Tranquility.
That's the word that comes to mind as I stand before the lush, green foliage at Mt. Carmel Vineyard, 50 miles northwest of Santa Barbara, California. Picturesque rows of neatly pruned pinot noir-some on the brink of transforming from bright green to red-violet-coax me to stroll their passages. I comply, and the vines welcome me with a slight wave. My boots crunch over clumps of dirt, receiving a generous coating of loose soil. The fog blanketing the landscape is slowly dissipating, revealing the full beauty of the Santa Rita Hills. I could wander through these vineyards in the early morning hours on any given day.
Photo by: Deepi Ahluwalia
To have a deep love for one's profession-where the lines of the job are erased, replaced with an open passion to explore and innovate one's craft-is something most people dream of. There are a lucky few whose livelihoods follow such paths. Among them is Ruben Solorzano, an equity partner at Coastal Vineyard Care Associates, a full-service vineyard management company with 650 employees. Solorzano's relationship with grapes grew over the years, from a simple occupation to a true calling.
The youngest of 11 children, Solorzano was raised in the village of El Ranchito de San Mart n Hidalgo in the state of Jalisco, roughly two hours southwest of Guadalajara. I grew up on a small ranch in Mexico, he says. My grandfather, my whole family, are all farmers. Solorzano tried his hand at becoming a mechanic, attending a school in a nearby city. I only lasted three months, he laughs. I liked the school but I didn't like the city. So I said to my father, I don't want you to waste your money here. This is not what I want to do.' I went back to the farm and stayed there for three years. In November of 1988, one of his elder brothers who had ventured to California and worked with grapes, persuaded Solorzano to come with him. I started by pruning vines. I had no idea what a grape vine was at that time.
Ruben Solorzano || Photo by: Deepi Ahluwalia
Solorzano's new life in California took some getting used to. There were five to 10 guys living in the same house. On the weekends we played soccer and volleyball, and the other days we just work, work, work-nine hours a day, says Solorzano. My first year, being away from my family, that was really hard for me. I had two brothers that were already here but we didn't live together, although we saw each other every week. After a year, I got used to it and made friends.
Unlike some migrant farm workers who live nomadic lives-moving from farm-to-farm as work is needed-Solorzano decided to stay in the Central Coast region of California versus traveling to other states. Some guys come here and they like the harvest, so they move. They harvest grapes here, they harvest apples in Washington. But about 50 percent of the guys like to be with families. We like to live together. Migrant farm workers in the U.S.-who are predominantly from Mexico-leave their homes in search for opportunity in America. Over half of all farm workers are unauthorized with no legal status in the U.S.-many of whom arrive with a strong work ethic and already solid agricultural skills, having gained practical experience in their home countries.
Migrant farm worker in the vineyard || Photo by: Deepi Ahluwalia
Solorzano takes me for a tour of the vineyard, stopping first to say hello and pass a few jokes with his workers. Their warm smiles and laughter add to the beauty of the setting. It's much better for workers now, explains Solorzano. When I first came here, there wasn't much work but there were a lot of people, mostly from Mexico. So employers didn't need to pay a lot of money to get work. Now, there's a lot of work in the vineyards and with farming other vegetables, so it benefits the workers that come here. They get paid more money and they get to choose where they want to work.
Solorzano describes his early years in his newly adopted country. I was 19 when I first came to the U.S. It was 1989. I went back every year to Mexico-you can only do it for three years without papers, then I did it illegally, says Solorzano. I got my legal papers in 1994 and I got those papers because I worked in the vineyard. Tom Stolpman, the founder of Stolpman Vineyards, hired Solorzano when he first came to California. Stolpman soon realized the invaluable asset Solorzano had become and helped him obtain legal status. Tom told immigration he didn't have another guy that could farm the same quality of grapes that Stolpman Vineyards needed, Solorzano explains. After several years of interviewing, waiting and re-interviewing twice more, Solorzano finally got his papers, and today is a U.S. citizen. It was a great process, but scary at the same time.
