2011 Pinot Noir Isabelle

As the trend toward more graceful, low-octane wines moves ahead in Santa Barbara County and elsewhere, Jim Clendenen has emerged as perhaps the eminence grise of the movement. That probably rubs him the wrong way a bit as he says that "since (he's) never really changed path since the beginning, everything still seems like it always has" and that he definitely doesn't feel like he's slowing down and moving into his dotage. The Burgundy-trained (back in the late 1970s) Clendenen is definitely as opinionated, emotive and charmingly cantankerous as when I first met him in the late 1980s—even his hair's the same, just greyer–and he's more than happy to take well-deserved credit for paving the way for this generation of winemakers who are trying to make wines "that speak, not yell" at the drinker. But he doesn't see himself as a recipe or dogma follower and, for example, isn't afraid of using new oak "if the wine wants it." He's made many different wines with different expressions over the years, he says, but he hopes that they all have a common theme of reflecting where they're from and what each vintage "gave the fruit."

Jim Clendenen makes a wide range of wines across several distinct labels. I was only able to taste a smattering of representative wines, but what I saw was terrific. There are plenty of gems among these new releases, but none is more surprising than the 2006 Nebbiolo, which is probably not the wine most people associate with Clendenen, one of the true pioneers in Santa Barbara.