From Grapes to Giraffes: Ronnie Semler’s Malibu Wines Story

 📍 Guest: Ronnie Semler – Founder, Malibu Wines & Beer Garden & Saddlerock Ranch 📍 Location: West Hills, CA

Watch Full episode HERE

Join Paul Ward On the Road with Ronnie Semler, the visionary behind Malibu Wines & Beer Garden and Saddlerock Ranch. In this inspiring interview, Ronnie shares how he transformed a fire-ravaged Malibu ranch into a thriving vineyard, animal sanctuary, and destination experience featuring estate-grown wines, exotic animals like zebras and giraffes, 

and one-of-a-kind events. From surviving the Woolsey Fire to expanding into a Texas safari adventure, Ronnie’s story is a masterclass in resilience, reinvention, and creating joy for visitors from around the world. 🍷🦒

⏱ Episode Timestamps

00:06 – Welcome & Introduction Paul welcomes Ronnie Semler, founder of Malibu Wines & Beer Garden, and introduces the historic West Hills location.

00:47 – The Historic Building Ronnie shares the colorful history of the Alamo-style structure, once home and stables to silent film star Francis Lederer.

02:06 – Acquiring the Property A chance hospital visit leads Ronnie to purchase the building and transform it into a thriving wine and beer garden.

03:21 – Estate-Grown Wines An overview of Semler’s estate wines grown at Saddlerock Ranch and the varieties they produce.

04:54 – The Birth of Saddlerock Ranch How a devastating 1978 Malibu fire led Ronnie to purchase and rebuild the ranch, eventually expanding to 1,000 acres.

07:07 – From Avocados to Grapes After losing crops to frost, Ronnie transitions from avocados to vineyards—discovering grapes use far less water.

08:25 – First Tasting Room The humble beginnings of Malibu Wines, starting with small sales that grew into massive weekend crowds.

09:42 – Exotic Animals & Unique Experiences Saddlerock Ranch becomes known for its zebras, bison, alpacas, llamas, and even a giraffe named Stanley.

10:45 – Surviving the Woolsey Fire Ronnie recounts evacuating over 150 animals and losing more than 100 structures, but saving every life.

11:54 – Rebuilding & Recent Challenges The difficulties of rebuilding post-fire and the added heartache of his son’s recent loss in the Palisades fire.

12:57 – Life After Malibu Expansion to Texas, moving exotic animals, and preparing to launch a safari business in Brock, TX.

14:22 – Growing Great Grapes Ronnie’s philosophy on vineyard care—from soil quality to irrigation—and the key to great wine.

15:31 – Current Vineyard Operations Replanting efforts in Malibu, now totaling around 50 acres and producing for tasting rooms in CA & TX.

16:07 – Family in the Wine Business Two of Ronnie’s daughters now play key roles in the Texas wine operation and club management.

17:16 – Beyond Wine Malibu Wines offers yoga, pizza, jewelry making, candle workshops, and more for visitors.

17:49 – Limited Public Access to the Ranch Some activities continue through wine hikes, movie shoots, and special approvals.

19:18 – Chumash Indian History The ranch holds a significant archaeological site with ancient cave paintings, shared with schools and visitors.

21:12 – Why Texas? Fewer regulations and a different way of life fuel Ronnie’s enthusiasm for his Texas ranch.

21:19 – How to Visit Malibu Wines is open 7 days a week in West Hills, CA. Info at malibuwines.com.

22:02 – Closing Paul thanks Ronnie for sharing his incredible journey from rebuilding after fires to creating unique wine and safari experiences.

Related Episodes:

Guardians of the Wild: Dr. Laurie Marker’s Mission to Save the Cheetahs 

Strumming Through Life: The Sierra Drummond Story

📍Malibu Wines: [e-mail] 23130 Sherman Way West Hills CA 91307 818-578-4146

👉Contact Paul Ward: homeandranch.com p. 805-479-5004 e. [e-mail]

📢 Thank You to Our Sponsor: Opus Escrow — making this episode possible.