--
--
Solorzano's journey to becoming a grape expert took years, one that he says is marked with three distinct milestones. In 1994, Jeff Newton-the founder of Coastal Vineyard Care Associates-offered Solorzano partnership in the company for fear of losing him to someone else. Pretty much everything I learned, I learned from Jeff Newton, says Solorzano. He's my second father; he taught me everything about grapes. I was influenced by other winemakers and consultants, but Jeff is the main guy for me.
In the same year, Solorzano also began managing Stolpman Vineyards. In 2001, he started working with the vineyard's winemaker, Sashi Moorman, and with Alberto Antonini, an oenologist and wine consultant from Italy. It was at this time Solorzano had an awakening: he began to understand the connection between fruit and wine starts at the vine. I knew then, this is what I wanted to do with my life. It's very interesting and I could see that if I do the right things to the grapes, I can make a difference. In
Most recent headlines
06/10/2025
France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...
04/09/2025
Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...
30/08/2025
WASHINGTON The Federal Communications Commission has adopted its FY 2025 Regulatory Fees Order that establishes the regulatory fee rates for the broadcast stati...
29/08/2025
Australian Red Cross and SBS launch training to help workplaces in the fight aga...
29/08/2025
The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...
29/08/2025
L3Harris Technologies has concentrated decades of expertise across the entire enterprise to develop affordable and reliable best-of-breed solutions to rapidly c...
29/08/2025
BURBANK, Calif. The CW Network and the Pac-12 Conference have announced a new media rights deal that will extend their broadcast partnership beginning with the ...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK Gracenote has released a new analysis of its global video dataset showing that the number of FAST channels grew nearly 14% from Q1 2025 and 76% since 2...
29/08/2025
SAN JOSE, Calif. Harmonic has announced a series of improvements to its live sports streaming solution that the company said will improve fan engagement, protec...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK and LOS ANGELES Fox Corp. and YouTube TV last night announced a renewal of the full portfolio of Fox networks, including Fox News Channel, Fox Business...
29/08/2025
Budapest, Hungary, August 2025 - The integration of Microsoft Teams Rooms (MTR) with Lightware's Taurus universal matrix switchers delivers a new level of f...
29/08/2025
Frequency, the engine behind many of the world's best-known streaming television channels, today announced it will launch Studio Live, a next-generation uni...
29/08/2025
In an era when AI and cyber resilience are essential, Scality will mark the 10th anniversary of Scality Day on October 16, 2025 in Paris. This flagship global e...
29/08/2025
Disguise's In-House Creative and Technical Teams Pre-Visualised, Programmed and Delivered Content for the Experience, All Powered by EX 3+
Technology solu...
29/08/2025
Disguise will be demonstrating the latest workflows for TV, film and live events on a number of partner booths at the show
Disguise, the industry-leading tech...
29/08/2025
STOCKHOLM, Sweden Accedo will showcase Accedo Compose, its AI agent-powered modular orchestration layer that assists streaming providers in transitioning client...
29/08/2025
LOS ANGELES Cineverse has announced that it is working with Xperi to bring four of its streaming channels to automobiles for the first time as part of the DTS A...
29/08/2025
DALLAS & ATLANTA Gray Media has announced an agreement with the sports streaming service Victory+ to simulcast 17 Dallas Stars NHL games in 15 television market...
29/08/2025
NEW YORK AND CULVER CITY Comcast NBCUniversal and Amazon have announced new and extended distribution agreements that will expand the content available on their...
29/08/2025
FOOTHILL RANCH, Calif. RED Digital Cinema will feature its Cine-Broadcast Module supporting live broadcast workflows during IBC2025, Sept. 12-15, at the RAI Ams...
29/08/2025
29 Aug 2025
Kyivstar Rings Opening Bell at Nasdaq Marking Landmark Listing and ...
29/08/2025
More than half of all NFL games live on Sky for the first timeFriday 29 August 2025
Sky Sports has announced a new three-year deal with the NFL, extending its ...
