Ampelos Cellars

THE BEST OF THE WINE GHETTO!
Excellent tasting service, beautiful and welcoming interior OH AND the wine is ammmmmazing!
I’m officially part of a wine club– look at me adulting!
The tasting room is casual, fun and lively. I wish I could properly explain the love and care that goes into this particular winery. The ladies in the tasting room love to talk about the major differences that set this winery apart and the importance of how their crop is cared for. They are CERTIFIED organic, biodynamic and sustainable wines. And you can taste the difference.
We had:
Viognier
Rosé of Syrah
Pinot Noir
Syrah
Grenache
All super smooth, my favorite being the Viognier and the Noir.
As part of the wine club, you can participate in the quarterly pick-​up in Lompoc. It is a wine club hosted night with local food + Ameplos wine flowing freely. Or the wine can be shipped to you. I am excited for my first pick-​up event in June!

Wonderful wines, atmosphere and staff. Their pinot’s are amazing. I don’t usually bother to review but this was exceptional.

Ampelos Winery is a true gem among the many wineries on the Central Coast of California. If you have the opportunity to stop by you won’t be disappointed. They have a fabulous selection of wines and although they are all great, personally, I am partial to Pinots. My favorite is their Pinot Rho.
Their tasting room is in the Lompoc wine ghetto. You will find a knowledgeable and friendly staff.
Peter and Rebecca the owners and winemakers are great people. They are passionate about their wines and their passion comes through loud and clear. Besides that, they are a lot of fun to hang out with.

Great wine and knowledgeable friendly service

I’ve been here several times over the past few years to taste and it’s always great! This is a must-​stop for me when I bring my friends to the wine ghetto.
I really like the selection here. My favorites is definitely the Syrache. If you like a crisp white (like I do), you’ll love the Viognier, too. It’s definitely one of my favorite whites. The place looks like many of the other wine ghetto wineries. The staff is really friendly and talkative, a definite plus here. They don’t seem to give preference when a group of their friends comes in either, so that’s definitely good.
Also, these guys definitely get a plus for sustainable practices!

This place was recommended by staff at both of our previous stops, so we figured that it must be good. It certainly was! Probably our favorite tasting room experience of the afternoon. Cool, sustainable space, great organic wines and a super friendly and knowledgeable woman pouring. Still dreaming of the Syrache and gouda pairing. Lovely pinots, which we found to be a bit fruit-​forward in a good way.

Great wines, lovely tasting attendant and a beautiful sustainable tasting room. I am in love with Ampelos and Emily is a sweetheart!

Lompoc Wine Ghetto in one day? Twenty-​one potential mind-​blowing tasting experiences in only five hours? Oh, the possibilities!
Well aware of the human body’s physiological alcoholic consumption threshold, a four-​hour drive to Lompoc provided ample time to strategize. We would need a starting point and perspective targets, but an actual trajectory would be determined based on referrals.
A is for Ampelos. Not only is this winery alphabetically first, but it is also my favorite that we visited during our ghetto fabulous wine adventure. Every LWG tasting room looks the same on the outside, but it’s the inside that counts. Ampelos is filled with recycled, welcoming goodness. Grow tubes as light fixtures, shipping inserts as patterned wall coverings, and old fence planks fashioned into a tasting bar. I felt like I reduced my carbon footprint by just entering this tasting room.
Emily wonderfully took us through the tasting menu, from the Viognier to the Syrache. A little wine education, a little conversation, and an overall fabulous tasting experience.
«It’s an oops-​I-​drank-​the-​whole-​bottle kind of place» –Emily

Participated in the Wine Ghetto and it was worth every cent! Wine was awesome… but honestly it’s the tastings that make a difference. Positively memorable experience!!!

If this is what Ghetto look like, them I am definetly in! Ampelos has amazing wine, and awesome customer service. Every time I go there I am throughly impressed by the ambiance created in an industrial park of all places. If in the ghetto you MUST drop by, I promise you will not regret it.

