enough away from city lights to see.

Keys to the kingdom

The next morning dawns with bird calls, dappled light, and bunnies hopping around tree trunks, their big ears alert to the staccato tap-tap-tap of woodpeckers. There’s improbable peace in the illusion that for even a short time, this space is home.

We drive over to the tasting room and walk into the adjacent offices. There’s an Alexander Calder mobile in the lobby—just one piece of Wyss’ art collection that’s exhibited on the property.

Kevin Sass, Halter Ranch’s head wine maker, takes us up to the start of our tour. It’s quiet in the vines today because of the high and growing heat, a quiet before the storm of the approaching harvest, which Sass tells us is the most intense time of the year. By the time the grapes make it into the building, he says, a ton of work has already happened. After being picked, the grapes go through a series of sorting processes involving both AI-driven machinery and human observation. Huge vats are spread evenly throughout the space where the grapes will ferment into wine.

We wander downstairs to the lab where they test and study the wine, a reminder that wine making is both science and art, not, I think, unlike the elusive perfect landing. The wall has a block chart of the property—2,700 acres, 200 of which is used for wine—color-coded with what grape grows where, and the narrow runway splitting the space almost in half.

Down the hall in the barrel room French oak barrels are stacked six high on their side to age, and when Sass rolls the door back so we can see, a surprisingly cool waft of oaky air washes over us. The climate control, Sass says, is essential to the process.

From there we go to the naturally chilly wine caves where the wine goes on its final aging journey before bottling. We find stacks of gleaming, green-glass-encased sparkling wine in one alcove. Sass says it’s one of the owner’s favorites, and, because of that, they’ll be quadrupling production of that wine. When we try it at lunch later, it is easy to see why—it’s light, crisp, and perfectly refreshing on this warm day.

The main event

The cave leads us to the sunny patio and tasting room—the same one we had to avoid on final yesterday—and it is gorgeous. One wall is all windows, and it looks out onto the vines and airfield, providing a perfect view of any landing aircraft. We wine taste over lunch—steak frites for me and salmon salad for Rose—before front-of-house manager Timothy Argie whisks us away for a tour of the property. Normally accomplished in Halter Ranch’s Defender, we’ll be in a Gator utility vehicle today, which is just as fun and even more rugged. And the four-wheel drive isn’t just for show, either. We go up, down, and around the expansive property, stopping along the way to sample more wine that Argie has packed in a cooler while he tells us about the property.

The land that isn’t used for viticulture is conservation property, a cause, Argie tells us, that is close to Hansjörg’s—often mentioned and never called by his surname—heart. Because of this, it makes sense that the property focuses on sustainability and recycling, and is in the process to become fully organic. We walk through the Jardin du Chef, where most of the restaurant’s greens are grown, and past a fledgling apiary. We cross a covered bridge and visit the original owners’ Victorian-style house that is now a wine club member garden. We drive to a high point on the property and have a stunning view of the surrounding area. This is the life.

Our last stop brings us to one of the ranch’s pride and joys, its California live oak called Ancestor, the largest coast live oak on record and also the name of their flagship, Bordeaux-style red. The tree is estimated to be more than 600 years old, and its branches reach out a circumference (or “crown spread”) of more than 100 feet. Argie says this place has been used as a gathering place for hundreds of years, and he’s glad it gets to be used as such still. In the end, we’ve only surveyed a fraction of the property in our few hours’ tour. We head back to the tasting room and switch to our car, drive by the airplane (still there and looking fabulous), and return to the cottages where sleep comes easily.

Departure

After watching the temperature climb high early the day before, I decide we need to peace out in the morning for the two-ish hour flight back to Torrance. Even in lower elevations like coastal California, density altitude can become a factor if you aren’t paying attention, and I’m not interested in using up more runway than we must. The surrounding terrain looks far more intimidating from the ground, and I’m running scenarios with few good options should we have engine issues on climbout. We pack up around 8 a.m. and say goodbye to our hosts before climbing into the trusty 172. I’m grateful that the engine starts right up since there’s no on-field mechanic we could call for help if it didn’t.

I hold the brakes and put the power all the way forward. Letting go of the brakes and speeding down the hill feels unnatural, and I fight the instinct to tap the brakes—the slope really does add significant help. Relief washes over me as we easily take off with runway to spare and climb out at our best rate. We make a one-eighty to wave our wings over the field and say goodbye to Nino and Troxell. The early morning doesn’t only give us cooler air, we get to see the mist over the grape vines around the area as we head toward Santa Monica and LA Special Flight Rules to hop over LAX and descend into Torrance.

Airplanes transport us to unique places and provide some of life’s most memorable experiences. That we flew in and were immediately at our destination just added to this one. This was a time-saving escape showing the best of what GA can bring you—an already great experience elevated even higher by aviation. If you love wine, a challenge, immersing yourself in a piece of California culture, or all of the above, fly in. On the list of my favorite GA adventures, the trip to Halter Ranch is at the top.

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