Santa Barbara has two areas for wine tasting. The so-called Funk Zone is right along the seaside and while there are good wines to be tasted there, the overall ambiance is a little, well, funky. It’s more a place to party on a lovely warm day than to get serious about tasting fine wines. A few miles uptown is quite a different story. There you will find better known wineries’ tasting rooms, more plush in their furnishings, surrounded by ritzier restaurants and shops. Among the best of them is the tasting room of Au Bon Climat (http://www.aubonclimat.com), also known familiarly as ABC.
The winery is the life’s work of a fellow named Jim Clendenen and everything about Au Bon Climat is a reflection of his philosophy of wine and, to a certain extent, of life. He has long been portrayed, by himself and by others, as Wine’s Wild Boy, including a very public spat with (of all people) Robert Parker. He even makes a wine called Wild Boy, with his shaggy face right there on the label.
But what’s in the bottle belies Clendenen’s outlandish reputation. Au Bon Climat makes California style Burgundian wines, with great respect for the terroir of California’s Central Coast. Best known for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, they also make Pinot Gris and Pinot Blanc under the Au Bon Climat label as well as several others that Clendenen has developed.
One of the attractions of tasting at ABC is the rather huge selection of wines available for tasting. Moreover, the atmosphere of the winery makes you want to stay awhile and taste them all. The room is well lit, with a large window looking out onto the street. It has a clubby feel, albeit a club with a lot of wine bottles stacked up on the walls.
Au Bon Climat’s Tasting Room. Photo courtesy of the winery.
It’s a good idea to let your server figure out what kinds of wine you like and then lead you through them. There really are too many to attempt to taste them all and the range of stylistic differences argues against trying. We gravitated towards deeply flavored Pinot Noirs, so we were treated to a sort of tour of vineyards where Au Bon Climat grows and sources grapes. Their own Le Bon Climat vineyard was not our favorite; Bien Nacido was. ABC is hardly the only grower in Santa Maria County’s Bien Nacido vineyard, but we were informed that they farm the largest swath with the best sunshine aspect.
Sanford & Benedict is another vineyard where they source their grapes. It’s an interesting experience to walk a few blocks to Sanford’s own tasting room and see how two different winemakers treat grapes from the same (or a least similar) terroir. Surprisingly and rather interestingly are the wines sold under the Barham Mendelson label because they are from Russian River in Sonoma County and not Central Coast at all.
Yet another factor making a visit to Au Bon Climat different is that it has the best positioning in what is effectively a beautiful wine tasting shopping mall called El Paseo. There are six tasting rooms there, so you can spend a day tasting wines in Santa Barbara and not walk more than 100 yards.