Au Bon Climat Estate Bottled White Table Wine “Hildegard” 2015 In the Fall of 2018 I took a trip to Santa Barbara, CA to visit a few selective wineries and taste some of their current offerings, particularly the Rhone blends. There were four of us tasting wines and my comments, on each of the wines tasted, incorporate nuances from everyone’s palate. It was a great trip, the wines were outstanding and the folks I met at each of the wineries were extremely informative, helpful and very generous with their time. The wineries have “Wine Clubs” which offer some tremendous, small production, wines that can only be obtained directly from the…
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Clendenen Family Vineyards Aligoté 2014 I recently took a trip to CA to visit my daughter to celebrate her birthday and wanted to taste some great wines I cannot readily get back east. We visited Au Bon Climat, and I was introduced to some of Jim Clendenen’s, (the “Mind Behind” Au Bon Climat since 1982), projects of passion that allow him to make artisan, small lots of distinctive wines from a wider spectrum of grape varietals under different brands, for example his Aligoté. There are few legacy wineries in America. A legacy winery is a winery where the owner is committed to the future, thinking long term, taking actions and…