Episode Transcript

(00:06):
Hey friends, it's Paul Wardhere, and welcome to On the Road.
We are visiting a piece of oldCalifornia today in West Hills,
and we are with the founder ofMalibu Wines and Beer Garden.
Also the founder of SaddlerockRanch in Malibu.,Ronnie Semler,
welcome to On the Road.
Thank you very much. Pleasure to be here.
Absolutely. And we wanna thankour sponsor, Opus Escrow. Ronnie, you have quite,

(00:29):
quite the story to tell quitethe, the life history here,
kind of in Malibu and kindof between here and Texas.
You built quite the operation withSemler Wines and it's just a pleasure
to talk to you today. Thank you.So where are we specifically?
We're kind of in anAlamo-style building. Yeah.
We're at Malibu Wines and Beer Garden,

(00:50):
and this particular buildinghas a lot of history.
It was the home
and the stables of a veryfamous silent movie star by
the name of, "FrancisLederer." And he was very
handsome, and debonair individual. And he,

(01:12):
and this goes back to, youknow, early 1900s and so forth.
And he, of course, went on to do moviesthat were with sound, but he was,
his initial work was allsilent. And this structure here,
this building was actually thestables that he built for his wife.
His main home was acrossSherman Way, which of course,

(01:34):
when the city came in andbuilt that road, you know,
they divided it and took propertiesand did what they needed to do.
But there's still the originalhome across the street,
actual beautiful old stonestructure. And that was his estate.
And this was the stablesthat where he kept the wife
busy with her horses and had areally, really nice lighting.

(01:58):
And then fast forward several decades,it became an art gallery, correct?
For a period in the sixties. And,and then when did you acquire it?
I acquired it probablyaround 10 years ago. Okay.
And the interesting part of it,we're right across the street,
are very close to West HillsHospital, and one of my daughters,

(02:19):
Ashley was having her firstchild. And I, of course,
after the birth and so forth came I visitthe baby and mom and really excited to
see it. And as I pulled outof the hospital parking lot,
I saw this beautiful building and Isaid, oh, fantastic. What a great site.
And I saw not a lot happening here.
And in my rather snoopy ways, I went in,

(02:42):
talked to the person thatwas operating the venue,
and she was using it for weddings.
And talked to her to findout who the owner was.
She was ready to throwin her hat and give up.
And so she introduced me tothe owner wonderful person,
one of my best friends today.
And I decided that we wanted to buy thisproperty because the idea was to create

(03:05):
something,
which we've done a wine inBear Garden and been very
successful. Lots of peoplecome have great times here.
That's, and you're, you're not justselling other folks wine, you're, you're,
you're your own vintner. You're growingyour own wines in Malibu, right?
Yeah. They, we only sell ourwines. We sell basically two

(03:26):
wines of ours are estate grown wines,which are the saddle rock estate.
And those are sometimes referredto as the similar wines.
And the other wines that we'reselling are the Saddle Rock wines.
And those are wines that are, wecall them our purchased wines,
whether we either buy the grapesor we buy the juice elsewhere,

(03:47):
all within the state of California.And then we make the wine from, and.
Which varieties are we making?
We're making in the estatewe grow Cabernet Sauvignon,
we grow a Vier, aSauvignon Blanc, a Malbec,
a Merlott, a Grenache, a Vera,
and we make some roses outof different red wines.

(04:09):
And those are the estate winesas far as the purchased wines
or the, you know, wines that webuy, the grapes and or the juice.
We also have a cab and aMerlott and a Chardonnay.
We have pinot noir, we have a Pinot Blanc.
We have the list goes off.

(04:30):
Are those all grown inthe, at Saddle Rock Ranch?
No, only the estate onesare grown in saddle.
The first group that I shared withyou . Are grown in Saddle Rock.
The others are grown in Calother California or vineyards.
And we acquire the grapes,
or we acquire the Jews afterthey've already crushed it. Gotcha.
And Saddle Rock Ranch itself hasquite the, quite the history.
You built it up over time. Itwas, how, how did that start?

(04:54):
Coincidentally, and some ways,sadly, but also to our benefit,
there was a big fire in 1978 thatwent through the hills of Malibu.
And I was looking for a piece ofproperty for our family at that time.
It was my three children. I wasa single parent at the time,
and my oldest daughter wasvery involved in horses.

(05:16):
So I was looking for ranches. Property,
saddle Rock at the timeconsisted of about 300 acres.
And it was a horse ranch.It had burned in the fire.
It was part of theoriginal Harvey Mud Estate.
Harvey Mud was a philanthropist out inthe Inland Empire and started the Harvey
Mud College of Engineeringand other schools.

(05:36):
And his family had that for 40, 50 years.
They had just sold it to anotherfamily called the Van de Mirrors.
They lost everything that they had, thehouse and their barn and everything.
And when we saw it,
it was nothing more than a burned pieceof property with all the rubble and
residue from the fire . And, but ithad, we had a great vision for it.

