The Producers Table
This is a series built around the growers, families, and estates behind the bottles. Each edition features a producer Ian Mendelsohn knows personally, has visited, or has worked alongside across a twenty-five year career in wine and spirits. These are not names on a label or bottles on a shelf. They are friends and colleagues earned through harvests, meals, and decades of shared work. What follows is not a tasting room experience. It is access built on trust.
Au Bon Climat
Au Bon Climat, founded by Jim Clendenen in 1982 and made on Bien Nacido Vineyard since 1990. His longtime team and his children, Isabelle and Knox, keep his Burgundian methods. Cool Santa Maria Valley fruit, picked for balance and freshness, but aging beautifully