About Laetitia Vineyard & Winery
Laetitia's story begins in 1982, when the French Champagne house Deutz chose a windswept coastal ridge in the Arroyo Grande Valley for its American outpost, Maison Deutz, installing two traditional Coquard basket presses that remain the only pair in North America and are still pressing today. In 1997 Jean-Claude Tardivat bought the estate and renamed it for his daughter Laetitia, meaning joy and happiness; entrepreneur Selim Zilkha owned it for two decades after, and in 2019 it passed to Vintage Wine Estates, whose 2024 bankruptcy briefly put this Highway 101 landmark's future in doubt.
The happy twist came in October 2024, when a local partnership led by winemaker Eric Hickey, whose father was one of Maison Deutz's first employees in 1983 and who has himself worked the estate since 1988, bought Laetitia back with partners Ejnar Knudsen and Jeff Nicholson. Hickey, head winemaker since 2000, focuses on methode champenoise sparkling wine and estate Pinot Noir from the 900-plus-acre property, which is permanently protected from development by the Land Conservancy of San Luis Obispo County and has been sustainably farmed sustainable since 2008. Future estate bottlings will carry the young San Luis Obispo Coast AVA.
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