Walk into the tasting room on Anacapa Street and the first thing you notice is the quiet. No thumping playlist, no theme. Just glasses, a wall of bottles, and wines that taste like Burgundy by way of the Santa Maria fog. Au Bon Climat is the house that Jim Clendenen built, the producer that taught the wine world that Santa Barbara County could make Pinot Noir and Chardonnay with restraint, brightness, and the patience to age.

The story

In 1982, two young winemakers set up shop in a converted dairy barn at the Los Alamos Vineyard with almost no money and an outsized idea. Jim Clendenen and Adam Tolmach picked the grapes themselves, made the wine, sold it, and delivered it, because they could not afford to hire anyone. They named the place Au Bon Climat, French for “the good exposure,” a vineyard term for a slope that catches the light just right. The name was a statement of intent. They were not chasing the big, sweet, oaky style sweeping California at the time. They wanted the Burgundy they loved, made honestly under a California sun.

Clendenen became one of the true pioneers of Santa Barbara wine, part of the first wave that put this stretch of coast on the world map in the 1970s and 80s. With his long mane of hair and his appetite for argument, food, and life, he earned the nickname the wild man of Santa Barbara wine. Behind the showmanship was a winemaker of rare conviction. He pushed for freshness and food-friendly elegance decades before those values became fashionable, and he never wavered. In 1989 the winery moved to a production facility at the storied Bien Nacido Vineyard, sharing the space with Bob Lindquist of Qupe. Tolmach left in 1990 to found Ojai Vineyard, and Clendenen carried Au Bon Climat forward as sole proprietor.

Through careful reinvestment from its own sales, the winery grew to more than 50,000 cases a year while collecting acclaim from critics around the globe. Clendenen passed away in 2021 at the age of 68, but the wines he shaped still carry his fingerprint: cooler, brighter, and built for the table rather than the spotlight.

The place

Au Bon Climat is rooted in the Santa Maria Valley, the cool northern corner of Santa Barbara County and one of the great cool-climate sites in California. The valley runs east to west, an unusual orientation that opens it like a funnel to the Pacific. Marine air and fog pour straight inland off the ocean, settling over the vines through the night and burning off slowly in the morning. The result is one of the longest growing seasons in the state. Grapes hang for weeks longer than they would inland, ripening slowly and holding onto the acid that keeps these wines alive.

The heart of the sourcing is Bien Nacido, first planted in 1973 on elevated bench land about 20 miles from the sea. It is one of the most famous vineyards in America, a name that appears on bottles from dozens of the country’s best producers. The cooling ocean influence lets the fruit develop full color and flavor without ever turning jammy. This is terroir as destiny: the fog is the reason the wines taste like somewhere, and that somewhere is unmistakably the Santa Maria Valley.

What they grow and make

At its core, Au Bon Climat is a Pinot Noir and Chardonnay house, the two great grapes of Burgundy, made here with cool-climate clarity. The Chardonnays are taut and mineral, leaning on bright orchard fruit and a fine seam of acidity rather than butter and oak. The Pinot Noirs are perfumed and red-fruited, with the savory, earthy undertow that makes them feel grown rather than manufactured. These are wines that reward a few years in the cellar and rarely shout.

The top tier is the Blue Series, the bottlings that carry the most history and the most feeling. The Isabelle Pinot Noir, named for Clendenen’s daughter, debuted in 1995, the year she was born, and is blended each vintage from the very best lots. The Knox Alexander Pinot Noir, named for his son, followed in 1999. Hildegard, named for his mother, is a white Burgundian-style blend of Pinot Gris, Pinot Blanc, and Aligote, an homage to the white wines of Corton-Charlemagne. Naming the flagships after his family tells you everything about how personal this project was. Alongside the icons, the range stretches across more than a dozen grape varieties and over a hundred wines, so a visit is a chance to taste far beyond the famous names.

Farming

Clendenen’s commitment to place extended to the dirt. In 1998 he bought 80 acres in Sisquoc, along the south side of the Sisquoc River in the Santa Maria Valley, and named it Le Bon Climat. He planted it with care, using low-vigor rootstock and tight spacing to coax concentration out of the cool site, and farmed it organically. The estate vineyard earned organic certification in 2003 and held it for years, a reflection of his belief that great wine starts in healthy ground. The estate vineyard was sold in 2022, but Bien Nacido and the network of cool-climate sites Clendenen trusted remain the backbone of the wines.

Visiting

You will not find Au Bon Climat at a sprawling estate. The tasting room sits in the historic Presidio neighborhood of downtown Santa Barbara, a short walk from State Street, surrounded by some of the oldest buildings in the city. It is an intimate, wine-first room where the focus is the glass in front of you and the long catalog of bottles behind the bar. Reservations are recommended through the Tock booking platform, with walk-ins welcomed when space allows. Because tasting room hours can shift by season, it is worth confirming the current schedule by phone or on the official site before you go.

Food pairing

These wines were built for the table, so pour them with food and they come alive. The cool-climate Chardonnay, all bright orchard fruit and racy acid, is a classic with roast chicken and lemon, with grilled halibut, or with a creamy pasta where the acid cuts the richness and resets your palate for the next bite. The Pinot Noir wants the things Burgundy has always wanted: seared duck breast, mushroom risotto, salmon off the grill. The savory, earthy notes in the wine bridge directly to the umami in mushrooms and the char on the fish, so the two read as one flavor. Reach for the Hildegard white blend with something a little richer, like a soft-rind cheese or a roast pork shoulder, where its texture and depth can stretch out. For a steakhouse cut or a heavily charred ribeye, look elsewhere. These reds are too delicate to stand up to that much fat and fire, and the wine will vanish. If you want a tailored match for a specific bottle and a specific dinner, our wine pairing generator will point you to the right plate.

To go deeper, explore the Santa Maria Valley AVA that gives these wines their cool-climate spine, browse the wider world of Santa Barbara wine, and read our guides to California Pinot Noir and California Chardonnay, the two grapes Au Bon Climat does best. When you are ready to plan a dinner around a bottle, the wine pairing generator does the matching for you.