More than 40 years ago, I spent a college summer in Santa Barbara, by day studying postwar Italian cinema and at night immersing myself in the local New Wave music scene, which drew on punk rock, surf rock, reggae and even tiki. Many of my peers sheared their hair and dyed what was left purple. It felt like a time of cultural revolution.

I drank student-grade wine and beer, oblivious to another kind of revolution that was fomenting—the one that would turn Santa Barbara County into one of California’s most freewheeling wine scenes.