EVERY pallet is different, obviously. Everybody we came across recommended Ampelos and honestly, i’m not a fan. The tasting room is SO PRETTY and the lovely lady pouring was such a sweet heart. Other then that, I felt the wines were too acidic and they lacked something. I can not pin point what is was, but taste. This is a place I won’t miss coming back to nor recommend.

Great wines from Ampelos, don’t miss!

I love the wine ghetto. It’s convenient, has a ton of great wines and everyone here seems to know what they’re talking about. Ampelos is certainly no exception. Besides making phenomenal wines, the tasting room is minimalist in the sense that they aren’t hawking a bunch of crap and the other people tasting here also seem to know the difference between good and exceptional wine. This was our second visit and just as good as last year. Will definitely be back!

We went to visit again because we enjoyed our first visit to Ampelos, but this time we brought our friends too.
All the wines here are great. I really enjoy the pinot’s and definitely the Syrah’s. We always leave with a bottle or 2.
Best part of the wine tasting experience would be Tanner. He is seriously the nicest guy I have met during any wine visit. He has so much information to share, but it isn’t dull and he doesn’t tell you what you should be tasting. I like that. Plus I hear he is pretty handy, check out the bar and light fixtures… he made em.
Anyways…you have to stop by here, if not for the wines then just drop by for a great conversation.

Not quite sure what the fuss is about. As someone working in the wine industry I wanted to like and support them, however, almost all of the wines I tastes were flawed– either crazy volatile acidity, hot on the palate and nose, or severe oxidation. I love the wine ghetto but couldn’t recommend stopping here when there are so many other amazing wines nearby.

I enjoyed my experience here, but had more fun playing with the dog than talking to the young chap behind the counter.
Wine was decent, my friend joined the club because they had some ridiculous deal for 28 cents for 2 bottles.
I also liked reading the cute stories of the owners and greece and love, etc.

One word describes Ampelos Cellars «FANTASTIC», the wine is excellent and Peter & Rebecca are the nicest people you could possibly meet.

Great wines. All of the places in the Lompoc wine ghetto are worth visiting, but this one really stood out to me. All of the wines were balanced and complex — no syrupy fruit-​bombs here.
I’ve since learned more about the background of the owners and wine-​makers, and I think they’re really going to gain more notoriety as time goes on. Get on board now before it’s impossible to buy the wines altogether.

I had such a fantastic time tasting with Peter at Ampelos. He is so passionate about his wines it truly shows. This is no run of the mill operation, everything is small production and bio dynamic. He gives a wonderful explanation of the process, Grape to Glass, even using maps and a slide show to illustrate. Peter is a very welcoming host and seems to know almost everybody that walks in to his tasting room/​barrel warehouse.
If you have never been given a tasting by a winemaker or owner I highly recommend it.

Wine Trip Part 5
Our next stop was at Ampelos Cellars. Ampelos is a Greek word meaning «vine». They practice and promote bio dynamic farming here. The owner Peter and his wife Rebecca were pouring that day. I met Peter back in what I believe was 2004. I tasted there very first produced wines then. I believed they were pretty good with a lot of potential to come. Peter didn’t remember me this day as I mentioned that story to him, but it really doesn’t matter. Peter is one very fun host! He makes you very welcomed and he plays the part of the dirt farmer very good. As you see in the photo.
Oh! and his stepson happens to be winemaker at Sea Smoke. Another great person to hang out with.
We Tasted 6 wines this day. A Rose, Viognier, 2 Pinot’s, syrache and the syrah. Every single one of Ampelos Wines are very good. They all have the Santa Rita Style. The most impressive thing about Ampelos has to be the pricing. All of his wine are well worth what he asked for and in some cases you have to scratch your head as to why other wineries prices don’t follow the line of Ampelos. Of course these are the thing I really don’t understand about wine making. Either way this would definitely be a must stop in Lompoc. His Tasting room just opened but is not located in the Ghetto. You must take a short drive to Central and hang a left.
Give them a Try
Cheers