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.

Wine Community Honors Jim Clendenen

 

Frank Ostini knew he wanted to offer a special lot at last November’s Santa Barbara Wine Auction in tribute to his great friend, wine legend Jim Clendenen, but he wasn’t sure what shape it might take. He knew he would host the event at his Hitching Post II restaurant — a beloved spot for his friend who had recently passed away — but beyond that, the shape was unclear.

“Then Roy Yamaguchi bought eight tickets and volunteered to cook,” Ostini told the crowd at the Clendenen tribute event held Saturday, February 4, “and I knew what I was doing.” Yamaguchi came from Hawaii to honor Clendenen, and many others came from all over the country, and of course the local wine community came out — with 100 people attending the exclusive evening. At a $1,000 a plate, that meant Ostini raised a fine sum for Direct Relief and Community Health Centers, which is only fitting as Clendenen helped forge the connection between Direct Relief and the wine community decades ago.

Care to read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

WOPN 2022: Old Friends

Despite the many years I've been fortunate enough to attend the World of Pinot Noir (and is there a more annoying way to start an article?), I've never quite cracked the nut on the best way to cover it. There's just so much, and that's only considering Friday's and Saturday's Grand Tastings events. Over the two days at least 165 wines poured over my palate, so distinctions can get a bit blurry, and I'm not just talking about my handwritten notes.

That said, I decided one way to approach this year is splitting up some highlights into two different stories, this one called Old Friends, and then a later post I will call New Finds. (There might be a third post called Some Foods.) And to prove how hard it is to follow even my own outline, I'm going to begin with an old friend creating new finds--Larry Schaffer and his tercero wines. Those familiar with him know him to be warm, wise, chatty (he named two of his wine blends Verbiage), and an endless experimenter. He makes mainly Rhone varietals, but then there's that quenching Gewürtz he calls Outlier (since no one can pronounce Gewürztraminer), his Aberration red blend he asks you to chill, both a Cinsault and a Mourvèdre rosé.... He's hard to stop.

So, of course, he had to give in, finally, to the clarion call of Santa Barbara County and make some Pinot. And what did he show up with at WOPN? Four! All his 2020 fruit comes from Kessler-Haak and he's made a blend of three clones, each of which you can buy bottled on its own, too. Think of it as a delicious science experiment. As he put it, he thinks in Rhone terms, and compares the blend to a GSM, with the 113 clone playing the Grenache and providing the high notes, the Pommard 4 taking the Syrah role and providing the balance and bulk of fruit, and then the 114 doing its Mourvèdre impression and providing the undertones. At this point I think the blend stands out as it is so balanced, but who knows what time might show--the 114 seemed youngest as a solo bottling, and those who like their Pinots floral should gravitate to the Pommard. But, as always with Larry, it's all good. Especially if you get some of his homemade blue cheese bread with it, as tasters got to do. (Plus, bonus Shelby Sim of Visit the Santa Ynez Valley usie at the table--a good thing, as I'm so bad about taking photos of people.)

Of course if I go on at this length for every wine/winery I hope to write about this post will be longer than a CVS receipt and less valuable (and darn, I do need a two-for-one on toothpaste after all the red wine), so I'll try to speed things up. For example, here's a two-fer, what the pourer at the Hilt table called "The Matt Dees fun zone," since their aisle portion backed right up to the Mail Road position on the next aisle. I have praised Dees many a time and surely will do so again, but geez he's rocking it. At the Hilt has the the home field advantage of getting to play with Radian and Bentrock fruit (more on both in a bit), which means such wildness and bite to the wines in the best of ways. You can't drink the 2019 Hilt Radian--a wine to geek out on--without doing your best Colin Clive imitation and shouting, "It's alive!!"

Meanwhile over at Mail Road they were offering a vertical from 2018 to 2015, which was fascinating as the wine shifted from even to odd years, the former ones more opulent, the latter more Burgundian. Talk about a lesson in vintages, at least at Mt. Carmel Vineyard (we will visit Mt. Carmel again in the New Finds write up). Another lesson, I make a funny face when I silently express my joy in tasing a good wine, at least based on the pourers at this table after I had theirs. When one asked which vintage I preferred, I could only reply, "The last one I have tasted." Power, elegance, grace.

