The old proverb goes, “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy.” Well, I’ve gotten to know scores of winemakers over the years, but I’ve never met one without interesting stories to tell.
I thought I would ask Santa Barbara County winemakers about their favorite things to do outside of work, and the answers did not disappoint. Readers might discover a kinship that makes drinking a certain winemaker’s wine more enjoyable, or notice a correlation between a winemaking style and a favorite pastime.
Beginning with a fan of “America’s favorite pastime,” Qupé winemaker Bob Lindquist is an ardent Los Angeles Dodgers follower.
He moved to Southern California when he was 11 years old; less than a year later, the Dodgers won the 1965 World Series. Lindquist has been “true blue” ever since.
For many seasons, he’s been lucky enough to share with friends some highly coveted seats at Dodger Stadium, behind home plate!
“Qupé wine has been on the wine list at the Dodger Stadium Club for some time, and I’ve done a few staff trainings there before games,” Lindquist said. “In 2001, I got a chance to meet Tommy Lasorda at a wine event in Miami and poured some wine for him.”
Lindquist’s partner at the Qupé/Au Bon Climat winery east of Santa Maria, ABC’s Jim Clendenen, has a favorite hobby: cooking.
Every day he’s at the winery, Clendenen prepares the staff meal, and he’s often at the stove doing charity events or entertaining.
“It is my therapy, and much more immediately gratifying than the long process of winemaking,” Clendenen said.
He possesses a natural palate for re-creating flavors he encounters on his travels selling his wines around the world.
“My wide experience with ingredients allows me to interpret even bizarre flavors very literally,” he explained. “This obviously informs my winemaking at every level, from making food-friendly, diverse wines that accompany challenging pairings.”
Clendenen and Lindquist’s former assistant winemaker, Gavin Chanin, heads for the great outdoors when not working on his label, Chanin Wine Co.
He and friend Ernst Storm, winemaker at Curtis Winery and Storm Wines, trek to higher elevations during their free time, backpacking together in Big Sur and the Sierras. (Maybe that’s where Chanin draws inspiration for the landscapes he paints that adorn his wine labels.)
Storm also takes the sea “by storm,” surfing with fellow winemaker Dieter Cronje of Presqu’ile Winery. They like balancing on surfboards off Jalama Beach and Pismo Beach. (Could that explain why both produce such beautifully balanced wines?)
Instead of hanging 10, Clarissa Nagy of Riverbench and Nagy Wines, and husband Jonathan Nagy of Byron Winery, enjoy hanging out, on occasion, at the paintball park.
“We started going with our [church] youth group for some bonding time,” Clarissa said. “I like the thrill and excitement. I love the teamwork. The teams that I have been on that win are the teams that work together.”
“The teamwork concept is probably the most relevant to winemaking,” added Jonathan, whose favorite hobby is playing basketball.
“During harvest, it takes a lot of teamwork between the vineyard, the winery, and the winery staff to take high-quality grapes and produce premium wines in a consistent fashion,” Jonathan said.
Cambria Winery’s winemaker Denise Shurtleff might have purple fingers during harvest from handling pinot noir grapes from Julia’s Vineyard, but she also has a green thumb. The avid gardener grows exotic fruits such as persimmons, passion fruit, figs, citrus, and much more on her five acres in Nipomo.
When he’s not logging miles as an airline captain, Pacific Ridge winemaker and retired Navy fighter jet pilot Bob Kelly is logging miles on the road, running. He’s completed 20 marathons and also enjoys running short distances for speed.
Another Santa Barbara County winemaker with a need for speed is Flying Goat Cellars’ Norm Yost. He’s a serious mountain biker, riding multiple times a week with a group called the “Village Dirtbags” in the hills near Lompoc.
“It’s quite an adventure in the Manzanita and poison oak,” Yost said. When he’s on two wheels, he doesn’t “have time to think about the stresses of work.”
Fess Parker winemaker Blair Fox hits the slopes on his skis or snowboard: “Just like anything else, it is more fun to push the envelope and take the risk and be at the front of the pack instead of taking it slow and following the herd,” said Fox, who also produces wine for his own Blair Fox Cellars.
Another thrill-seeker, Seth Kunin of Kunin Wines, races his 35-foot New Zealand-built Farr sailboat, Mar Caballo. He competes in everything from buoy races in Santa Barbara to the Pacific Cup from San Francisco to Kaneohe, Hawaii.
“There’s nothing like being out on the water to make you feel both helpless and tiny, yet in touch with a much higher power,” Kunin shared. “When life (including winemaking) gets overwhelming, a Wednesday afternoon on the ocean will always clear my head better than almost anything else.
“If I had to draw a parallel to winemaking, it would be the sense of not only connecting with nature, but realizing that you can only appreciate it and use it to your benefit when it allows you to,” he continued, “and the flip side of that, which is that it is so very powerful and totally out of our control that it can be exhilarating, both when driving a sailboat in the middle of the ocean, or trying to decide when to pick your grapes with dark skies threatening, to realize that your life (or livelihood) is only very slightly in your control.”
Sun wine and food columnist Wendy Thies Sell collects story ideas. E-mail her some at wthies@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Mar 21-28, 2013.