In 2008, a group of wine enthusiasts in La Jolla started something that was never meant to be formal, commercial, or even particularly serious at the beginning. It started simply: friends who loved wine deciding to make it together.

Over time, that shared hobby evolved into something far more committed. With the guidance of their fearless leader, Rob Hixson, the group—lawyers, doctors, real estate executives, and neighbors who might otherwise have never crossed professional paths—began building a cooperative winery rooted in shared labor, shared learning, and shared enjoyment.

By 2013, the group took a defining step. They began leasing a hidden vineyard tucked into the hills of North San Diego County, a quiet stretch of land where they could finally bring the entire winemaking process under their own care. The vineyard became home to Zinfandel, Sangiovese, and Petite Syrah grapes, and it became the center of their shared world.

What made the La Jolla Winery different was not just what they produced, but how they produced it.

Every member of the cooperative participated in the vineyard’s life cycle. Under Rob Hixson’s leadership, the group worked the land themselves—weeded, pruned, fertilized, thinned vines, tied canes, managed clusters, and installed and removed protective nets. Harvest wasn’t an outsourced event or a brief visit—it was the culmination of months of shared effort, sweat equity, and constant attention to detail.

The vineyard days became a tradition of their own. Work in the rows was followed by laughter, conversation, and a potluck picnic beneath a pepper tree, where bottles from past vintages were opened and shared. The wine, as many in the group often said, tasted different because everyone knew exactly what had gone into it.

Once harvested, the grapes were brought to the historic Bernardo Winery, one of California’s oldest continuously operating wineries, founded in 1889 on what was once part of a Spanish land grant. There, winery owner Ross Rizzo guided the cooperative through the next stage of the process—fermentation, aging, and bottling—helping translate their vineyard work into finished wines.

Over time, the La Jolla Winery developed its own identity and portfolio, producing wines such as Nautilus, Sangiovese, Castellana, Petite Sirah, and Rosé. While none of the wines were ever produced for commercial sale, they became deeply meaningful to the group, shared among families, friends, and gathered under that same pepper tree where so many vineyard days had ended.

And the quality spoke for itself.

Across multiple vintages, the wines earned recognition at major competitions, including the San Diego County Fair, Los Angeles competitions, and the Orange County Fair.

In 2023 alone, the cooperative celebrated a remarkable year of awards:

• California State Fair: Rosé 2023 won Double Gold

• San Diego County Fair: Rosé 2023 named Best Rosé in San Diego (Gold, class and division winner); Gold for Nautilus 2021; Silver for Nautilus 2022, Nautilus 2020, Castellana 2021

• Orange County Fair: Double Gold for Rosé 2023 and Nautilus 2022; Silver for Castellana 2022

These accolades added to a growing legacy that had been building for years.

Earlier vintages had already established the winery’s reputation:

In 2021, the San Diego County Fair awarded Gold Medals to 2021 Sangiovese, 2021 Nautilus, 2020 Sangiovese, and 2018 Delfino, along with multiple Silver and Bronze medals across Petite Sirah, Zinfandel, Castellana, and Nautilus vintages.

In 2016, the cooperative reached a milestone that surprised even its members: Best Wine in the Fair—recognized as the #1 wine in the county—along with Best Red Wine, Best Sangiovese, and Best Estate Wine (Grown & made in San Diego). That year also brought Gold for 2014 Petite Sirah and additional Silver medals across several varietals, including Zinfandel, Castellana, Nautilus, and Petite Sirah.

But for all the awards, the cooperative never lost sight of what made it meaningful.

This was not a winery built for distribution or scale. It was built for participation. For shared work. For the simple but rare satisfaction of creating something together that none of them could have created alone.

Rob Hixson often framed it in practical terms: the vineyard was the classroom, the work was the lesson, and the wine was the result.

And for the group of La Jollans who return year after year to prune, harvest, and gather under the pepper tree, that result is more than wine.

It is memory in a bottle—made slowly, deliberately, and together.