Steve Clifton, winemaker and owner, produced the first Palmina wines in the basement of his home in 1995. His career in the wine industry had begun in 1992 when he left his previous incarnations as a musician and nightclub entrepreneur behind and decided to beg his way into a tasting room position at Rancho Sisquoc winery. Little by little he forced his way into the cellar and in time Steve worked his way up to Assistant Winemaker.

Over the next few years Steve’s on the job schooling would include production and winemaking positions at Beckmen, Brander and Domaine Santa Barbara wineries. To round out his knowledge in the marketing and sales area of the industry, from 1995 to 1998, Steve managed The Wine Cask retail store in Santa Barbara. Steve met Greg Brewer in 1995 and formed the partnership that has become Brewer-Clifton, a winery solely devoted to vineyard-designated Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the Sta. Rita Hills appellation in western Santa Barbara County. Brewer-Clifton’s first release began with the wines produced from the 1996 vintage. To find out more about the Brewer-Clifton winery, please visit their website.

While Steve shares a phenomenal passion for Burgundian varietals with his partner Greg, he came to his love for wine from Italian grape varietals in a somewhat unusual way. His appreciation began while working in restaurants, supporting himself through college in the late ‘80s. A trip to Italy to visit family inspired him to find work in an Italian restaurant in Laguna Beach where under the mentorship of his good friend Michael Whipple he learned all that he could about Italian wines. At an industry tasting Steve was amazed when he realized the immense similarities between his favorite Barolos and Barbarescos and the red Burgundies. Instant bi-polar disorder followed - while Brewer-Clifton pursues the purest possible expression of Burgundian varietals, Palmina is a passion project devoted to producing exclusively Italian varietal wines.

Chrystal (Seals) Clifton went to Italy to study art for her college years abroad and fell in love with the entire culture of wine and food. Studying at the University of Bologna, she returned to the United States and the Santa Barbara area fluent in Italian, passionate about food and wine and with a yearning to return to Italy. With an idea of earning enough to do so, she immersed herself into the restaurant business, becoming the wine manager for bouchon, a Santa Barbara restaurant that focuses on local wines and seasonal foods. Chrystal also tuned her industry knowledge while serving as Assistant Sommelier at the Bacara Resort.

Realizing that the lifestyle she loved so much in Italy could be attained here, in 2000 Chrystal joined the Palmina family and has become involved in all aspects of the growing business. Working side by side with Steve through harvest, handling the bulk of the administrative duties and providing immeasurable inspiration, Chrystal completes the Palmina picture. With her language skills and background, Chrystal is invaluable in forging the relationships with wine producers in Italy which have supplied phenomenal insight in forming Palmina's philosophy and style.

While studying in Italy, Chrystal dreamed of making a classic Rosato, a project she nicknamed “Botasea”, which means “little barrel” in the Venetian dialect. Today, Chrystal has fulfilled that dream with her Botasea di Palmina Rosato, a rosé that not only is a seasonal and delicious summer wine, but which also helps in the fight to find a cure for breast cancer. With her “Pink Wine for the Pink Ribbon” campaign, Chrystal donates a portion of the proceeds from each bottle of Botasea to the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation.