Behind the Mind of Au Bon Climat's Jim Clendenen

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In May, @kt_canfield and I met Jim Clendenen, one of the most charismatic and influential winemakers in California. Here's the account of our lunch with him.
 
Meeting with Jim Clendenen, “the mind behind” Santa Maria’s acclaimed Au Bon Climat, would be a difficult feat for any journalist hoping to come out with a clear argument to their story. This lack of clarity, however, only reinforces how integral Clendenen’s work is for California wine, still just a teenager in search of its place in the global industry.

California Pinot Noir is emerging as a serious wine category, particularly in Sonoma and Mendocino Counties, so it was enlightening to meet one of the original architects. Clendenen, who made his first vintage in 1982, is based in Santa Maria Valley and his iconoclastic and individual wines are standard bearers for California Pinot Noir and Chardonnay.

Katie Canfield meets Jim Clendenen

Clendenen wasn’t always considered so mainstream. Like many of the old guard of California wine – think Frog’s Leap in Napa – his wines were not especially fashionable in the 1990s and early 2000s: not brash, fruity, or alcoholic enough. “The concept of 16% wines is one I never understood,” Clendenen exclaims. “Are you so stupid with your palate that you’re paying $300 for wines from Napa that are undrinkable? … Do you want to fight with your wife every night?”
 
The global reputation of California wine has for many years been based largely on Napa Valley, which has succeeded in producing collectable wines at sky-high prices. “Some of the most disappointed people as they get older are collectors of [Napa wine],” Clendenen counters, as they realize that the $50 bottles of wine they had purchased before the 2008 crash were better and more drinkable than the $350 bottles they had bought to collect. 

The question posed in recent trade discourse has been whether or not California wine is changing, evolving into something more restrained and food friendly – and if this trend is just a passing fad or truly an evolution. If so, many California wineries are well placed to take advantage of these new attitudes toward food and wine.

Clendenen preparing lunch at his winery

“Food and wine pairing in America has simultaneously gotten more informed and more complicated,” Clendenen says. “Wine and food pairing is a slam dunk. If you’ve got food and you’ve got wine, that’s already good. If you’re drinking wine as a cocktail, that’s already bad. That was America in the ’70s and ’80s. The bigger, the more opulent, the more single, stand-alone statement the wine got, the more delicious it was.” For Clendenen, wine and food are ideally suited counterparts, an idea augmented by the home-cooked meals that he serves regularly to his staff, alongside a line-up of new and older vintages of the wines.
 
Part of Au Bon Climat’s reputation has been gained by their presence in restaurants across the US. Clendenen has long made house wines for many of the restaurants he supplies. This is also helping make Clendenen’s wines fashionable once again, even if he isn’t doing anything differently from what he has always done. His food-friendly wines link into the US’s sommelier-led wine culture, and are readily available on wine lists suddenly short of Burgundy.
 
Although Clendenen has a tremendous respect for others in the wine industry, he does not mince his opinions. “Oregon is the most confused place on the planet,” he claims. “The whackier you plant, the less chance you have of making any money. There are limits to profitability because of yields.” He does see Oregon providing competition to California in that the state is attracting elite French winemakers, especially due to the recent “nightmare” vintages in Burgundy: “What they don’t realize is that Oregon is always a nightmare.”
 
Burgundy itself presents an opportunity of a different sort. The 2013 vintage in Burgundy looked good “until greatness was snatched away at the last minute.” As a result of three consecutively difficult vintages, consumers have had to turn elsewhere and established producers such as Au Bon Climat are well placed to take advantage. “I believe that Burgundy and I peacefully co-exist. With yields so low there right now it’s a huge opportunity, but only because I’ve been doing it for thirty-three years.” 

Much of what Clendenen says applies to the winemaking scene throughout California. Brian Mast, of San Francisco’s Wait-Mast Cellars, also believes that, “I don't feel like we're competing with Burgundy, for example when we're trying to get our wines on a list at a nice restaurant. I think it is a little more compartmentalized, where some lists will have a mix of Burgundies and domestic Pinot Noir.” It is the vibrant food scene that will draw consumers to these wines “as winemaking and consumer tastes are starting to lean towards more balanced, food-friendly wines.” 

The dynamic of US wine culture is changing. With Jim Clendenen’s long experience making world-class Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, smaller-scale producers in California can follow his lead to put the regions in the global spotlight.

Santa Barbara

Santa Barbara

With summer-loving students on their skateboards, surfers riding the waves that roll up to sandy beaches, and the main street lined with tall palm trees, Santa Barbara is as Californian as it gets. The culture is laid-back, self-confident, and independent, keen to assert its differences from the rest of the state even if to the outsider it seems quintessentially Californian.

the area

Santa Barbara is a coastal town about 150km north of Los Angeles and is as far south as quality winemaking gets in California. Santa Ynez Valley AVA is 30 minutes inland and within it is Santa Rita Hills AVA, which is the coolest AVA in California. Winds and fog come from the Pacific Ocean, cooling pocketed microclimates that are ideal for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. Further north, about an hour and a half from Santa Barbara, is the large Santa Maria Valley AVA which is also cooled by coastal fog and which became famous for its Pinot Noirs in the 1980s. There are lots of vineyards here, but most wineries prefer to base themselves within the more attractive area of Santa Ynez.

Santa Ynez Valley

the towns

Solvang

I stayed in Solvang, a small tourist town in Santa Ynez Valley and one of the strangest places I've visited. It was founded by Danish settlers over a hundred years ago and now functions as a model Denmark village. There are pizza-selling windmills rising around the town, gift shops pushing Danish embroidery, quasi-Danish pubs and restaurants, and Danish flags blowing in the breeze besides American ones. Danish is not spoken. It's a busy town full of tourists from all over the world; clearly, this Danish-American hybrid holds some fascination that draws people in.

Further south along the coast, Santa Barbara is a university surfing town. The main street is State Street, a long boulevard lined with shops, restaurants, and palm trees, leading to the ocean. Further away from the centre is Isla Vista, the university area known for its party scene, populated with tanned students on skateboards wearing back-to-front baseball hats. I only got to spend a couple of hours in Santa Barbara, but I liked the relaxed, easy, seaside way of life.

the wines

view from Au Bon Climat

The AVAs are renowned for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay - Santa Barbara was made famous by Sideways nearly ten years ago. (The Hitching Post, a small, nondescript wooden restaurant featured in the film, is near Solvang.) The Pinots are fruity and oaky, yet with depth, structure, and subtlety. The use of oak in the Chardonnays varies, but they are marked by tropical fruits. Riesling, unusually for California, can also be successful because of Santa Rita Hills's cool climate. Rhône grapes also do well: Syrah is peppery in Santa Rita Hills and fuller and fruitier in the rest of Santa Ynez Valley. The two wineries which define the area are Au Bon Climat and Qupé: the former specialise in Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, while Qupé are known for their Rhône varieties - their single-varietal Roussanne and Marsanne are unique, ageworthy wines that develop for years in the bottle.

Au Bon Climat

The purpose of my visit to Santa Barbara was for a wedding, but that enabled me to meet Jim Clendenen at his Au Bon Climat winery in Santa Maria Valley - not only that, but to share a lunch cooked by Clendenen himself. 

Clendenen's lunch

Clendenen is a maverick: something of a hippy who since his first vintage in 1982 has built a 70,000-case winery; a brash, up-front individual who makes wine of individual character appreciated in the finest restaurants around the world; passionate about wine and the industry and wonderfully dismissive of big names (off the record of course); and a loving father with two ex-wives.

Au Bon Climat make almost exclusively Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The major exception is Hildegard, a wine that demonstrates Clendenen's willingness to challenge preconceived truths. The blend is Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, and Aligoté, the three grapes that were planted on Corton-Charlemagne, before Burgundy changed the rules to allow only Chardonnay in the Grands Crus. Clendenen wished to name the wine C. Charlemagne, but was advised that was not a good idea, so called it after Charlemagne's wife instead. An historic, world-class tribute to a style of wine that Burgundy refuses to make any more, the Hildegard is one of my favourite wines and I got to try the 2012 and 2006 side by side. The 2006 proved just how ageworthy this elegant but bold wine is, retaining its rich creaminess and acidity while gaining mature nutty notes.

For non-Burgundy wines, Clendenen uses the Clendenen Family Vineyards label. The 2008 Syrah-Viognier is a fruity wine that has a classy, concentrated structure: I was lucky to take an open bottle back with me and it was still drinking wonderfully well two days later. The 2012 Sauvignon Blanc is outstanding too, fermented and aged in a small amount of new oak: the grape is taken seriously instead of being a New Zealand wannabe.

The lunch was predictably epic, with risotto, chicken stew, vegetables, bread, and salad to choose from, accompanied by 15 wines. The rich Chardonnays worked less well with the heavy food than the Sauvignon Blanc and Qupé's 2011 Roussanne, both of whose light acidity balanced the food. Of the several different Pinots, the Isabelle - named after Jim's daughter - was my favourite with its dark fruits, smoky intensity, and gripping tannins.

view from Riverbench winery, Santa Maria Valley

The AVAs of Santa Barbara are young, with quality wine dating back only to the 1980s. In that time, they have quickly established themselves as producers of world-class Chardonnay and Pinot Noir - though the Rhône grapes deserve more recognition too. It's quite a different area from Napa for instance, cooler in climate but also in sensibility. The producers are quietly learning their trade, aware of their inexperience but unpretentiously and rightly confident in the quality of their wines.

Go West!

American wine is wonderfully diverse and unpredictable - unsurprisingly, given it's made in each of the fifty states - but for most there's only one place that comes to mind when thinking of American wine: California. The state produces 90% of the country's wine, but this dominance can do both the state and the country a disservice. Stereotypes of Californian wine as big, bold, and fruity persist, overlooking the range of styles across the state, and the high quality wines coming from Washington and Oregon, and to a lesser degree New York and Virginia, get overlooked. This is why it was so exciting to see the very different states of California, Oregon, and Washington get together to offer a joint trade tasting in London - so exciting, in fact, that I travelled down to the unreal city itself to partake. Here is a selection of the wines I tasted.

California

two of the great Santa Barbara wineries: Au Bon Climat and Qupé

 

Au Bon Climat

The AVAs to the south of San Francisco in Santa Barbara County are quite different from the classical Californian regions to the north of the city. Although the first grapes were planted more than two hundred years ago, it's only in the last thirty years or so that serious wine has been made there. The area is cooled significantly by ocean winds and fogs - the nearer to the ocean, the cooler the region. This makes it ideal territory for the Burgundy grapes, Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

Au Bon Climat's French name (it means "well-exposed vineyard") provides a clue about the style of wine: although these wines are true to California, they are hugely influenced by France and do the most to challenge preconceptions of Californian wine. The wines oscillate between Burgundian and Californian, so it was great to taste the wines back to back and directly compare the different expressions of Chardonnay and Pinot Noir (though I was disappointed the incomparable Hildegaard - a unique blend of Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, and Aligoté - was missing). The Wild Boy Chardonnay remains, despite its ludicrous label, my favourite high-quality affordable Chardonnay, but the two wines which stood out in this tasting were the Chardonnay and Pinot Noir from the Sanford & Benedict vineyard in Santa Rita AVA, the coolest of the area's regions. I'd love to taste these two wines blind alongside some Burgundy.

 

Seghesio

The day brought home to me just how good Zinfandel can be when made well with proper attention and the Zinfandels from Seghesio, based in Sonoma County with vineyards in Anderson and Russian River Valleys, may just have been the best of the show. The 2011 Sonoma Old Vine Zinfandel had an exceptional balance of oak and fruit, but I thought the 2011 Rockpile Zinfandel surpassed it for complexity. Rockpile is a new sub-AVA in northern Sonoma; to qualify for the AVA, vineyards must be higher than 800ft, free from the fog that doesn't rise above that level. It was interesting to learn of an AVA independent of, rather than dependent on, the state's famous fog. Unusually, Seghesio also produce wine from two Italian grapes: Arneis, a Piemonte white grape, and Sangiovese, the great Tuscan black grape. I've tasted the Arneis before and it's an excellent wine, though it takes a while to open up. The 2010 Anderson Valley Sangiovese is made from vines that are descended from plantings from the turn of the last century: Prohibition pretty much killed off plantings of the grape, so these vines are unique. The wine's expensive and I'm not sure it compares with Tuscan wines of the same price; at the same time, it was hard to fault. 

Oregon

Adelsheim are one of the oldest wineries in the state and their wines are finally tiptoeing their wine into the UK. The 2012 Willamette Valley Chardonnay is subtle and balanced, especially compared to some of the mammoth Californian Chardonnays I tasted. It's Pinot Noir that they specialise in, though; here I found myself preferring the less expensive wine - the grainy earthiness of the 2011 Willamette Valley over the lighter but more textured 2011 Elizabeth's Reserve.

Adelsheim

Perhaps the best white of the day was the Trisaetum 2012 Ribbon Ridge Riesling. Riesling's a grape which should do very well in Oregon but has never taken off: Pinot Noir dominates and perceptions in the States of Riesling are shaped by sweeter, inexpensive wines from Washington. This Riesling demonstrates exactly what the grape is capable of in Oregon in the right hands. 

Washington

Washington suffers from making wines of all levels of quality from far too many grapes. I also think that high-quality wineries have spent too long targeting the rest of the US market; an obvious target, but one which involves navigating the complex and prohibitive three-tier distribution system. The UK and Northern Europe markets are much more suitable areas for Washington to demonstrate its quality. 

For this reason, I was delighted to see Betz Family Winery at the trade show. One of many wineries unavailable in the UK, I'd wanted to visit them when I was in Seattle last September but they are closed to the public. Speaking to their new owner, Steve Griessel, in London, it was clear he had realised that Northern Europe presents a more profitable and accessible market than other US states (he was off to Sweden the next day). The wines, Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah based, are expensive but worth the price and I'm looking forward to seeing them in the UK. 

Washington red wines at their best can be characterised as being European in style but with fuller fruit flavours, quite different from their Californian equivalents. This is true of the Betz wines and also of one my favourite wineries anywhere, Andrew Will. The 2010 Two Blondes is an exceptional wine, full of fruit flavours but backed up with real structure. 2010 was a cool year and the wine is just 12.8%; drinking well now, it's still got a few years left in it. Two Blondes is a vineyard which winemaker Chris Camarda planted in 2000 and the wines are proving extremely popular. I wonder if they're replacing in importance the wines from the Ciel du Cheval vineyard; still a very good wine, the 2009 didn't have the immediacy of the Two Blondes nor the sophistication of Sorella from the same vintage. Always Cabernet Sauvignon heavy and always serious, the 2009 expression of Sorella is just beginning to open up and has ten to fifteen years left in it at the very least. From the best vineyard for Cabernet in the state (Champoux), if you wonder whether Washington wine can compete with Bordeaux or, for that matter, Napa Valley, then here's your answer.