As for Hilt follow ups, I generally spend some time making sure I get to taste as many wines made from Radian and Bentrock as possible (and thank you, Matt and owner Stan Kroenke for still selling some of this fruit--how sad our area would be if everyone clamped down on what they owned like we were some BS place like Napa). Those sites never make anything less than very good wine, but two particular standouts this WOPN were the 2018 Radian from SAMsARA, which pushed the racy Radian experience to a delicious edge thanks with 100% whole cluster and 50% new French oak, and the 2015 Montemar Bentrock--yep, that's their current release of it, and it might have needed all that time as it's still a gnarly monster of Pinot goodness.

Speaking of monsters, I like big format bottles, I cannot lie, and every WOPN Paul Lato is sure to deliver on that front. It's always bit of a zoo at his table, but that 2013 Drum Canyon you see above was worth it, a spectacular expression of Sta. Rita Hills fruit with oodles of spicy notes and a finish longer than this whole blog post. Same for a Brewer-Clifton 2010 Cargasacchi from a bottle nearly as tall as me (I might exaggerate, but only a tad), the kind of pour you just walk around the hall and finish, as it would be a sin to pour it out after it waited for you, just getting better for over a decade. 

Not to be outdone with wines with some age, Gray Hartley as usual was behind the Hitching Post table with two oldie-but-goodies, a 2000 Sanford & Benedict and a 2002 Fiddlestix. The former had some bricking, sure, but still so much life, and then old notes only French Burgundies are supposed to get like graphite and tea. The Fiddlestix was so vibrant you wouldn't guess it was two decades in, and then amidst all the fruit, some mushroomy notes began to bloom on the finish. Such fun wines, and one of the reasons you go to an event like this--to get what you'd never have a shot at otherwise. I mean, he wasn't even hiding these under the table.

Then I want to highlight a few wines that just capture a sense of place, and in one case even a sense of an era. You could almost start a friction-created blaze trying to pass people to get near the Sea Smoke table (get it, where there's smoke there's fire?), and the 2019 Southing struts like the Sta. Rita Hills on steroids, and I say that as someone who loved every one of Barry Bonds' 73 homers in 2001, a pre-pursuit of balance year this lovable lug of a Pinot also reminded me of. Foxen rocked, as usual, but this WOPN I was most taken by their Santa Maria Valley bottling, in particular the 2017 Block 8 Bien Nacido. That's BN's highest elevation, so maybe that helps make it so wonderfully aromatic I was practically content just sniffing it, but after tasting it wrote "people don't know what cherry in Pinot Noir is if they haven't tasted this wine." 

Continuing north through California up Edna Valley way there's the 2018 Stephen Ross Stone Corral Vineyard, a site Ross shares with the alas not at the event Kynsi. Kettmann in the Wine Enthusiast put it this way, "Dark-cherry and black-raspberry aromas meet with loads of crushed slate and dried loam as well as hibiscus and rosewater on the dynamic nose of this bottling. The palate is also very rocky and mineral-driven, while showing darker plum and purple-flower flavors." That works. The mineral-driven nature really woke up my palate on a long Saturday afternoon.

To almost end, let's consider something northy north in California, one of my favorite vineyards, Savoy in Anderson Valley. Now owned by FEL, I've been going there since it was Breggo many moons ago, and it still makes one of the most elegant and haunting of Pinots. It's as if you can sense the nearby redwoods lurking in each bottle.

All that said, I'd be remiss not to mention two of the better out from under the table moments. Despite Chardonnay being Pinot's Burgundian brother (or is that sister? does it depend upon the wine?), and despite almost all of the wineries present making both, it's kind of considered bad form to play up your Chardonnays. Some place just went and poured them, and more power to them. Some hid theirs away. For example, Liquid Farm offered me a 2015 Golden Slope Chardonnay and lord knows it deserves its tip-of-the-cap name to the Cote d’Or, so creamy and luscious (it almost recalled one of my favorite SBC whites, Stolpman's L'Avion Roussanne, somehow).

In a complete different, equally pleasing way, Greg Brewer had his latest just-to-be-released 2021 Diatom Chardonnay hidden away. As Brewer puts it on his website, "Diatom is motivated by the pursuit of subtraction and refinement," which makes it a vision of purity. Alas, at that point in the tasting, close to close at 6 pm, I managed to make this brilliant observation as he drew the bottle out and said it was his new release, "You mean a 2022?"

Uh, no, this year's wines aren't released yet, as they are still sleeping in baby buds, dummy. I do want to give myself a bit of a break, though--what with no in-person WOPN last year, and the excitement of getting to see so many great wine friends again this year, it's tough to know what time it is.

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.

The Wonderful World of WALT...at Clos Pepe

Let's face it, not every winery's proprietor has been the US Ambassador to Austria. But if you took part in one of the World of Pinot Noir's kick off events for its 2020 fete, you would have had the chance to hear and meet Kathryn Walt Hall, who is the head of WALT Wines. The event, which is a mouthful (in both title and what you got if you had attended): "WALT Wines Presents Mile Marker 60: Clos Pepe Estate Vineyard Experience."

WALT took on a 15 year lease with Clos Pepe in 2015, committing to one of the more beloved properties in the Sta. Rita Hills. For instance, just its pond is this photogenic:

After a walk through the vineyard, just at the nascence of bud break (here's hoping all the rain forecast for the rest of March doesn't bring too much cold weather too), we settled in for a vertical tasting of this site with 30 acres of vines, almost all pinot noir (a darn good thing for a WOPN event). Think mostly Pommard clones as the base of most of the wines, with some 667, 777, and 115 for those more floral lifting notes, too.

The panel for the tasting featured Hall herself, WALT winemaker Megan Gunderson, Adam Lee from Siduri, who had made wines from the site for decades (and is a witty chatter, so who doesn't want him on their panel?), and Stephen Pepe himself. I won't bore with you all the details, not that the details are boring, but they go down a lot better if you're drinking the wines as you hear them. Suffice to say, Lee pointed out that with the slopes of the site and the ways some spots get more of the famed transverse valley winds from the Pacific a mere nine miles west, he didn't realize the diversity of the property at first in such a small area. He added, "And diversity means complexity--it's truly truly remarkable."

The lineup of wines proved him correct, even if the surprisingly warm early spring day and its sun perhaps warmed our samples a bit beyond the best pinot tasting temperature. The vertical included a block 6 barrel sample from 2019, so far from a finished wine, if certainly robust, and fermented in concrete!--sub-theme for the day, pinot-exploration! And then took us to the 2013, 2014, 2016 and 2017, the current on-the-market vintage. No 2015, as that was a big frost year. The older wines were aging well, showing off the acidity typical of the region that keeps them lean mean red berry machines. The newer wines are that and even more FRUIT; as my Indy colleague in his Wine Enthusiast hat Matt Kettmann put it about the 2017, which he gave 94 points, "Powerful aromas of black cherry, tobacco, clove, chocolate and oak are heavy but pleasing on this bold style of pinot noir. The lush, delicious and potent palate delivers more of the same, with black-cherry and tobacco flavors sprinkled with crushed nutmeg and vanilla."

The one fascinating wild card was the first public tasting of Adam Lee's new project with Chateauneuf-du-Pape star Philippe Cambie, a 2019 Beau Marchais pinot from, of course, Clos Pepe Vineyard. Since it was Cambie's first pinot, he had no sense of the "right" way to do things and the wine, at least so far (it just went into barrel in November), seems to be a powerhouse. While, as I said earlier, the region's wines tend to age well thanks to their acidity, this pinot actually has tannins that should hold it up. But we are talking pinot that was on its skins for a long 48 days. Fascinating.

Then there was a feast grilled up by Frank Ostini and the Hitching Post II gang, and what could be wrong with that, especially with lots of the 2017 WALT to drink with it? Tri-tip over red oak with salsa and beans. And lots of other yummy things. We were very lucky. There was even a mini-concert by Anderson Daniels to end the event, a performer who channels Tennessee even if he's from Minnesota. Accents, sometimes they're hard to figure. Hard to deny a song called "Warm Up with a Cold One" at a drinking event, though.

