WOPN 2025: Old Friends

One of the reasons I love going to World of Pinot Noir is that I've gone to WOPN before. Even better, many people I really like go year after year, or go AWOL for a few and then reappear and it's as thrilling as when the magician brings his missing assistant in a flash back to the stage. I love wine, obviously--just count the thousands of words I've spilled about it in my life. But I love people more. And lord knows, we need community right now. So thanks for all of that, WOPN. 

So what to my wondrous eyes should appear pouring at The Hilt table than Patrick Reynolds. I knew he had been working there for a few years now, but he will always be one of Santa Barbara's best bartenders in my head--even winning a Foodie from the Indy way back when--and he started the Farm-to-Bar Tuesdays at Wildcat/Bobcat with Shaun Belway. A man with impeccable taste and boundless creativity, he's always good for a few fun stories along the way, too. Plus, he was pouring Matt Dees' as ever norm-setting wine from The Hilt. This was winning WOPN bingo. (That got reinforced when the person tasting beside me was Don Schroeder, director of winemaking at Sea Smoke.)

It was a delightful flight of nine wines, so I won't write about them all. But some important lessons: evidently the talk around the water cooler, as Patrick put it, is Radian is Chardonnay, Bentrock is Pinot Noir. (Here's hoping I don't have it introduce you to two of Sta. Rita Hill's wildest, most wonderful vineyards.) Or to put it another way, Bentrock Pinot is a dog--"A wine that hugs you--thanks, I needed that!" while the Radian Pinot is a cat, and says, "No love until I kill you." That's all Reynolds. The festive and fabulous sparkling is hand riddled, so Patrick is happy they don't make more of it (it's at 125 cases now). And then the Estate 2022 Pinot, a blend of all three Hilt vineyards (Puerta Del Mar too) and a bit of Sanford & Benedict whole cluster, well, it's not as singularly distinctive but it is all the yummy, and it costs a lot less. Sign me up.

Even more than wondrous moment above, my orbs might have done the cartoon sproing out of my head when I spied Aaron Watty. The lucky of you might remember him from his days as a server at bouchon, or his very small production but high quality Big Tar Wines. Heck, I even wrote an Indy feature about a dinner he once chefed himself featuring his wines back in 2015. But he hightailed it from these parts for a bit, down at The Rose in Venice Beach. So to see him at the Joyce Wine Company Table was a delight. Turns out Joyce took over the rundown Ventana Winery in Soledad in 2020, and has slowly been restoring it, now with Watty's help as an assistant winemaker. 

The winery has a Joyce label that's all priced at $25 a bottle, "fresh, charming, easy drinking everyday wines," as they put it, from Albariño to Syrah. Then there's the Russell Joyce label, higher end, club member only, and also single vineyard goodies. I got to taste two of these, the 2023 Rusell Joyce Pinot Noir from Pelio Vineyard from the hilltops overlooking Monterey Bay on the Carmel Coast. "It brings the salinity I'm familiar with," Watty points out, comparing it to the fruit he knew from Duvarita Vineyard in Santa Barbara County. It was clean, fresh, bright. The 2023 Russell Joyce PN from Cortada Alta I liked even better, a hearty, very typical Santa Lucia Highlands, deep, dark berry Pinot from the highest elevation in the AVA. Watty told a great story of how Joyce could drive grapes carefully down the precipice-edged hill in perfect a little-to-the-left, a little-to-the-right correction balance, earning Aaron's trust, and paralleling the ways Joyce can finesse his way between tension and harmony with his wines.

Speaking of Aarons, it's always imperative to visit Aaron Walker from Pali Wine Co. at WOPN. (Yes, it seems I only hang out with really tall winemakers, now that I think about it, not that you have a photo of Walker here.) I've known him since he served wine in our house as part of the we need to bring it back again Indy series Make Me Dinner (and the unsaid, And Pour Me Wine) in 2013. My apology to him was he was my last table to visit on Friday, and I only hope I wasn't as blurry as my notes of the tasting are. The two big news item he share were that their Funk Zone tasting room was scheduled for a big remodel and that Pali in general is going focus more on their own Sta. Rita Hills vineyard, planted in 2012 in Gypsy Canyon. That direction bodes well based on my taste of the 2020 PN Pali Vineyard that nails what SRH can do; my notes was, "always what you want from where you want." Each of the 7 different clones used for this estate wine is hand-harvested separately and then fermented and aged individually, so Walker and his team can blend and balance as they see fit. That blend is then barrel-aged for a year-and-a-half in 50% new French oak, 50% neutral. The result is 100% scrumptious. Also notable was Pali's last offering from the renowned Fiddlestix Vineyard, a 2021, that practically vibrated with the tension of acid and fruit.