(06:01):
And over the years,
we added to it and continued toacquire contiguous parcels until
we ended up with approximatelya thousand acres.
And we built it into a wonderful,
wonderful home for ourselvesand my family of nine children
and my wife. And we dida lot of fun things.

(06:22):
We started off in thehorse boarding business.
We raised a lot ofexotic animals ourselves.
We went from hostingweddings and other charitable
events, and we continued to growand it was really a wonderful place.
Eventually in the
I guess it was the mid to lateeighties we started, we did, oh,

(06:45):
I can tell you a greatstory. This is interesting.
We grew avocados and I plantedavocados on that first 300 acres
when it first acquired it in 1992,
we had a very cold freeze and therewere temperatures dropped down to
below, you know, 30 degrees. Very, yeah.

(07:07):
Were these in canyons and kind of inhigh country, low country kind of.
Varied topography. Yes, it was .
And we lost about a millionpounds of fruit on the trees. Wow.
And we then really lostmany of the trees as well.
And they took them sometime to get back to it.
So that was 92.

(07:29):
A few years later we decidedthis is not the industry
from a farming point of view thatbelongs on this piece of property.
So we knew nothing aboutgrapes, but we studied it very,
very diligently and learned thata lot of couple little things like
grape used one seventh, theamount of water that avocados do.

(07:51):
Right. And there are a lot of optionswe could do with growing grapes.
We could grow the grapes and sellthe grapes. We could make juice,
sell the juice. We could take that juice,bake the wines, sell it as, you know,
bulk wines, or we sell it asprivate label. And then of course,
ultimately we could put our name on itand have our own estate grown wines.
And that's what we chose to do. Andit's just been great and a wonderful,

(08:16):
fun business.
And really we get it from the groundup when we planted those grapes. And.
So did you start the tasting at the ranch?
We did. Initially we,
like every other small winery orsmall vineyard goes out and tries
to sell their wines. And it'sa usually competitive business.

(08:37):
So we thought that the best way for usto probably market and sell it was see if
we could set up a small tasting room.
We took a piece of property thatbelonged to us across the street,
and a portion of itbelonged to our neighbors.
And we worked out a rental deal with them.And we opened our first tasting room,
which was called Malibu Wines.

(08:57):
And I remember going there andmeeting the young French little
gal who was working for us. Very sweet,very charming new wine. And I would,
how, what did we do? And she goes,oh, we did really well today.
We sold a hundred dollars with, andI go, oh, that's great, ,
because we can afford to pay you. Andthat was the most important thing.
But that was the beginning of it.

(09:19):
And it grew to be a verysuccessful venue where we,
you know, had a,
a weekend that would just not be uncommonfor on a Saturday Sunday to have two
or 3000 people.
Oh, wow. That's a good, yeah. That's a.
Fan out. And it was a great, great venue.
And you mentioned exotic animals.
You had other things going onbesides wine that most tasting rooms

(09:41):
didn't have.
Right. Well, the TA waskind of a separate venue .
But across the streetwhere the main ranch was,
because we collected exotics and raised
them cats.
Or zebras or, you know.
Everything. We had zebras,we had water buffalo,
we had bison and American bison,which are beautiful buffaloes.

(10:04):
We had all kinds of alpacasand llamas and smaller animals.
And then later in our effortto collect the animals,
I did acquire a giraffe. I acquireda very famous giraf named Stanley,
who was a movie star. And he wasin a lot of movies and commercials.
And one his fa to claim was thathe was the giraffe in the film,

(10:28):
hangover three. Okay. Or they wentunder the bridge and I lost his head.
, he became a very controversialdraft after our fire. And it's,
it's a whole story in itself.
So speaking of the fire, the,
the Woolsey fire came throughin 20 17, 20 18, 20 18.
November the ninth, 2018, the Woolseyfire came through that entire area.

(10:50):
And one of the things that we didstarting in the afternoon before
the fire on the eighth,
we implemented our evacuation plan forall of our animals because we had 150
Wow. Plus large animals, boardedhorses, and then all of our own animals.
And we moved them into a particularpasture that had no burn,

(11:12):
nothing could burn, it was nofeed. And we did lose an animal.
I'm very proud of that. And weworked almost all night moving.
And the animals are very sensitive,they sense something's happening. Right.
But we moved them, we gotthem into that safe pasture.
And while we lost everythingwe owned on that property,
more than a hundredstructures, our main home,

(11:32):
our offices we didn't lose one animal.
And we can replace allthe other stuff. Right.
And so speaking of replacing, how, howwas it after, I mean now of quite force,
you had the tragedy of the Palisadesjust recently and it's just devastating.
But having gone through that you are,you've, you've replanted the grapes.