29/08/2025
Back to All News
RIV4LRIES: The Trailer of the New Series With Samuele Carrino ...
29/08/2025
Get ready for an inspiring and emotional insight into the world of competitive Irish dancing with My Story: Tomi Champion of the World airing on RT 2 this monda...
29/08/2025
RT has today announced that David McCullagh is to be the new presenter of RT Radio 1's flagship Today programme, which airs every weekday at 10am, replaci...
28/08/2025
By Kristin Feeley, Director, Documentary Film & Artist Programs
If you want to tell untold stories, if you want to give voice to the voiceless, you've got ...
28/08/2025
Directed by Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert, Sundance Institute-supported Amer...
28/08/2025
Corridos have been a cornerstone of M sica Mexicana for generations, telling stories rooted in everyday life. Now, a new chapter is taking shape: motivational c...
28/08/2025
Los corridos han sido un pilar de la M sica Mexicana durante generaciones, contando historias enraizadas en la vida cotidiana. Ahora, un nuevo cap tulo est tom...
28/08/2025
Earlier this month, we promised our Verano Forever party would bring the heat, a...
28/08/2025
L3Harris will provide the Polish F-16V fleet with the Viper Shield electronic warfare system as part of an upgrade program....
28/08/2025
Bilbao, August 26, 2025 - AgileTV, an international television and video technol...
28/08/2025
Ken Wilkinson is an Emmy Awards nominated New York audio engineer who specialises in production sound mixing for film, commercial, episodic and documentary work...
28/08/2025
NEW YORK FuboTV today announced that it will launch Fubo Sports, a skinny bundle that focuses on sports with a subscription price of $56 monthly....
28/08/2025
NEVADA City, Calif. At IBC2025, Sept. 12-15 at the RAI Amsterdam, Telestream will debut its new Global Ingest strategy, introducing a next-generation ingest arc...
28/08/2025
Dr. Rhoda Bernard Releases Groundbreaking Debut Book on Accessible Arts Educatio...
28/08/2025
TAG Video Systems, the leader in software-based IP end-to-end workflow monitoring, deep probing, and real-time visualization, has named Oliver Gappa as Sales Di...
28/08/2025
AI-based voice enhancement will be among a series of innovations making their IBC 2025 debut on the DHD stand B46 in Hall 8 at the RAI Amsterdam Convention Cent...
28/08/2025
Telef nica Servicios Audiovisuales (TSA), the leading system integrator and service provider in the media sector in Spain, with the support of Appear, the globa...
28/08/2025
To fully immerse sailing fans in the world's biggest offshore yacht race, production company, Optical Media turned to LiveU's On-site Production solutio...
28/08/2025
Working with Calrec on its most recent overhaul, radio and television broadcaster, WNED has migrated to a fully IP infrastructure with multiple Type R consoles,...
28/08/2025
Cleeng, the Subscriber Retention Management (SRM ) inventor, has unveiled Cleeng Pro, the first-ever direct-to-consumer (D2C) subscription management platform t...
28/08/2025
Zixi, the industry leader in live broadcast-quality video over IP, today announced that French media distribution platform OKAST has selected Zixi to enable rel...
28/08/2025
Solution offers a streamlined, speaker-free architecture to optimize integration with premium external loudspeakers and advanced loudness metering
Nixer Pro Au...
28/08/2025
Cinegy, the premier provider of software-defined television technology, has announced a strategic partnership with Vision One Touch Film Production Services L.L...
28/08/2025
Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will debut its new Global Ingest strategy at IBC2025, introducing a next-generation ingest architect...
28/08/2025
Tier 1 operator selects Broadpeak to power high-performance, unified CDN solution across Norway, Sweden and Finland
Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and moneti...
28/08/2025
Leading video software provider, Synamedia, today announced that 24 Frames Digital, one of India's leading live event streaming service providers, has chose...
28/08/2025
Meet VisualOn at IBC2025: See What's Next in AI-Powered Video Streaming Join VisualOn at IBC2025 and discover how our AI-driven Optimizer and advanced media...
Tranquility. 
