At 1417 2nd St. lies the official tasting room for AJA Vineyards, a winery based in the Santa Monica Mountains bringing its local and region-specific flavors to the city. The city’s only wine tasting location is family-focused, with the AJA standing for Alec, Jack and Amanda, the three children of vineyard founders Todd and Heather Greenbaum.
The second "A" in the name has become the A-lister of local wine, as Amanda Rubin took the reins of the business in 2019 with her father’s blessing. Rubin said she was "very fortunate" to have a family in love with wine, pushing her to become the first in the family to gain an educational background in the subject.
"Just being around that all the time, being able to taste so many different things, I think is what kind of jump started my interest in it, recognizing that it’s not just this adult beverage, it’s more than that," Rubin said. "There’s creativity, there’s science, there’s flavor, there’s really just an entire world to explore."
The wine world truly opened up to Rubin on a family visit to Paris. While sitting at dinner, her father asked for a wine list, telling his daughter that the man helping them wasn’t just a server, but a sommelier. Thinking it was "interesting" that being a wine expert could be a profession, she longed for further education.
"After that experience in Paris and seeing what a vast knowledge this [sommelier] had, I just gravitated towards it immediately," she said. "I started doing as much as I could in high school [to learn] about wine. When we were doing chemistry, chemical equations, I’d be like, oh yeah, the yeast converts the sugar into alcohol."
Her official training came at the now-defunct International Culinary Center in San Jose, taking an 11-week course under the tutelage of six master sommeliers and learning about the alcohol five days a week. To gain more experience, she also worked at the Vintage wine bar in San Jose, a place she now sells AJA products to in a full-circle moment.
Becoming a certified sommelier, Rubin transitioned into a position with a large wine distributor in California, but wasn’t satisfied with just being a cog in the mass-marketed machine.
"I don’t really want to be slinging all of these wines that are not wines that I’m passionate about … I really was gunning for the estate portfolio," she added. "I really wanted to be able to showcase the great wines of the different regions of the world, not constantly [for] this one conglomerate."
With her father’s blessing, and investment, Rubin began building the AJA infrastructure that eventually led her to crafting the Santa Monica tasting room. After prior endeavors in Thousand Oaks, Malibu and Beverly Hills, she felt the Downtown Santa Monica area was perfect for its "incredible foot traffic."
"As a previous UCLA student, as somebody who lives on the Westside who’s always been coming to Santa Monica my entire life, this Second St. area is also notorious for being a big area for locals … when we found this location, we thought this really is an incredible spot," Rubin said. "Also, we’re making wine in the Santa Monica Mountains, so it makes perfect sense to sell Santa Monica Mountain wine in Santa Monica."
Wanting the environment to feel "warm" and "inviting," Rubin tells customers that the location feels like a "dream wine basement." Aiding her in that dream are her brothers, Jack and Alec, who work as a tasting room associate and AJA accountant, respectively. She said that Jack "is the smoothest talker you’ll ever meet" and is a constant source of advice due to his "incredible palate" while he works toward his real estate license.
Appreciating their "unique flair" for the business, the brothers are part of a support system that also includes her parents and husband Josh.
"Everything that we do at AJA is family-oriented," Rubin said. "Our vineyards are named after the family, the wine clubs are named after my brothers and my dad and myself. We have a wine that’s named after my mom as well. Everything we do here is family and I think it does do a good job presenting itself."
Customers walking into the tasting room are presented with AJA’s best, including a 2022 Winemaker’s Red Blend that’s been "flying off the shelves." The pinot-based blend, Rubin added, pairs nicely with heartier dishes. For the holiday season, she also recommends a Wildflower Rosé named for her mother, as well as a newly-released sparkling wine that’s "always good with celebration."
Rubin says that the hectic opening period, which included a ribbon cutting with the Santa Monica Chamber of Commerce and an upcoming industry and media evening on Oct. 21, will be the start of AJA’s success.
"We are providing a really high quality product … we have our estate wines that we specialize in, but honestly, I feel like all of our wines are really special because they’re each individually [region] specific," she said. "They showcase those regions, and then we as the winemakers are bringing that to the people."
For more information on AJA products, visit ajavineyards.com
thomas@smdp.com