(11:54):
We did replant the grapes,
that's an agri agricul thatis an agricultural effort .
And we're able to do that.
And I am very sad to say that of those
100 structures that were on thatproperty, we haven't built any fact.
And history kind of repeats itself sadly,

(12:16):
because my son and his wife,who lived in the Palisades,
lost their home in this last fire. Mm.
So it was very much deja vuand very tragic and sad . And
we hope there's a path for us toget through all of this bureaucracy
to be able to rebuild the ranch. Right.
Because it was a wonderful place andoffered so many things to so many

(12:41):
people. Right. We sharedit with a lot. Right.
And in the meantime, you are, life doesgo forward and you're not slowing down.
And you have nine children andyou've branched out to Texas and
you've got wine tasting andgoing on in other places.
Correct. Yeah.
We do have nine wonderfulkids and we also have 11

(13:03):
beautiful grandchildren.
And that's really what our prioritiesare and what's important to us.
And also ended up buying abeautiful ranch in Texas.
And we do we actuallytransported every one of our
exotics. And we have, youknow, today just a beautiful,

(13:24):
beautiful property withmagnificent animals,
acquired many more African animals there.
And are those can folks come, I mean,
is come and taste wine and, and beer and,
and visit the animals?
Not yet. Okay. Okay. That's,
we will schedule to open oursafari business on that ranch in

(13:45):
Brock, Texas in probably June orJuly of this year. Oh, really?
So let's just startright around the corner.
Right around the corner.
So about the time this video airs, you'llbe, you'll be opening your your doors.
Yeah. Right. Awesome.And where's that located?
It's Brock, Texas,
which is probably 30 minutes tothe west of Fort Worth, Texas.
And it's also next to another famoustown in Texas called Weatherford,

(14:08):
which is the cutting horse capitalof the world. Oh yeah. Yeah.
That know it. . So back tothe, back to the wine growing,
what, what goes into good, goodgrapes that make good, good wine?
My opinion is in order to have good wine,
you have to start with good grapes.
And the key to having good grapesis so important as to what you do

(14:34):
and how you grow them. Obviously youhave to have good soil . So that's up to,
not to us, that's up to God or other,other nature. Okay. Mother nature. Okay.
So if you have that good soil,
then of course you test that soil beforeyou decide to plant it. And then you,
how you take care ofthem is critical. Okay.
What you do from every step of we control

(14:58):
and prop,
seeing that they're getting the propernutrients and adequate waters and
understand the areaaspect of it. You know,
knowing that the irrigate yourgrapes at the top of the hill,
the ones at the bottom are gonna get morewater 'cause it's gonna run downhill.
So there's a lot of little things likethat that can all affect the quality of
the grapes that you create. And if youare able to create some wonderful grapes,

(15:20):
which thank goodness we have beenable to you can make some grape wines.
Great grape plants.
And how many acres have youreplanted at the Malibu location?
Originally there was 70 acres. Okay.
a substantial portion of those wereburned. And the fire we replanted,

(15:41):
we maybe had 10 acres thatwere saved from the fire.
We planted another 40.
So we're at a level of about50 acres or 50,000 binds today.
Oh.
Wow. I got it.
And all of that then comes hereinto your other tasting locations?
Correct.
Ultimately, when it's in thebottle, that's where it goes. Now,

(16:02):
here and in Fort Worth.
Your nine children. Are anyinvolved in the wine business?
Yes. two of them are two of my daughtersare involved in the wine business.
My daughter Madison actuallymoved to Texas even before we
were there. She and herboyfriend, now her fiance,
and actually they're gonna be gettingmarried in October of this year.

(16:25):
She's very much involved in thewine business and really helped me
tremendously with the development of thattasting room from the construction and
the licensing and everything else.My other daughter that's there now,
she just recently moved there.
That's Ronee Madison was the firstyoung lady I was talking about.

(16:46):
Ronee has moved there recently andshe has taken over the position of
assistant manager to the manager there,
as well as heading up the wineclub for the Texas facility.
Okay. And she did a greatjob when she was here,
was very much in all shewas magic this facility.
And I, I did read that there's otheractivities here besides wine tasting.

