Santa Ynez Valley’s Sunstone Winery stars in ‘Star Trek: Picard’

SANTA YNEZ, Calif. - The Santa Ynez Valley is already known for its vineyards and sunset views. Now it has another claim to fame. 

New CBS All Access show ‘Star Trek: Picard,’ starring Patrick Stewart, decided to boldly go where many wine-lovers have gone before. Last spring, Sunstone Winery became the setting for several scenes in the show.

Leadership at the winery were contacted by a location scout for the show in early 2019.

“They said they were looking for an authentic French chateau within driving distance of LA,” Sunstone general manager Dave Moser said. 

The cast and crew then came to Sunstone last April, filming for about a week. But very few people knew the production was going on.

“Everything was kept very close to the vest,” Moser said. “We had a confidentially agreement with cbs where we could not talk about anything… everything was very private. We kept just two or three key people in the organization that were aware of it for quite some time.”

Employees could not talk about the ‘Picard’ production at the winery until the show premiered on Thursday.

Most of the action was filmed away from the tasting room, around and inside the Sunstone Villa, which was made to look like Jean-Luc Picard’s home in the French countryside.

Now that the secret’s out, it could lead to a big boost in business.

“There has certainly been an uptick in inquiries about people wanting to visit and see the Villa and where it was filmed,” Moser said. “So there’s no doubt that there’s huge interest… we think it should be a great thing, not only for us, but for visitation to the Santa Ynez Valley. So overall, it’s just a great thing.”

‘Star Trek’ already has millions of fans, but now it has at least a few more.

“We all are now,” Moser said. “So we welcome all the die-hards, and we’re fans ourselves now.”