Htiching the SB Wine Wagon to Some Amazing Pioneers

I'm going to try to tell the story of an event in a single bottle. Last Saturday (11/23) was the Third Annual Heritage Tasting held by the Pioneers of Santa Barbara County, a fantastically temperate fall day at Pico in Los Alamos. (Quick digression--do you want Chef Drew's praline bacon with some Lindquist syrah? Well, do you want the taste equivalent of a millionaire dollar lotto card on your tongue?) And sure, the winemaking starpower was there, with Richard Sanford and Fred Brander and Karen Steinwachs and Doug Margerum, for instance, along one row of tables so tight they couldn't swing a wine bottle without conking one of their compatriots.

And that's just the start of all the goodness that Morgan Clendenen, organizer, cheerleader, wrangler, planner, rogue viral video content maker, promoter, brought together for this spectacular shindig to remind us of them that got us here. You can go read the list at the website, but we're talking back in the days before our AVAs were subdividing like mops for Mickey Mouse to fight.

What anyone there most learned, however, is pioneers don't just get encased in amber. Nope, this group just keeps pioneering--messing with hops in their Sauv Blanc, making one of the first Amaros in the U.S., figuring out how to tame, but only enough, the wildness of an extreme vineyard site like Radian.

That pioneering knows enough, though, not to forget. (Wise winemakers watch paralleling the folly of the tyro creative writer who ignorantly declares, "I don't need to read what's come before--I am new!") So look above at what Frank Ostini and Gray Hartley are doing now--a Chenin Blanc. Frank is quick to point across the tasting at Louis Lucas pouring his own Lucas & Lewellen Wines, saying he was smart enough to hang on to some 40 year old Chenin vines amidst the more profitable chardonnay (because, you know, give the people what they white want). And now Hitching Post is making Forerunner (a lovely forwards and backwards cap-tipping name, no?), a snappy blast of pear, persimmon and a zip of lime zest. Pioneering indeed.

WOPN Wine Winds Back Time

It's not every day I swirl and sniff a wine and almost cry. But it's not every day I get to taste a 1997 Foxen Julia's Vineyard, and suddenly get sensorily sucked back a couple of decades into my life when I was a much younger man just beginning to learn and love Santa Barbara wines. Julia's Vineyard was one of the first vineyard designates I can recall once I moved out to California in 1994 (beyond the venerable Bien Nacido, of course), and something about that lovely enveloping barbecue+spice+deep fruit nose erased years for me today at a Julia's Vineyard Seminar and Luncheon at the Wine Cask today as an estimable overture to World of Pinot Noir.

Of course it doesn't hurt to have Julia herself at the lunch tasting: The vineyard was planted in 1988 when she was 6 months old. (And yes, Katherine's Vineyard, famed for its chardonnay, is named after Julia's sister.) It's owned by Jackson Family Wines, the ninth-largest wine enterprise in the United States that owns 55 wineries globally (including Brewer-Clifton, Byron, Cambria, Nielson locally).

But despite all that BIG, they certainly care about small, and about relationships. For the event featured five wineries/winemakers who have been making beautiful juice from Julia's grapes for decades now: Cambria (as they get to play with the whole vineyard), plus Lumen/Lane Tanner, Byron, Hitching Post, and Foxen. MC master sommelier Michael Jordan (no relation to any other famous MJs) asserted that he not only "had a flag and a drum for the Santa Maria Valley," citing its 212 days of hang time for pinot grapes, more than anywhere in the world, but also, "if there was an American Grand Cru designation, Julia's would be it."

Surely there's nothing better than tasting through bottlings of this vineyard from 1996 to a 2018 Lumen barrel sample that Lane Tanner cleverly compared to tasting cookie dough, as we had to imagine what it would be like after it had time to "bake," so to speak. (It's going to be a scrumptious cookie.) As she said about Julia's in general, "There's always a smokiness...I always imagine that bar you go into late at night and there's a gorgeous woman at the end of the bar and you don't know if you should go there....."

