{"id":931,"date":"2018-04-30T14:16:54","date_gmt":"2018-04-30T14:16:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=931"},"modified":"2018-04-30T14:16:54","modified_gmt":"2018-04-30T14:16:54","slug":"au-bon-climat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=931","title":{"rendered":"Au Bon Climat"},"content":{"rendered":"

Santa Barbara has two areas for wine tasting.\u00a0 The so-called Funk Zone<\/a> is right along the seaside and while there are good wines to be tasted there, the overall ambiance is a little, well, funky.\u00a0 It\u2019s more a place to party on a lovely warm day than to get serious about tasting fine wines.\u00a0 A few miles uptown is quite a different story.\u00a0 There you will find better known wineries\u2019 tasting rooms, more plush in their furnishings, surrounded by ritzier restaurants and shops.\u00a0 Among the best of them is the tasting room of Au Bon Climat (http:\/\/www.aubonclimat.com<\/a>), also known familiarly as ABC.<\/p>\n

The winery is the life\u2019s 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.\u00a0\u00a0 He has long been portrayed, by himself and by others, as Wine\u2019s Wild Boy, including a very public spat with (of all people) Robert Parker.\u00a0 He even makes a wine called Wild Boy, with his shaggy face right there on the label.<\/p>\n

But what\u2019s in the bottle belies Clendenen\u2019s outlandish reputation.\u00a0 Au Bon Climat makes California style Burgundian wines, with great respect for the terroir of California\u2019s Central Coast.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

One of the attractions of tasting at ABC is the rather huge selection of wines available for tasting.\u00a0 Moreover, the atmosphere of the winery makes you want to stay awhile and taste them all.\u00a0 The room is well lit, with a large window looking out onto the street.\u00a0 It has a clubby feel, albeit a club with a lot of wine bottles stacked up on the walls.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Au Bon Climat\u2019s Tasting Room.\u00a0 <\/em>Photo courtesy of the winery.<\/em><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a good idea to let your server figure out what kinds of wine you like and then lead you through them.\u00a0 There really are too many to attempt to taste them all and the range of stylistic differences argues against trying.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 Their own Le Bon Climat vineyard was not our favorite; Bien Nacido was.\u00a0 ABC is hardly the only grower in Santa Maria County\u2019s Bien Nacido vineyard, but we were informed that they farm the largest swath with the best sunshine aspect.<\/p>\n

Sanford & Benedict is another vineyard where they source their grapes.\u00a0 It\u2019s an interesting experience to walk a few blocks to Sanford<\/a>\u2019s own tasting room \u00a0and see how two different winemakers treat grapes from the same (or a least similar) terroir.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 There are six tasting rooms there, so you can spend a day tasting wines in Santa Barbara and not walk more than 100 yards.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Santa Barbara has two areas for wine tasting.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 It\u2019s more a place to party on a lovely warm day than to get serious about tasting fine wines.\u00a0 A … Continue reading Au Bon Climat<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":933,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/931\/revisions\/933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}