Share Your Table - Chuck Furuya Interviews Jim Clendenen Au Bon Climat

Chuck Furuya Interviews Jim Clendenen Au Bon Climat

Au Bon Climat

He really is larger than life: Jim Clendenen, master vintner of Au Bon Climat, named “Winemaker of the Year” by Food & Wine magazine and even “Winemaker of the World” by Germany’s Wein Gourmet, is a legend in his own time. He once worked three harvests in one year—at wineries in California, Australia, and France; the next year, he joined now ex-partner Adam Tolmach in starting Au Bon Climat. Inducted last year into the James Beard Foundation’s Who’s Who in Food and Wine in America, Clendenen has been making pinot noir, chardonnay, pinot blanc and pinot gris for 30 years.

Chuck’s Favorite Jim Clendenen Wines

2005 AU BON CLIMAT Pinot Noir Isabelle Morgan. This truly magnificent, sultry, intriguing, complex, seductively textured Reserve Pinot Noir is produced from Jim’s VERY best barrels of wine... and named after his only daughter.
2005 CF WINES Cabernet Sauvignon. Produced exclusively for Hawaii, this is a Cabernet crafted by a Pinot Noir maker and is therefore more elegant, feminine, finesseful, UN-heavy and well textured. The 2005 is 100% Cabernet Sauvignon from Stallion Vineyard in Happy Canyon with 25% Stolpman Vineyard (Ballad Canyon) fruit blended in.
2005 AU BON CLIMAT Chardonnay 25th Anniversary. A very special Reserve bottling to commemorate 25 years of producing world-class Chardonnay in the Santa Barbara appellation. This wine is very sleek, elegant, classy, highly refined and very reminiscent of a French white Burgundy.
2005 BRICCO BUON NATALE Barbera. A very provocative, intriguingly rustic Italian lookalike, grown high atop the Bien Nacido hill from suitcased Italian vine cuttings (from some of Italy's legendary wine masters). How can one not love such elegance, suave-ability and class... done Italian style?
2005 ICI LA BAS Pinot Noir Elke Vineyard. Another completely different "look" for Jim Clendenen. Ici La Bas (Here and There) is a label dedicated to Chardonnay and Pinot Noir grown outside the Santa Barbara appellation. In this case, the fruit comes from Elke Vineyard located in the Anderon Valley and results in a much more masculine, musky, structured Pinot, which still has Clendenen's signature texture and balance.