About The Royal Nonesuch Farm
The Royal Nonesuch Farm sits on Live Oak Road just off Highway 46 in the York Mountain AVA, the cool, wet western edge of Paso Robles where rainfall runs close to four times what the town itself receives. That weather, along with steep topography and mixed soils, makes for hard farming and very small yields, and it lets the owners dry farm many of the young vines. There are 7.5 acres planted, to Grenache, Graciano, Syrah and Clairette Blanche.
Anthony and Hillary Yount bought the York Mountain property in 2011, when there were no vines at all and the house was unlivable, planted every row themselves starting in 2013, and released their first wine from the 2016 vintage. The tasting room opened in May 2025. The winemaking is deliberately restrained: co-fermentation where possible, plenty of whole-bunch, native yeast, and ageing in concrete and large-format neutral oak, with the stated aim of letting the vineyard speak louder than the cellar. Production is tiny, around 665 cases in a recent year, and the owners say plainly it will stay that way.
Visits are unusual and worth understanding before you book. Three community-style tastings run each day at a ten-foot rustic redwood table, so you will be seated with other guests rather than at your own table. Reservations are required with a $20 per person deposit that goes toward any wine you buy, refundable with 48 hours notice, and members visit free. Groups larger than six should call or email rather than book online. The name comes from the fraudulent theatrical show in Huckleberry Finn, which the owners describe as a standing reminder not to take themselves too seriously.
The Younts bought the York Mountain property in 2011. There were no vineyards on it and the house was uninhabitable, full of code violations and AstroTurf carpet, and they planted every row themselves from 2013, led by own-rooted, head-trained Grenache inspired by old vineyards they had walked through in southern France. The first wine followed in 2016. The estate sits at 1,800 feet, a few miles from the Pacific and ringed by oak woodland, on sandstone, heavy clay and limestone, with plantings facing every direction but north. They committed to regenerative farming about six years ago and dry farm most of the vines, drip-irrigating only new and replanted ones until they establish. Alongside Grenache, Graciano, Syrah and Clairette Blanche, they have recently added Albillo Real, a rare Spanish white, planted where Grenache struggled. Hillary is a fourth-generation California grapegrower from Lodi; Anthony started as a cellar hand at Denner, worked at Villa Creek, then returned to Denner as winemaker for nearly twenty years, going independent after E. and J. Gallo bought Denner in 2022. In 2024 the couple bought the former Windward Winery in the Willow Creek District, since York Mountain has no winery of its own, and plan to replant its surrounding vineyards. The farm totals 7.5 acres and makes fewer than 1,000 cases a year. The oak on the label is a coastal live oak on the property with a single plank swing hanging from it.
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