Fanciful, sure, but it's a vineyard that leads to wine that leads to such heady thoughts, something to dream on. For as Jordan put it, "We like to over-complicate ans over-simplify at the same time, not just as sommeliers--it's the human condition." A wine as profound as one from Julia's let's you find a just right space, with flavors expansive yet precise, with structure exact and elastic.

(The panel, from l-r: Michael Jordan, Lane Tanner, Will Henry, Jonathan Nagy, Frank Ostini, Bill Wathen, Dick Dore, Gray Hartley, Julia Jackson, Jill Russell.)

Sip (at) This: Hitching Post Tasting Room

If you’re from these parts, you know the star of that movie-that-shall-not-be-named wasn’t Paul Giamatti or Virginia Madsen but the Hitching Post II and its pinot noir. The funny thing is that for decades its pinot could only be tasted at the HP II Restaurant in Buellton — until now, for winemakers Frank Ostini and Gray Hartley just opened their first tasting room, in perfect time for their winery’s 40th vintage.

Want ot read the rest then do so at the Independent's site.

A Wide Wide World of Pinot and More

(photo credit: Jeremy Ball)

There's no such thing as a World of Pinot Noir in Santa Barbara without the two gentlemen in the photo above, so let's start with them, which is pretty much what I did Friday at WOPN since there they were as I entered the ballroom at the Bacara. How can you not want to visit Gray Hartley and Frank Ostini from Hitching Post? Yeah, Yeah, movie, blah blah blah. We're talking guys who make killer juice and seem to enjoy it more than practically anyone and therefore you better too. They were kindly pairing up 2007s and 2014s of Julia's, Highliner, and Bien Nacido, and what we quickly learned was SB pinot does age well (we learned this again when Rick Longoria poured his 2013 and 2008 Fe Ciega).

OK, so the danger with any review of a WOPN weekend is diving so quickly into the details you forget the broad strokes, plus, simply put, so much great wine! I'm not going to write about every luscious swirl and sip, and frankly I admitted early on Friday in my notes "you're going to run out of adjectives for lovely, George," and late on Friday I wrote, after inhaling deep on a Brewer-Clifton 2008 Sta. Rita Hills, "I want to smell like this--everyone would love me!" That was Friday. I was back Saturday too, and at that point was reduced to pleasured grunting, practically.

One important thing to stress first: if you didn't realize it, we live in a golden age of pinot noir. First, cause people know what they're doing with it now, even in California where we've only had decades and not centuries like those lucky French to practice. But you can even get fascinating stuff from Spain (try Alta Pavina) or Austria (Weingut Wieninger). Second, because the world is one big market until someone messes that up (no tariffs, please). Third, who knows where our climate goes in a world where the EPA is run by someone who doesn't believe in the EPA? (I'm looking forward to that first atheist pope.)

 

 This year's WOPN was also a stunning showcase for what people are doing with the fruit from Gap's Crown on the Sonoma Coast. Expression, Guarachi, Lutum, Ram's Gate, Black Kite, Saxon Brown--the brilliant wines just kept coming from this spot that hits some magic warm enough yet sea-breeze-cooled calculus. It's never really cheap but it's always luscious.

Then there's these lessons, too--perhaps we're supposed to be looking at chardonnay from Santa Barbara anyway. The folks who were semi-sneaking pours of it delighted (well, Sonoma's Hirsch did too), and part of that was just the break from more cherry and berry; think of the chard as palate cleanser, if better than any sorbet. But winemaker Matt Dees from The Hilt insisted, "The chardonnay is so much better," and he could be right. 

Or it could be all the wine is better in so many fine hands, from old-timers like Lane Tanner, pouring a 1991 Lane Tanner pinot that still held some fruit and fascinating graphite, to Square Peg, dryfarming pinot in Sonoma in the middle of a zinfandel vineyard. Because then there's even something like Dolin's non-WOPN pour, The Blue Note, a Bordeaux blend...from the hills above Malibu. Like I said, it's a wonderful, unbelievable world.

