Morgan Clendenen founded Cold Heaven Cellars twenty years ago. She quickly established herself as one of the world’s best producers of Viognier. She has since added Pinot Noir and Syrah to her lineup. The regional focus is on Santa Barbara County fruit, including single-vineyard wines and AVA blends.

The Cold Heaven Cellars tasting room is in a tiny industrial park, conveniently located just off Highway 101 in Buellton. The winemaking is also done right there. (Note to visitors: GPS’ tend to send you the wrong direction on Second Street. When turning onto Second from Avenue of the Flags, turn back toward the freeway, not away from it.)

Morgan Clendenen’s Viognier are flavorful but honor both Santa Barbara County’s cool climate and the traditional style of Condrieu. The wines are fresh, finely textured and moderate in alcohol. Oak deftly complements the fruit, but is not a focal point.

2015 Cold Heaven Viognier Shokrian Vineyard Santa Barbara County 93 14.0% 750ml $50

A very pretty nose of pear, honeysuckle, apricot and gentle baking spice. Nearly full-bodied, but juicy, with very fine texture. Mouth-filling and long, yet refined and lovely.

2014 Cold Heaven Viognier Santa Barbara County 92 13.9% 750ml $28

The nose offers notes of hazelnut, saffron, lychee and apricot. There are long-lasting flavors of tangy apricot, ripe pear, baking spice and tangerine pith on the full bodied, very finely textured palate.

2013 Cold Heaven Viognier Le Bon Climat Vineyard Santa Barbara County 90+ 13.9% 750ml $34

There are only about three cases left of this very good, library wine. It’s a bit leaner than the preceding wines and is is just beginning to show development in the fruit. Medium+ body and lightly juicy in the mouth with hazelnut, cream, spice, baked peach, tart peach, lemon and a hint of tasty, sweet herb.

2010 Cold Heaven “Second Sin” Syrah Sawyer Lindquist Vineyard Edna Valley 91+ 13.75% 750ml $45

Medium-bodied with fine, lightly grippy tannins. Restrained, yet flavorful—a melange of red, black and blue berries, red cherry, spice and smoky garrigue. Persistently juicy with excellent length. Made from biodynamically grown grapes.

[Note: Brock Williams purchased the Sawyer-Linquist Vineyard in 2013. Now, the only wines allowed to use that designation come from Qupé (Bob Lindquist) and Verdad (Louisa Sawyer-Lindquist). Other wineries refer to it as Slide Hill.]

I didn’t taste any current release Pinot Noir or Syrah on my visit to Cold Heaven. However, I tasted several single-clone, single-vineyard components still in barrel. They were all very promising and I’m looking forward to the releases.

In addition to making her own Cold Heaven wines, Morgan is now making wine for Shokrian Vineyard. Located across the road from the White Hawk Vineyard in the Los Alamos area, which is roughly in between the Santa Maria Valley and Sta. Rita Hills AVAs, the vineyard used to be owned by Melville. They called it Verna’s.

Though their Verna’s wines were excellent, Melville decided to focus on their home region of Sta. Rita Hills where they have three vineyards totallig 120 acres. Babek Shokrian purchased the Verna’s property and quickly signed Morgan to produce his Viognier and Syrah. Drake Whitcraft is makes the Pinot Noir. The Shokrian production all takes place at Cold Heaven.

I tasted barrel samples of the components for the upcoming Shokrian Syrah with Morgan. They were superb—intense and full of character but well-balanced with texture that’s developing very nicely.

A pre-release bottle of the 2015 Shokrian Vineyard Pinot Noir Santa Barbara County was also very good—92 pts. It’s medium-bodied with very fine, grippy texture and flavors of black cherry, dark berries, dried flowers and a lot of spice. The Shokrian Vineyard wines will go on sale in a couple of months and their website will go live at that time. In the meantime, you can follow them on Facebook.

Copyright Fred Swan 2017. Photo courtesy of Cold Heaven Cellars, photo credit to Lee Tomkow. All rights reserved.