While Aaron Walker gets to focus on Pali's own fruit, Matt Brady continues SAMsARA's fine project--finding the best Santa Barbara sources and making the best wine possible from each. (Note I didn't get a photo of Matt or his wines, so the above image is from the winery's website--I'm such a writer first, or is that old guy first/last, who didn't grow up with social media--thankgod.) He even flipped the Hilt's water cooler script, pouring captivating 2021 Radian Pinot and 2022 Bentrock Chardonnay. Both exemplified what I've come to think of as SAMsARA's signature--each wine will surprise you with the depth of what it brings. I was going to say a kind of Phil Spector Wall of Sound but: 1) no one members what that means ("River Deep - Mountain High" anyone?), and 2) Spector was a crazy, murderous bastard, so why drag him into it. Brady's wine makes you want to contemplate, not kill, and then sigh in happiness considering their profundity. 

Speaking of profound, it would be hard to calculate all the good Karen Steinwachs has done for our region's wine industry. As you can see, she's not afraid to get her hand's dirty (again, not my photo). She's, and this list isn't exhaustive: a director and chairperson emeritus at WOPN; president of the Women Winemakers & Culinarians Foundation (who just had what looks like a great festival and I missed it all and I'm sad--my schedule is too crazy!); kindly helped staff the Santa Barbara Vintners table all weekend while other members off SBV were off in Korea and Japan, trying to build the SB brand there. She's always good for a few incisive quips but what's better, for making gorgeous wines as Seagrape Wine Co. At the SBV table she was pouring a 2022 Jump Up Pinot from Hibbits Ranch Vineyard. Matt Kettmann--speaking of old friends--wrote this about it in his 95 point Wine Enthusiast write-up: "Lovely aromas of raspberry, mulberry and black plum are decorated in complex waves of thyme and pepper on the nose of this single-vineyard expression from a vineyard just east of Lompoc. The zippy palate is brisk with pomegranate and raspberry flavors that are enlivened by sumac, cinnamon and blood orange touches." Exactly. Karen joked, "It includes all the clones [ten]. And yes, Michael Benedict was involved in its planting."

And yes, Gray Hartley of Hitching Post Wines was involved in WOPN. He and his partner Frank Ostini have been making SB Pinot for 40 years. (Heck, that was the year Mike Wallace grilled some rich New York jagoff about his future political ambitions on 60 Minutes.) Gray, ever with a twinkle in his eye, just loves making people happy with wines, and the occasional bad joke. For example, he told me that when people come up and tell him they knew of his wines before an Academy Award-winning film blew them and the Hitching Post restaurant up, he replies, "That's BS," and waits for their shocked expression before following up, "Before Sideways." While H-P's current releases were spot on, it's also good that at WOPN Hartley likes to open up older vintages to help prove SB Pinot manages just fine. After all, most of us don't cellar stuff away, especially given what real estate costs round these parts--square footage has to go to people sleeping and not wine bottle snoozes. One such pour was a 2001 from Fiddlestix Vineyard that was completely unbricked, fresh and fruit-driven to the point you would never guess it was old enough to drink itself. 

Heck, so is World of Pinot Noir at 25. Long may it pour/roar.

Sta. Rita Hills--20 Years of Excellence and Elegance

The Sta. Rita Hills Alliance threw itself a heck of a party this past weekend, as it's been 20 years SRH has been an official AVA--my how time flies when you're making great wine. But even better, it's 50 years since Richard Sanford and Michael Benedict planted the vineyard that bears their names, and fittingly, that's where the Wine and Fire festivities began on Thursday night.

I'm going to get a bit highfalutin here, so hang on, please. There's something holy about that mossy Sanford & Benedict barn. After all, it's not that often you get to stand where something began and by standing there totally feel history in all its effort and magic. Look at that wind whipping the banner in the photo, bringing the Pacific in thanks to Santa Barbara's famous transverse mountain ranges. That it's all beauteous scenery is just sort of bonus, but still. It makes me think of the Brancacci Chapel in Florence, where a young and too-soon-dead Masaccio figured out perspective and then painted some stunning murals that kick-started the Renaissance. Michelangelo would stand in front of these master paintings for hours, tracking to crack the new code. And we sort of know what he ended up doing.

Well, Richard Sanford, fortunately still with us, is our Masaccio, and since several generations of filmmakers have stood in Sanford & Benedict Vineyard and made some of the best Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs California has ever tasted. Many of them were being poured at Thursday's event. Bryan Babcock (more on him in a bit) poured a Pinot from the AVA's first vintage, for instance. Twenty years meant its fruit had faded, of course it was a bit brickish, but the acid life made it clear what a wine it once was.

(And on a crucial side note, that's a cutout of Jim Clendenen, who's spirit infused the weekend. While his winery Au Bon Climat is in the Santa Maria Valley, as a force of nature, friend, teacher, there was no escaping his influence anywhere in the county, and yes, he did make S&B wines that are still sophisticated and delicious.)

Gray Hartley and Frank Ostini were both on hand, regaling the crowd with stories at the Hitching Post table, while taking us on a hop-scotching vertical journey through their S&B's, 2018, '16, '14, '01, 1999. As someone said, "Hey, we're drinking a wine from a different century." But it was all very much S&B, which in general features lip-smacking dark cherry to blackberry fruit, but then something special--a saline hint of that marine influence, some coastal herbal notes (no, not the recent coastal herb crop...), some floral notes. Always complex. An S&B Pinot, for me, is like when you meet someone you find intriguing and they only get more lovely the more you get to know them. 