Why Santa Barbara Might Need to Blush about Its Roses

To claim you don’t like rosé is about the same as saying you don’t like cheese or people. While Limburger or a crowded bus might be too stinky for you, have you tried a nutty-gouda delight like Ewephoria or met Pope Francis? While these particular examples might not float your cheese or human character boat, I promise there’s a rosé out there that will.

Especially if you’re drinking Santa Barbara County rosé. That point became transparently clear at a recent Santa Barbara Vintners Road Trip to Santa Barbara itself, the first after the group had such success bringing the brand to Los Angeles recently. On a relatively balmy day on Sama Sama’s back patio, 15 area producers poured a rosé or three and made clear, as usual, for variety this region can’t be beat.

Want to read the rest then do so at the Santa Barbara Vintners blog.

(P.S. that cocktail in the photo was from the rosé dinner later that evening at Sama Sama)

Bullet Point-esque Round Up. WOPN: Day 2

What else can I say then I got to spend a Saturday afternoon eating cheese and Pinot and then chocolate truffles and Pinot? Fromagerie Sophie not only nailed their pairings but also introduced me to seven cheeses I had never had before. (Go find Olivet Fain, Langres, and Chiriboga Obere Mu Blue right now.) And then the always spectacular Jessica Foster blew everyone away by finding chocolate that worked with the not-as-deep Pinot.

Some lovely random quotes and notes: "Cheese B.O.," "You cheese flipping robot!," "It's almost like the chocolate chews itself."

Media room. Three walls of Pinot. Lots of highlights, but perhaps most special as most rare, the Rusack 2013 from Santa Catalina. It's no mere stunt--a bit more bramble, a bit more wild, a lot more lovely.

Steve Clifton, no stranger to rock and roll himself, and his wife Chrystal, are killing it with the new La Voix label. Part of the fun is the wines all got rock names, including the 2012 Reflektor, from the Machado Vineyard, which I waxed eloquently about yesterday. So, yes, drink and dance madly.

Discovery! Withers, which we couldn't pass up given Branden Bidwell, wine director of the Wine Cask was tasting at their table and singing praises. an incredible range, from an Anderson Valley Pinot to Rhone blends from the Sierra Foothills you want to drink.

Ridiculous deliciousness from folks I've previewed in the run up to WOPN: E16, Hitching Post, Failla, Ampelos.

Highliner Is a Headliner at Hitching Post

Imagine they had a Pinot Fest and Hitching Post didn't come. (I'm assuming you've all seen that little film Sideways.) World of Pinot Noir knows better than that, so of course Frank Ostini and Gray Hartley (pictured above at an event at Alisal Ranch last year) will be there pouring their numerous Pinots at the Saturday Pinot Noir by the Sea Tasting. Their table is a fine spot to see what happens when winemakers blend the best of the Santa Maria Valley with Sta. Rita Hills, tying up Santa Barbara County in a beautiful Burgundy bow. As for which of their blends or single vineyard wines they'll be offering, Gray says, "We haven’t decided yet. Let’s let it be a surprise; anticipation is always a good thing." But Highliner (their top Pinot blend) is a better thing, Gray. Please pour that!

Still one of my greatest wine memories is attending a "tasting" at the Hitching Post II itself a good 10-15 years ago where for something ridiculously cheap (maybe $20) you got to take part in a vertical tasting of H-O Pinots going back to ones they made at home in the early '80s. That was something, an evolution of an era and region in one delightful drink around a room.

Hitching Post Wines capture not only some of Santa Barbara's best grapes, but the warmth of its makers--it's impossible not to be charmed by Gray and Frank. As Gray puts it, they provide, "Value — quality — honest soulful Pinots that can be enjoyed now and for many years to come." In fact, he looks forward to "being able to enjoy sharing 2016 Hitching Post Wine with friends and family in 2050." (May we all make it that long and remain worth sharing.)

As for the growing season at hand, Gray hopes, "That we have another vintage to experience with this mistress of allure. There is always a state of… I prefer to be in the state of here and now. Relying on the more than three decades of experience making Pinot Noir with Frank Ostini and enjoying the everyday decisions that make up what will become 2016 is I what I’m excited about."

