Creating Campion
experience
Larry Brooks is known as a winemaker’s winemaker based on nearly four decades of hands on practice. Though at this point there are few styles of wine he has not made, he primarily focuses on Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.
He started making wine at Acacia in 1979. During his tenure, he was responsible for all aspects of vineyard, winemaking and sales for one of the most successful wineries of the 1980-1990’s. From there, Larry transitioned into the role of Chief Operating Officer and Vice President of Winemaking for the Chalone Wine Group in the mid 1990’s. In addition to managing the original five wineries, he was responsible for developing Echelon, a negotiant model brand as well as acquisition and development of Sagelands in Washington and Provenance in Napa.
In 2000, Larry began consulting. He has performed the full range of work for a diverse group of wineries from strategic planning with boards of directors to hands on work in the vineyard and winemaking.
Consulting led to his role as Winemaker and General Manager for Tolosa between 2006 and 2014. This winery is one of the premier properties in the south Central Coast.
Today, he consults for wineries across California. He has also lectured in Sensory Evaluation at both California Polytechnic State University and California State University Fresno. Larry has an evergreen interest in wine science and has co-authored peer reviewed papers in the area of wine phenolic analysis.
Campion has been a passion project for Larry - expressing his own way of crafting exceptional Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from the Santa Lucia Highlands.
Vineyards
The Smith Family began planting vineyards in the Santa Lucia Highlands in the early 1980s. Along with Hahn, they were one of the first to do so. All of their vineyards are farmed sustainably. In fact, they were one of the first growers to adopt these methods on the Central Coast.
Larry established a relationship with founder Rich Smith as a wine grape customer while making Echelon wine for Chalone. When he started Campion, it was only natural to purchase his fruit from the Smiths. The close familial relationship continued as Larry later acted as the winemaker for the Smith’s own brand Paraiso for many years. This long-term collaboration has given Larry insight into where the best fruit is grown in the vineyard and this is the fruit used in the making of Campion.
The Smiths own two main ranches that have supplied fruit to Campion. The first is Ranch One, which is known as both the Home Ranch and Paraiso. Located on the very southern end of the appellation, Campion has sourced multiple blocks of Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from this ranch that tends to produce wines of great delicacy and finesse.
The second is Ranch Nine & Ten which are in the mid-point of the appellation a few miles north of Ranch One. Campion has sourced only Pinot Noir from the topmost part of what is known as the Sarmento blocks of Ranch Ten. These stretch up from River Road to the tree line. The soils in the top few acres of this block are quite rocky and the limits they enforce on the vines make for a much deeper and more extracted Pinot than Ranch One.