Melinda Burns, Special for the Santa Barbara News-Press
CUYAMA VALLEY, Calif. (KEYT) – Back in 2014, the company overseeing Harvard University’s $36 billion endowment fund decided it would be a good investment to grow grapes on an old cattle ranch in the Cuyama Valley, a dry agricultural region where the underground water basin had been depleted by decades of over-pumping.
So, Brodiaea Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of the Harvard Management Co., the university’s investment arm, bought the North Fork Cattle Co. ranch, a 7,600-acre property that straddled both sides of Highway 166. It was part of a historic land grant known as the “Cuyama Rancho.
Brodiaea drilled 16 wells and planted an 840-acre vineyard, the largest in the valley. No zoning permit was required to grow grapes. Harvard became one of the largest water users in this land of little rain.
Local residents speculated that the university’s investment firm had set its sights on becoming a seller in some lucrative future water market. But around March of this year, they said, the workers at the North Fork vineyard were abruptly laid off.
This May, public records show, Brodiaea sold the North Fork Ranch and its abandoned vineyard to Rancho Cuyama No. 2, a limited liability company registered in Texas to Dustin Noblitt, a manufacturer of western lifestyle products, and James Ontiveros, a vintner who grew up in the Santa Maria Valley.
Transfer taxes recorded by the county on May 22 show that the North Fork Ranch sold for about $5 million. Brodiaea had purchased it for $10 million in 2014 — without the vineyard in place, the records show.
In 2025, the ranch at 7400 and 7401 Highway 166 was assessed by the county at $38 million.
The new owners
Noblitt, Ontiveros and representatives for Brodiaea and Harvard Management, which now oversees a $56 billion endowment fund for the university, did not respond to requests for comment this month on the sale of the North Fork Ranch.
Public records show that Ontiveros is a co-founder of Grapevine Capital Partners, the San Luis Obispo-based agricultural investment firm that developed and managed the North Fork vineyard. Matthew Turrentine, also a co-founder of Grapevine Capital, is the Chief Executive Officer of Brodiaea.
Ontiveros owns the Rancho Ontiveros, Alta Maria and Rancho Viñedo vineyards and the Rancho Dominion and Rancho Potrero cattle ranches, all in the Santa Maria Valley.
Noblitt, a resident of Garland, Tex., is the CEO of the Pro Equine Group, Inc., a manufacturer, marketer and distributor of western products such as ropes and saddles; and its sister company, RHE Hatco, a manufacturer of western hats and apparel, including the Stetson brand.
The LinkedIn pages for Noblitt and Ontiveros show that they both entered California Polytechnic State University in 1994 and graduated in the late 1990s.
Looming water cutbacks
Brodiaea had faced significant challenges at its Cuyama Valley vineyard in recent years, the record shows.
For starters, the valley is on the state’s list of groundwater basins in “critical overdraft.” About twice as much water is being pumped out every year as can be replenished. Portions of the valley get less than eight inches of rain per year.
At 840 acres, the North Fork vineyard was the largest in the valley. Severe cutbacks in agricultural pumping will be required in the region to bring the depleted groundwater basin back into balance. Photo by Carl Perry.Under state law, the Cuyama basin must be brought back into balance by 2040. To reach that goal, the valley’s Groundwater Sustainability Agency estimates that agricultural pumping will have to be cut back by at least 50 percent.
In 2024, agency records show, Brodiaea was the eighth largest water user in the valley, pumping about six times as much water as the community district that provides water to New Cuyama, population 700.
In 2021, the top two water guzzlers in the valley — the land companies for Grimmway Enterprises and Bolthouse Farms, the world’s largest carrot corporations — filed a water rights lawsuit against all other valley landowners, forcing them to hire lawyers and make a case for their water allocations before a Los Angeles Superior Court judge. The suit could drag on for years more.
Early on, Brodiaea tried but failed to convince the judge that the North Fork Ranch property was located in a separate water basin and should not be included in the water rights lawsuit.
Then, in 2023, Brodiaea tried but failed to obtain a county permit to build two large storage reservoirs, or “frost ponds,” at its North Fork vineyard. The company was proposing to spray the water on the grapevines during winter to prevent new leaf buds from curling up and turning black in a frost.
But a number of smaller farm and ranch owners, including some who had been in the valley for generations, opposed the project, saying the ponds would worsen the groundwater overdraft, even as the state was trying to reverse the trend.
Members of Harvard’s faculty and student body, weighed in too. At a hearing on the project, one researcher spoke of what she saw as “deep contradictions” between Harvard’s promotion of sustainability and climate justice in its classrooms, “even as it threatens local residents and farmers.”
Ultimately, the county Planning Commission rejected the frost pond proposal.
Robbie Jaffe, who co-owns a small vineyard and olive orchard in the foothills at the western end of the valley, where the North Fork Ranch is located, said she was shocked when Brodiaea drilled 16 wells for grapes, more than a decade ago. On her five acres, Jaffe said, she is “dry farming” her orchards, relying chiefly on rainfall and saving every drop.
Jaffe said she hoped the new North Fork owners would consider the “needs of the community and the devastating situation of Cuyama’s groundwater” in developing their plans for the ranch.
“There’s not enough water to grow a massive vineyard anywhere in the Cuyama Valley,” Jaffe said
“Vine graveyards”
Bloomberg News has reported that, beginning in 2012, as part of its strategy of investing directly in agricultural projects around the world, the Harvard Management Co. spent $100 million buying more than a dozen vineyards, mostly on the Central Coast, including the North Fork Ranch. The grapes were sold to other vintners who blended them into their wines.
It appears to have been a gamble that did not pay off. According to the WineBusiness Monthly, a trade publication, Brodiaea has since sold off thousands of acres of vineyards in San Luis Obispo County that it was managing for the university's endowment fund.
Harvard is not alone in abandoning its grapes. Wine sales are in a historic downturn, as alcohol consumption in the United States hits historic lows. There’s been a generational drop in wine drinking; and cheap imports are hurting the industry, too.
According to some estimates, about 50,000 acres of grapes would need to be pulled from production in California to bring the supply into balance with demand. That’s in addition to the removal of nearly 40,000 acres last year. “Vine graveyards” now lie scattered throughout wine regions such as the Napa and Sonoma valleys.
Kerry Mormann, a Berkshire Hathaway realtor specializing in Central Coast ranch land, said that vineyards are not selling because of the overproduction of grapes in California.
“The vineyard market is dead,” Mormann said.
Melinda Burns is an investigative reporter with more than 40 years of experience covering immigration, water, science and the environment. She was a senior writer at the News-Press during a 21-year career at the paper, ending in 2006.
This story was originally published by the Santa Barbara News-Press.
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