Before he was even old enough to drink, Andrew Murray fell in love with wine in the late 1980s while traveling through France on a family vacation.
Andrew took that passion further in 1992 when he began an internship in an Australian winery that was supposed to last for three months. He ended up staying for more than a year and decided that making wine would be his life¹s work.

Andrew returned to the States, and while earning a degree in viticulture and oenology from the acclaimed University of California at Davis he started his eponymous winery, working with growers who mirrored his passion for excellence. He found vineyard owners who matched his desire for perfection, and who farmed their vines to ruinously low yields with the most advanced viticultural methods. Andrew¹s razor sharp vision can be surmised succinctly in his personal mantra: ³Handcrafted wines from steep hillside vineyards.² The Andrew Murray Vineyards wines for which he is best known are specifically Rhone Varietals, including Viognier and Syrah.

In 2001, after a chance meeting, Andrew established a friendship with Sandy Hill, a neighbor in the Santa Ynez Valley who had recently purchased a ranch with 30 acres of grapes. At that time, the fruit in Sandy¹s vineyard consisted entirely of Chardonnay grapes, which were sold to other local wineries. Andrew proposed adding other varietals to the vineyard, including Chardonnay, Syrah, San Giovese and Tempranillo and encouraged Sandy to create a new label where he would craft wines of different varietals than he makes for his own winery. And so, Oak Savanna Vineyard was born.

Today, Andrew crafts a delicious Chardonnay from the oldest vines and a striking, proprietary red wine called One Thousand Hills. In addition to these wines made from the estate grown grapes, Pinot Noir fruit is purchased from the finest growers in the acclaimed Santa Rita Hills, and the wine made from it is sold under the label Oak Savanna Cellars. Production will always remain relatively small to ensure that the Oak Savanna wines are among the finest coming out of the Santa Ynez Valley.

All of the focus, passion, and dedication have paid off. The editors of Food and Wine magazine named Andrew the ³Tastemaker Of the Year² in 2004, and today Robert Parker, Jr. considers Andrew Murray ³one of Santa Barbara¹s finest² winemakers.