Family First: Alta Colina
Story by Aja Goare
Photography by Dustin Klemann
When she first entered the industry out of college, Molly Lonborg was excited to work alongside some of San Luis Obispo County’s most seasoned winemakers. As the years went on and she climbed the ranks, one recurring thought would occupy her mind. “I kept thinking, ‘How do I do this work and be a parent some day?’”
Taking stock, there were few other women in the role of head winemaker, even less with children. None, that she knew of, had a partner who also worked in the industry. “I had no female winemaker mentors and I didn’t see a lot of women in my position,” Molly shares.
Now, as head winemaker at Alta Colina, Molly and her husband are making it work for their two children. But it’s no miracle that she’s able to balance her passion for crafting wine with her love for family — she attributes a lot to Alta Colina Owners Bob, Maggie and Lynn Tillman. “I remember when Bob offered me the position, he told me, ‘What I can’t offer you in pay, I can offer in freedom and flexibility.’ They have a real respect for family,” says Molly. “It’s hard to be a working mom but they see it as less of a hindrance and more of a positive.”
This perspective may come naturally to Bob and Lynn, who cherish memories of raising their daughter, Maggie, and her two siblings. Sitting around a table at the winery’s Trailer Pond, Bob tells a group of guests about how he and his wife came to own the vineyard. “We bought this property in 2003 and in 2005, we planted grapes, which did well,” shares Bob. “But we’ve been passionate about wine forever. We spent many years in Oregon, and there we generated a wine tasting group. Our kids admitted years later they would gather on the landing to listen to our wine conversation.”
Once Bob and Lynn retired from their roles in engineering and software, respectively, at Hewlett Packard, the New Mexico natives were lured to San Luis Obispo County by a college friend. “One of Bob’s fraternity brothers lived here and started an industrial computer company,” remembers Lynn. “When Bob decided to retire, [the friend] called and asked him to run the company. We gave it some thought and we did that before we eventually sold to Intel during the dot com boom.”
And here, in the heart of wine country, that love for the grape nectar that the Tillmans developed within their tasting group took off. As they continue sharing anecdotes about their entry into the world of wine, from the string lights lit shore of the pond, Maliysa Lou serves her signature charcuterie board, plates of soy-ginger marinated short ribs with potato salad, and shrimp crudité. “The ribs were marinated all night, then slow cooked all day,” says Maliysa, who owns LouLou Cheese Girl. “I served it with heirloom carrots and red potato salad.”
Maliysa is a sort of resident chef at the Trailer Pond, where she’s served about 200 dinners at the retro camper site since 2020. “It’s so rewarding to create an experience that’s on a different level, a beautiful and intimate dining experience,” she shares. Outdoor dining won Maliysa’s affection at an early age, when she camped her way across the country as a young girl with her grandmother. “We camped every state by car, except Alaska and Hawaii,” she recalls. “This makes me feel close to my grandma.”
As the sun sets over the vines, a chorus of frogs belts out a camping anthem. North County’s notorious heat backs off and guests tilt their glasses for another pour before cozying up for warmth. Once guests begin to dig into the Bramble Pie Company cherry-studded New York style cheesecake, Bob holds up a bottle of pét-nat (short for pétillant naturel). “It’s naturally sparkling,” he explains, diving back into the winemaking history. “I made wines until 2019 and Molly has been making all the wines since. Our wines improved immediately when she got here.”
Molly attributes her success to the creative control Bob affords her. But as she says, her work is about “wine evolution, not revolution.” The winemaking she and Bob did together at the start of her career at Alta Colina serves as a guidepost for the direction of her work today. “Winemakers are weirdly looked at as rockstars or celebrities but we’re just everyday people doing what we love. And I do want to show other girls that they can do this, too,” Molly explains. “Women are super tasters, creative, sensory focused — we’re built for this.”
