Making Pies, Avocado Ice Cream, and Some of the Central Coast's Best Wines
An Interview with Elizabeth Talley of Talley Vineyards
If you’re a fan of California Central Coast wines, you probably already know Talley Vineyards, the gorgeous, award-winning winery on the San Luis Obispo coast. This past April, I had the pleasure of collaborating with the Talley family to showcase two of their wines at the book launch party for my new cookbook, Snacking Dinners.
Elizabeth Talley, the winery’s sales and marketing manager (and co-owner, along with her parents), also shared her family’s story with me as well as some of her own memories of growing up on the family’s farm and vineyard and learning about food and hospitality while studying in Europe—plus her thoughts about how having access to produce right from the farm influenced her cooking. Next week, I’ll share the family’s recipe for avocado ice cream. In the meantime, here’s a bit of what she told me about her history, in her own words (condensed and edited for length and clarity):
My new book, SNACKING DINNERS, launched in April! Check out my events page for upcoming talks, signings, and pop-ups in the Bay Area, New York, and more!
Elizabeth Talley
My great-grandfather started farming vegetables in the area around San Luis Obispo almost 80 years ago, and we still operate a commercial vegetable farm. My grandparents started our winery in the ’80s, and my dad took that over in the ’90s. I started working there full time last year.
When we first started, we were originally just planning on growing grapes and not making any wine, because we're growers and that's what my great-grandfather knew. So, when my grandfather planted the different varietals, he was kind of unsure of what to plant. He did chardonnay because Edna Valley had been pretty successful in chardonnay, and that's pretty close to us. He did cabernet sauvignon because everyone was doing cabernet at the time. And then he did, I think, sauvignon blanc and pinot noir. And the pinot noir was definitely kind of a guess and an unknown, because it hadn't been successful here yet. But it did really well. The cabernet did not, of course—it's way too cool here. And then the sauvignon blanc, we ended up taking that out and moving it to our vineyard in the valley. But chardonnay and pinot noir were in the original planting, and that's really the backbone of Talley now.
The ocean is kind of the biggest influence that we have here. Because we're in the coolest AVA in all of California, our wines always have a lot of energy but are very elegant at the same time and just really well balanced. The San Luis Obispo coast is a newer AVA. It was approved in 2022, so they had to do a lot of climactic research to get it approved. In that research, they found out it's the coolest one in all of California. At the vineyard closest to the coast, Rosemary's vineyard, you can actually see the ocean. I want to say it's less than 10 miles.
The kind of wines that our winemaker, Eric Johnson, and my dad both really like are the wines from Burgundy, so that's kind of the style they try and emulate. But everything they do is really about trying not to over-manipulate the wines—just really letting the vineyards and the grapes kind of speak for themselves. We do use French oak, but not too much. My dad says he likes our wines to taste like his grapes, not like other people's barrels.
We eat mostly stuff from our vegetable farm. Growing up, I would always complain that my parents would never let me have, like, TV dinner. I wanted Lunchables or fast food or all those things. And my parents were like, “No, we're cooking you a giant dinner every single night.” As a kid, I didn't understand how special that was. My parents’ kind of main goal around food when I was growing up was they wanted us to be able to cook and be self-reliant and capable in the kitchen. So, we cooked a lot of dinners together, and we still do.
My grandfather was a huge pie lover, and he planted his own berry patch—just this tiny little berry patch on the farm—so that he could have pies. He would pick us up and drive us around the farm, and then we'd go pick berries and make pies.
When I was growing up, my dad did 99 percent of the cooking in our house, because he loves it. He actually has a cookbook called Our California Table that he wrote. It is mostly old family recipes, as well as recipes from friends and longtime employees that have worked at our farm. There are some recipes I still make all the time, like the Mexican rice, which is from an employee who actually just celebrated her 50th anniversary with Talley farms.
I went to college at Cal Poly, near where I grew up, and then I did the Disney College Program after I graduated, so I lived in Florida for six months. It was a rude awakening. I was working in the parks, in one of the stores, and then on the confectionery side making, like, caramel apples and chocolate covered strawberries and all the desserts. I was in the Disney bubble, and it was before they introduced a lot of the foods they have now. I’m a vegetarian, so I had a lot of French fries back then. It was not easy transition. Luckily I had my car, so I would drive to a Whole Foods that was, like, 45 minutes away.
I also went abroad for my master's program in branding for food, wine, and tourism; I was in Florence for six months, and then Barcelona for eight months. As part of school, we got to tour and go to some of the best restaurants in both Florence and Barcelona. It was amazing.
I think being able to just get fresh ingredients so easily while I was studying there changed how I think about food. I'm very spoiled in California—I can go to our farm any day and get something that was harvested that morning—but there are so many other ingredients that go into a meal. In Europe, being able to go to a little store and get some fresh pesto and get this cheese that somebody just made, and it being more of a daily thing, was eye-opening. I feel like here, especially living kind of out in the country like I did growing up, it was, Okay, you're going into town, so get everything you need for the next two weeks.
Now I live across the street from a co-op, a really small grocery store, and I definitely like just going there and getting what I need just for that day. When I’m cooking for myself, I mostly just take what I get in my vegetable box every week, grab ingredients I need from the co-op (like a jar of rice), and make whatever kind of vegetarian special I can.
Bonus Post—A Fun Cooking Video:
Earlier this week, I made a quick video for the Snacking Dinners newsletter about some of my favorite ways to cut up avocados—specifically, the two methods that appear in my Snacking Dinners cookbook. Since we here in CA obviously eat a ton avocados, I thought I’d share it here, as well. Click on the link below (or here) for the full video. I’ve also created a new Cooking Videos tab on the California Table website, so look for more technique demos coming soon!
Cutting Avocados
If you’re planning to make the Deconstructed Guacamole (left) or the Unstuffed Crab and Avocado (right) from the Snacking Dinners cookbook—or just want some fun ways to cut up these delicious fruits—you might be wondering how, exactly, to dice and slice up this delicious fruit so that you get the pretty presentations in the photos above. Here’s a quick,…
Other California Food Stories to Read and Listen To
Last month, KQED ran a great piece on the plethora of world cuisines on offer at Bay Area night markets; I can’t wait to visit some of these this summer. They also have a great piece about the best late-night food at SFO (very important service journalism for anyone arriving on a late flight!) and a piece about a Central Valley business delivering food to immigrants who are too worried about leaving their houses to go grocery shopping.
Down south, the LA Times interviewed René Redzepi about why he picked Los Angeles for his next Noma pop-up, and LA Taco did a piece about his last pop-up—and why having Noma come to LA right now is a really positive event, despite everything affecting the city’s restaurants and food vendors right now.
Photos: Courtesy of Elizabeth Talley (4), Jeremy Ball, Georgia Freedman
Loved this interview!
Really enjoyed this interview!