Again, the oldest vintages were interesting to taste as how often do you get that chance?, but I'd still argue the sweet spot for the wines was eight or nine years, as that HP 2014 and Richard Longoria's 2013 were simply singing arias of Pinot magnificence that night. And it wasn't just the "old" masters of SB winemaking that knocked it out of the park--we also delighted in the very first Dragonette S&B Pinot 2019, a wee but big baby that's worth waiting out, the delicious, light on its feet Liquid Farm S&B Pinot 2018, and two wines from Tyler, who poured both S&B Pinot and a supremely elegant S&B Chardonnay.

And Full of Life Flatbreads kept is happily munching away as we sipped, with their usually fine flatbreads, but also some killer summer-in-a-cup gazpacho and corn served as "ribs." They take a bandsaw to the cobs and then roast them in the pizza oven, serving them slathered with a garlicky aoli. 

Friday we got to attend the sold-out Dinner Honoring the Pioneers of the SRH La Paulee, held at the Alma Rosa Winery. What a group of honorees that was--Wes Hagen was emcee, and he led a pre-dinner panel of  Bryan Babcock of Babcock Winery, Greg Brewer of Brewer-Clifton, Ken Brown of Ken Brown Wines,  Kathy Joseph of Fiddlehead Cellars, Rick Longoria of Longoria Wines, Bruce McGuire of Lafond Winery, Frank Ostini of Hitching Post, and Richard Sanford of Alma Rosa. Everyone reminisced abut Jim Clendenen to start, an emotional, but still often humorous beginning, for as Hagen said after, "We didn't hold a moment of silence because Jim would have hated that." Instead, Joseph recalled his kindness letting her make her second and third vintages at his production facility for free, Sanford charmingly called him a "rascal," and Ostini summed it up by saying, "He always offered us a challenge...Jim was as important as any winemaker in California."

The panel also concluded with the naming of the 2021 Vintner of the Year, Bryan Babcock. Presenting the award, Hagen recalled decades ago when Babcock pulled him aside and said, in contradiction to some press at the time, "This isn't the west side of the Santa Ynez Valley, it's the Santa Rita Hills." And certainly the evening was a proof of that.

For, as you might know, a La Paulee dinner has its roots in Burgundy as a harvest celebration. The feast featured winemakers bringing their best wine both to impress and to say thank you to their crucial community. Things began with lots of sparkling from Flying Goat, Kessler-Haak, Pali, Sanford, and Spear, with Aaron Walker's Sparkling Rosé of Pinot Noir a definite highlight (plus, I got at least this picture!).

Then throughout the meal it sort of came down to what winemakers were sitting nearby as to what wines you got to enjoy. Luckily, we were next to Greg Brewer who shared a wealth of big bottle brilliance, from a 2011 S-D Chardonnay to a 2009 Ampelos Vineyard Pinot. Again, Brewer's wines proved a decade is a sweet spot for SRH wines, so if you have some stashed, drink up. (If you didn't hang on to any, that makes plenty of sense, too.) The honorees/pioneers were pretty good about making the rounds, too, so you got a sip of Babcock, a splash of Longoria, a taste of Fiddlehead, plus Kathy Joseph's story about how she beat rock promoters to the word Lollapalooza. Plus, many fun folks to dine with. (Side note: Wine Alliance, make it clearer you want guests to bring wine too, or drop that maybe they should. And no, I'm not just whining because I did bring a bottle and most other guests didn't.....)

And, of course, there was food, plenty of it, courtesy of the team from the Alisal Ranch led by chef Anthony Endy. Buffet feeding is always a bit tricky, but they pulled it off with aplomb and a lot of red oak--it was a true, classic Santa Maria style feast. But that said, it's always hard to compete with all the wine buzz at an event like this.

At that point I was celebrated out, but there were more events--focused tastings on aging wines, sparkling, and a grand tasting on Saturday at La Purisima Mission. It's been an amazing 20 years for this AVA, and one can only look forward to the next 200. To leave you with one last Sanford & Benedict image, here's a view out the barn itself, with all apologies to John Ford's The Searchers for the framing.

Wines for the Zombie Apocalypse

Maybe it's just with Halloween creeping around the calendar's corner and Walking Dead stumbling back on to AMC, but I've been wondering what winery might be the best to make zombie-fighting central if it ever comes to that. High on the list would be Pali Wine Co., partially because you get another winery to boot -- Tower 15 -- but mostly because winemaker Aaron Walker and his team make such a wide range of deliciousness, centered on pinot noir. If it's the apocalypse, I'm still going to want to be able to drink red, but a cabernet would probably be too heavy. Pinot seems perfect.

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's blog.

Night with the Museum Chef

Our irregular feature “Make Me Dinner!” is back, with another story of a pro doing the cooking in the humble home kitchens of regular folks, while keeping costs low, technique not too tricky, and end results tasty. And there will be wine — this is Santa Barbara, after all.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.