A Rosé Explainer and Buying Guide

To be just a mite fanciful, one could consider rosé the platypus of wines. Neither red nor white, it's cute and interesting (and good by a pool), but hard to figure. So we here at KCET decided it's time for a rosé explainer, followed by some of the better Southern California versions you can get right now. And while they can age if you can keep your hands off them, they are meant for instant seasonal pleasure.

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

Sip This: Hitching Post Highliner Pinot Noir

Hartley-Ostini Hitching Post Highliner Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir 2012: In the debate between whether Santa Maria Valley or Sta. Rita Hills pinot noir reigns supreme, Gray Hartley and Frank Ostini wisely place their bet in the middle with their flagship wine Highliner, a blend from premium fruit from both regions. The exact vineyards shifts from vintage to vintage, but with the wealth of ripeness from 2012, they couldn’t go wrong.

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

Hello Crabby!

We make dinner home often, if not often enough. So I figure we're like most people, pleased take-out exists, but quick to feel guilty, too. The plate above we made at home, but we also completely relied on the kindness of strangers. That's crab cakes over some some arugula (pretty much 4 out of 5 dishes in our house include arugula, if just in the salad alongside--peppery greens, what more could one want?). Topped with a sauce whipped up from Vegenaise, Hitching Post's Smoked Tomato Pesto (onions, garlic, smoked, tomatoes, lime juice, spices), and capers for yet more acid and texture. And then a kale-Brussels sprouts salad that's vaguely Caesar-ish and all together delish.

We even cheated on the crab cakes, buying them from the Santa Barbara Fish Market pre-made. They come from a place called Handy, based out of Maryland with crab out of Thailand, but even with all that airfare, they sure are good. Very little filler, no shell, all sweet crab. Fry 'em up in some sunflower oil (about 5 minutes a side) and they're browned and crisp and fresh.

And then you want a bit of everything in a bite, it's one of those meals. The arugula, dressed in a bit of very good olive oil (in our case from Global Gardens) and a bit of Maldon smoked sea salt, because a hint of smoke in every meal makes us feel more primal, etc., complicates the fish in lovely, uncomplicated ways. (Crab cake as zen koan.) The sauce adds richness, acid to the oil. Color. And who doesn't want more smoke and tomato on pretty much anything neutral?

Better yet, this all took nothing to do. (It helped the kale salad was left over from Friday's dinner, and what's nice is the still chilled from the fridge dressing adds an emulsified richness.) Sure, you can buy crab meat and cook up garlic and red pepper and mix it all with panko and herbs and find it doesn't hold (those recipes who pretend you can do this without any egg are just cruel teases), but if someone wants to make you no-filler good ones to buy and fry....

As for the wine, that Refugio Ranch Ineseno is a blend to make everyone love white wine, no matter how much they prefer red. Roussane over Viognier, it's all Rhone white grape goodness, rich but not too, bursting with exotic fruits and spices and making the meal more exotic than it would be on its own.

World of Pinot Noir: Pairings with Mushrooms and Uni

While the annual World of Pinot Noir event might be best known for its two days of grand tastings featuring wines from over 200 producers, it also takes its job exploring the world, not just the taste, of pinot quite seriously. For instance this year's version of the annual event, to be held March 6th and 7th at the Bacara Resort & Spa in Santa Barbara, has scheduled a Foodie Frenzy Seminar Pairing, exploring a classic pinot noir match with mushrooms, along with a push of the spiky envelope -- uni.

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

Celebrating "Sideways" at 10

Some movies, at best, get a DVD re-release on their tenth anniversaries. Sideways, 2004's surprise Oscar-lauded tale of a sodden Santa Ynez bachelor party romp focusing on a mismatched pair of friends, sad-sack Miles and fading-actor Jack, well, it recently scored a bunch of fine fêtes instead. For as much as the film starred Paul Giamatti, Virginia Madsen, Thomas Haden Church, and Sandra Oh, it also starred Santa Barbara wine country. And Santa Barbara wine country likes to throw parties.

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