Santa Barbara Sons Team Up for Alamati Wines

Cooper Allebrand and Niko Comati are still in the same ball pit they stomped around in as kids — except that the multicolored plastic orbs are now ripe grapes in a fermenting tank, and the risks of bacteria are a little more costly than cooties.

This is Alamati, a collaboration nearly three decades in the making whose principals are just as old. The year 2022 marks the label’s second vintage under moonlighters Allebrand, whose day job is for Storm Wines, and Comati, who works at Dierberg–Star Lane.

The two met as 4-year-olds at a Westmont College soccer camp. Call it an unrequited bromance. “I tried to follow him around. He wouldn’t give me the time of day,” Allebrand laughed. “I ignored him,” admitted Comati. He grew up near the Mission; Allebrand grew up in the hills of Toro Canyon. Never mind the distance, or that first encounter — quickly, they were thick as thieves.