August '12 Santa Barbara Trip - Slightly Off the Beaten Path

We headed up for the Ampelos member party. We've been members for a few years now, and they know how to put on an excellent party. Great food, good atmosphere at their vineyard, and of course, lots of wine. In addition to the party, I was interested in checking out a few wineries that we hadn't been to yet. Brewer - Clifton and Transcendence are two wineries that I've heard great things about, but every time that I was in Lompoc, I was at the Wine Ghetto, and didn't feel like heading a few blocks over to their tasting rooms. But we were able to swing over their this time. Also, we decided to stop in Santa Barbara on our way home for dinner, and were able to check out Au Bon Climat finally.

Brewer - Clifton (wines $30-$56)
'10 Chardonnay, '10 Chardonnay - Sea Smoke, '09 Chardonnay - Gnesa, '10 Pinot Noir, '10 Pinot Noir - Machado, '10 Pinot Noir - Cargasacchi, '10 Pinot Noir - Mount Carmel
Brewer - Clifton is a partnership between Greg Brewer, who is the winemaker at Melville, and Steve Clifton, who owns and runs Palmina. We've visited both of those wineries in the past and really enjoyed them, so we figured that their partnership label should be good as well. The tasting room is sleek and artful, though a bit chilly because it's connected to their storage area. They pour two different varietals of wine - Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Each type had a Sta. Rita Hills bottle (grapes came from a handful of vineyards), and then a few vineyard specific bottles. The wines were all excellent, but pricey. I'd say that the Gnesa Chardonnay is the best Chardonnay that I've had in the Central Coast, but at $52, that's a steep cost for one of my least favorite wine types. In their defense, my aversion to Chards is the "fat, buttery, caramel" style, since Brewer - Clifton only uses neutral oak barrels, the wines aren't sloppy bastards. They were quite tasty in fact. We definitely enjoyed the Pinots as well - but were once again cowed by the price tags. We were completely enamoured with the Cargasacchi Pinot. It was intricate and floral. As young as the Pinots were, they tasted excellent already. Cool place, quality wines, moderately high prices.
Experience: B / Wines: B+

Transcendence Wines (wines $16-$45)
'11 Chardonnay - Zotovich, '09 Pinot Noir - Babcock, '09 "Parea" (Grenache/Syrah) - Larner, '09 Syrah, Kenneth Crawford '07 Syrah
Transcendence is the philanthropically-minded winery from Joey Gummere, formerly of Kenneth Crawford Winery. Each year, Transcendence designates one of their wines as a fundraiser and donates 100% of the sales of that wine to a chosen non-profit. Being a career non-profiteer, I totally dig this model. The tasting room conveys a yoga/eastern thinking vibe - peaceful and welcoming. Our host - Steve - was an awesome dude. He was very mellow, friendly and excited to share wine. He was even kind enough to have us sample some young Grenache from a barrel that was aging in the warehouse connected to the tasting room. The wines themselves varied from pretty good to very good for me. The Chard and Pinot were solid, and I definitely enjoyed the two Syrahs (especially considering the $16 and $28 price points). The Grenache/Syrah blend ("Parea") was not for me - though everyone else in my group loved it - so I'm not sure what happened there.
Experience: A- / Wines: B

Au Bon Climat Winery (wines $30-$45)
'08 Chardonnay, '04 "Hildegard" (Pinot Gris/Pinot Blanc/Aligote), '09 "Knox Alexander" Pinot Noir, '07 Pinot Noir - Nielson, '01 "Reservatum" (Sangiovese/Cabernet Franc/Merlot), '06 Petit Verdot - Bien Nacido
Jim Clendenen and his winery, Au Bon Climat, are an early institution to the Santa Barbara region. Jim's been involved in the wine industry since 1978, and created Au Bon Climat in 1982. Since then he's racked up numerous international awards and acclaim. The tasting room is in the busy State Street shopping area of Santa Barbara. We visited on a hot Sunday afternoon, and there was a weird vibe in the place. There were a lot of folks there, and I think that the staff were interested in bringing an end to the weekend. The place was very well decorated - hip and funky. I did not enjoy the wines very much. The whites tasted over-oaked to me, the reds were more preferable - especially the Pinots.
Experience: C / Wines: C+

There were interesting little hitches to this trip: such as getting bumped from our hotel and one of our friends having bronchitis on the trip, bad traffic, but that only seemed to highlight the brightness of the rest of it. Au Bon Climat was not as good as I imagined that it would be, but it was a gorgeous weekend and we really enjoyed Brewer - Clifton and Transcendence. It's my plan to continue to check out wineries that we haven't been to in the area, and I'm a bit afraid that we're going to have less quality experiences. Though this trip might be emblematic of future experiences - pretty darn good more often than not.