Since its inception, Los Olivos’ Future Perfect Wine hasn’t let a year go by without donating one of its wine’s proceeds to a cause close to owner and winemaker Sunny Doench Stricker’s heart.
“I have released a Pride rosé every year since the tasting room has been open, and we just celebrated our fourth anniversary on Memorial Day weekend,” the local vintner and former film actor told the Sun via email.
Nicknamed “the Porch Pounder,” Future Perfect Wine’s Pride rosé is 100 percent grenache, and “Provençal in style—light and bright,” said Stricker, who will donate all proceeds of the limited edition wine’s sales to local nonprofit SYV Pride.
“I expect it to be gone before the end of the month,” Stricker said. “The Pride rosé usually sells out pretty quickly.”
Stricker said that her aim to help uplift groups like SYV Pride stems from an ideal her mother ingrained in her.
“Making sure everyone feels safe and inspired enough to be their shiniest, brightest self, … that is the culture we carry at Future Perfect,” Stricker said. “I was raised by a queen. … She always reminded me to razzle-dazzle. ‘Never ever tap down the sparkle,’ she would say. ‘You must glow, radiate, light the way.’”
While living in LA as a working actor before moving to the Central Coast, Stricker said that her mother “would mail me tinsel, feathers, and glitter that I kept in a glove box” with a note that read: “Look up, … keep looking up.”
“So I do, I keep looking up,” said the winemaker, who unveiled her brand’s latest iteration of its Pride rosé on June 1, during Future Perfect Wine’s annual Razzle Dazzle Disco event.
“Your vibe really does attract your tribe. And somehow, the shiny, kind, extra hopeful, creative, supportive people just keep showing up,” Stricker said about the event’s popularity over the years. “I dig it.”
With each vintage of Pride rosé, starting with its first in 2021, Stricker has credited two of her dear friends, Jenae Unruh and her wife, Nikki Faragasso, as its co-creators, “even though they are not winemakers,” she clarified.
Future Perfect Wine’s general manager, Gillian Arnold, said that the couple contributes “to the overall concept and spirit of the project.”
“Nikki and Jenae have collaborated with Sunny on the Pride rosé every year since the first vintage,” Arnold said over email. “They help shape the vision, aesthetic, and messaging, and their input is a big part of what makes the wine feel so celebratory and intentional.”
Future Perfect Wine is one of many local wineries either allocating wine sale proceeds to LGBTQ-plus initiatives or using other means to benefit them this June.
Presqu’ile Winery in the Santa Maria Valley will donate 100 percent of its ticket sales to the eighth annual HOPE After Dark Drag Show to House of Pride and Equality (HOPE). Morgan McMichaels and Venus D-Lite of RuPaul’s Drag Race fame will be among the performers.
Lompoc-based boutique winery Camins 2 Dreams, owned and operated by Mireia Taribó and her wife, Tara Gomez, is releasing a special Pride red blend for the third year in a row to benefit HOPE. Like Future Perfect Wine’s track record, it’s a tradition that’s been part of Camins 2 Dreams since the winery’s first year in business.
“This year, specifically, we’re donating 50 percent of the Pride edition red wine to HOPE,” Gomez told the Sun via email.
“[In] 2024, we donated 60 percent of the proceeds split between SYV Pride and HOPE,” Gomez added, while 60 percent of 2023’s Pride wine proceeds supported both nonprofits and a third beneficiary, The Rainbow House Inc.
Regardless of what time of year it is, Gomez said that she and Taribó “aim to foster a space where everyone feels valued and included, while also raising awareness” at the couple’s tasting room on East Chestnut Court.
To close out Pride Month later this June, Camins 2 Dreams will host its third annual Cheers Queers event, with music from DJ EWreck, a food pop-up from Lompoc’s Savory and Sweet Eats, and more.
Stolpman Vineyards’ Los Olivos tasting room will join in on this year’s Pride action with its fourth annual All Colors of the Rainbow program, on June 12 from 6 to 8 p.m.
“In addition to the event, we run a special sale on [our] 2023 Crunchy Roastie for the entire month of June,” Stolpman Vineyards events and marketing manager Natalie Anders said over email. “Fifteen percent of sales go to SYV Pride during the month of June.”
Crunchie Roastie isn’t the only wine from Stolpman people can buy knowing a portion of their purchase goes toward SYV Pride.
“This year, we’ve expanded the sale to include two more summertime wines—2023 Uni white, 2024 Love You Bunches rosé,” Anders said, “with the aim of increasing the donation.”
Senior Staff Writer Caleb Wiseblood is raising a glass at cwiseblood@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Jun 5-15, 2025.