The global wine industry lost a pioneering winemaker with the sudden death of Jim Clendenen, founder of Santa Barbara County’s Au Bon Climat Winery. The Los Alamos resident was just 68 and died in his sleep on Saturday.
News of his death traveled like lightning across social media starting Sunday evening and continues as the legendary Clendenen’s family, friends, colleagues and longtime Santa Maria cellar crew struggle with and grieve his passing.
“When any big figure in our industry dies, it causes a wave, but with the loss of Jim, a tsunami washed through the wine industry yesterday,” Ethan Lindquist told me Tuesday morning.
His father, Bob Lindquist, founded Qupé Cellars in 1982 and has worked side by side with Clendenen for most of their respective careers. Lindquist now makes wine under the Lindquist Family Wines label and shares cellar space with Au Bon Climat and Clendenen’s second label, Clendenen Family Wines, at the winemaking facility located on Bien Nacido Vineyard in Santa Maria.
Clendenen’s former wife, Morgan Clendenen, founder of Cold Heaven Cellars, now resides in North Carolina. They are parents to Isabelle, 26, and Knox Alexander, 21. Isabelle lives locally and works in marketing at Au Bon Climat, and Knox is studying in Japan.
In a brief statement to me Monday, Morgan Clendenen wrote: “Jim was a beloved and devoted father, a visionary winemaker, and a generous stalwart supporter of Santa Barbara wine country. We are shocked and heartbroken.”
She noted on Facebook that memorial plans will be finalized in the coming weeks. No cause of death has been announced.
Jim Clendenen called himself “the mind behind” Au Bon Climat, the label he founded in 1982 with Adam Tolmach, who later started his own renowned label, Ojai Vineyard.
Clendenen was a driving force at “Zaca U,” or Zaca Mesa Winery, where fellow pioneering vintners Tolmach, Daniel Gehrs, Ken Brown and Chuck Carlson, among others, learned about winemaking from the ground up.
Widely known by the acronym ABC, Au Bon Climat features delicious pinot noir, chardonnay and pinot gris from the Clendenen estate vineyard in Los Alamos, Bien Nacido and Sanford & Benedict vineyards, as well as additional Santa Barbara County vineyards and some in the Willamette Valley of Oregon.
If he was “the mind behind” ABC, to the rest of the world Clendenen was “a visionary, a legend, larger than life, the godfather of Santa Barbara County wines, generous and a force of nature” to everyone he met, from local wine aficionados to fellow winemakers, and to the restaurateurs who bought and served his wine in New York, France, London and beyond.
I bumped into one such restaurateur on Monday. After work I drove straight to Solvang’s Valley Fresh Market in search of an ABC chardonnay with which to toast Clendenen. In the white wine aisle stood a man I recognized behind his mask. We eyed one another.
“Are you here for …?” I paused. “Yes, some ABC,” said he. Together, we scoured the shelves, but found only a bare shelf under the Au Bon Climat tag. But over in the red wine aisle were a few bottles of the 2016 Au Bon Climat La Bauge Au-dessus, Santa Maria Valley Pinot Noir. (The name translates to “Wild Party Upstairs”).
We each grabbed one bottle, said goodbye, paid for our wines and left the store.
“Jim was welcoming, generous and down to earth. He was the first to market Santa Barbara County wines throughout the world,” Shelby Sim, president and CEO of Visit SYV said Monday. Indeed, Clendenen marketed his label and that of others, helping the region earn its reputation as a powerhouse for a cross section of grape varietals.
Stephen Janes, president of the Santa Barbara Vintners’ board of directors and general manager at Margerum Wine Co., echoed others’ description of Clendenen as a leading pioneer of the region’s wines. “He promoted Santa Barbara County wines more than anyone,” he said.
“He loved the culture of food and wine, and was a mentor to hundreds of winemakers.”
One of those winemakers is Ethan Lindquist, who noted how both “my dad and Jim were the two iconic figures in my life” that led him into his own winemaking career. Lindquist founded the Ethan Wines label in 2001.
“Jim was just as big an influence on me as my dad.”
In 2019, Ethan Lindquist relocated to Philadelphia, where he is the beverage director for a restaurant group.
Lindquist recalled that, when he was a boy, his family resided across a field in Los Olivos from Clendenen and his first wife, Sarah Chamberlin. “As families, we shared many meals. Jim was an amazing cook, and even though I was young, when we were invited to the Clendenen’s, I knew that we’d eat well.
“I remember going over and being fascinated by Jim’s stories of wine and travel. To me, wine was about all about fun, friends, gathering and good food,” Lindquist said.
Will Henry, co-owner of Lumen Wines with Lane Tanner, first met Clendenen when he was still focused on brand management of Central Coast wines for the Henry Wine Group, founded by his late father, Warner Henry.
“It was down in Santa Barbara, and I called Jim to see if he might be interested in meeting me to talk about being represented by us,” Henry recalled. Given Clendenen’s reputation, “I felt as if I was calling a rock star.”
Clendenen agreed to meet Henry, but instead urged him to travel out to the Bien Nacido Vineyard and join the winery staff for lunch.
“I met Bob (Lindquist), Jim and the crew, and I also met Gavin Chanin for the first time,” Henry recalled, referring to the then-little-known young man who was being mentored by Clendenen. “Jim always wanted to include everybody in the fun.”
Tanner, noted Henry, “adored Jim,” as she’d worked alongside him earlier in her career, along with Frank Ostini and Gray Hartley of Hitching Post Wines.
“If there was a godfather of Santa Barbara County wines, Jim would be it. No one worked harder to promote the county’s wines,” Henry said. “He never tired of winemaking and he loved all the people who came to visit him.”
A native of Ohio, Clendenen moved with his family to Southern California when he was young.
In 1976, he graduated from UC Santa Barbara in pre-law. But he credited a school year spent traveling abroad and a subsequent trip to the Burgundy region of France with having led him to winemaking. And the rest is history.
In August 2013, I attended the 40th anniversary party for the esteemed Bien Nacido Vineyards, thrown for media, vineyard clients and the wine industry by the longtime owners of the site, the Miller family.
Stephen and Ladeen Miller, and their sons, Marshall and Nicholas, welcomed clients and other guests to the courtyard of the historic Ontiveros Adobe, located in the middle of the property. Bien Nacido Vineyards is planted to more than 800 acres of grapevines.
I approached Clendenen at a table that evening, and — like Henry — felt as if I was talking with a celebrity. But he was kind and gracious, and I felt welcomed.
— Laurie Jervis tweets at @lauriejervis and can be reached via winecountrywriter@gmail.com. The opinions expressed are her own.