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Jim Clendenen / Photo by Kirk Irwin
In an industry loaded with gregarious personalities, winemaker Jim Clendenen, who died on May 15 at 68 years old, was cut from even more colorful cloth.
With a flowing mane of wild hair, intense eyes and fierce confidence, Clendenen, the owner of Au Bon Climat winery, spent his entire career promoting the wines of Santa Barbara County around the world. He proved that Pinot Noir and Chardonnay could be made in a leaner, Burgundian style despite abundant California sunshine, and mentored generations of winemakers-to-be.
He’s also remembered as a great father to his two children, a dear friend to dozens and a bon vivant who cooked and hosted long, leisurely lunches at his Santa Maria Valley winery whenever he wasn’t on the road.
In ‘Unsolaced,’ a writer returns with alarm about the present and future
By Gretel Ehrlich. Pantheon Books, 2021. 237 pages. $26.95. ’Unsolaced: Along the Way to All That Is, ’ by Gretel Ehrlich It’s been 37 years since “The Solace of Open Spaces,” Gretel Ehrlich’s well-known and loved classic book about her life in Wyoming, was published. After a dozen more books of lyrical writing about her life, travel, and inquiry into the fate of the world, she’s returned with what she calls a “bookend” to that early book. The essays in “Unsolaced,” some incorporating material from previous books and essays, form a sober recollection and reflection, not just of the author’s Wyoming years, but in response to her travels in Greenland, Africa, Kosovo, Japan, California and Alaska and the fragility of life on our planet. Throughout, Ehrlich, now in her 70s, struggles with the idea of finding solace in wide-open nature or anywhere at all, and redefines for herse