(17:09):
You've got candle makingand jewelry and pizza
and yes, we have other.
Activity. Wonderful things from,
from yoga to pizza tojewelry and candles and
really good fun stuff thatpeople can do as they sip.
And it's a fun thing. Peoplelove it. And our current manager,

(17:32):
Devin Freeman,
has done a wonderful job in implementingall this program and running the show
here. And she's doing a great.
Curate job. I, I never knewyoga and wine mixed, but I,
I think I like that idea.
Yeah. Okay. That's right.
are, is the publiccoming back to the ranch.
At this point in time? We are doing an,

(17:52):
it's a business of one of my son'schain where he has wind hikes.
Any any challenges that you overcame?Like anything like adversity that you,
that you didn't think something was gonnahappen and then like things all kind
of fell together?
That's been my life.
Right. .
Well, yeah.

(18:12):
It's pretty unique that you didbuild a a ranch of a thousand
acres in the Santa MonicaMountains. I mean that's, you know,
the second biggest metropolis inthe United States. You're, you know,
you were long than a thousand.
Acres. I that's right. I was,
and I still have the ranch and whenI come here, that's where we stay.

(18:34):
I am a temporary mobilehome structure that we,
it's beautiful the saying but I notable to do the things that I really
wanted to do and have beendoing. And for whatever I was,
whether I was legislated outof the ability to do that I,
I can't do them. And I'm, I wanna complywith whatever the rules are. Sure.

(18:58):
We've asked for a particular approvalsto get back to doing weddings and
events. We do do movie locations.
What they have permitted usto do and come back and do.
I'm not sure why they agreedto allow us to do that.
I'm thankful that they do and we'dlove to build a branch back and.
And so much history there. Imean, just, oh yeah. You know.

(19:18):
There's,
there is some other history about theranch that I can share it with you.
It has an archeological site onit where there are cave paintings
of the Chumash Indians. Oh wow.
And they're one of the most significantpaintings in all of the Santa Monicas
and going up to Santa Barbara and up tothe Channel Islands because that's where

(19:39):
the Indians that lived. Right.
And when I first acquired the ranch,
I reached out to UCLA, theDepartment of Archeology.
There was a professor and a doctorby the name of Brian Dillon and
Dr. Dillon. And he,
along with another gentleman who wrotea beautiful book on the Chumash Indians

(20:02):
of the painting came, they didan archeological dig with their,
one of their graduatearcheological archeology classes.
And they found all kinds ofinteresting Chumash artifacts,
which I of course gave to UCLA.
And so that in itself isjust a historic you know,
natural

(20:24):
thing that we have on that property thenhave shared with everybody only with
supervision. 'cause I don'twant anybody to Oh sure.
But we make it available to anybody.
We had hundreds of school groups thathave come up that were studying Indians at
that level of their elementary school.
Brought 'em up always to share thosethings with 'em. But we love sharing,

(20:44):
we love giving,
we love to be with all ofour friends and neighbors and
it was a shame the fire first, butthen I really, the county second. Well.
Hopefully you,
hopefully you bounce back and of courseyou've got your ventures in Texas to.
I'm gonna try. I am absolutely gonnatry. Texas makes life a lot easier.

(21:06):
They're far less regulated.They're far more reasonable. Yep.
And I have heard that. Yeah. Andit's a different way of life.
So how can folks find find this place?
Do you have guys havea a Facebook website?
We have a website andit's malibu wines.com and
we're open seven days a week. Okay. and

(21:31):
you can find us online and wewelcome everybody to come and
join us here. Great day, greatafternoon, great fun. And you really,
in the middle of the Valley, afew minutes from Calabasas. Very,
very easy to find.
And if you want to, you know,do candle making or yoga,

(21:51):
then you gotta look at the calendar.
Otherwise we'll get on our email listand you'll get notification of all the
things that are going on. We doa lot of fun stuff there. Well.
Ronnie Semler, thank you so muchfor being our guest on the road.
I'm honored to be here. Thankyou very much for asking.
Absolutely.
We've loved learning about you andyour life and your family and your wine
operation.
Come see us in Texas. Absolutely. Okay.

(22:12):
We would love to sharewhat we're doing there.
Thank you for joining us On theRoad. We wanna thank our sponsor,
Opus Escrow and be sureto tune in next time.