Sea Creatures Wine Embodies Santa Barbara Spirit

Most everything that winemaker Jesse Cloutier does echoes the spirit of northern Santa Barbara County — or at least the humble, down-to-earth nature of the rural-meets-coastal vibes that he grew up with in Orcutt before the region became a fancier destination for wine, food, and tourism.

He’s of the ocean, as reflected in his Sea Creatures brand and love for surfing and fishing. He’s of the land, fond of growing his own produce, occasionally hunting, and tending to small vineyards. He’s of the coastal culture, evidenced in preferring to label pinot noir as “gnar” to honor his beach bum roots. And he is of the community as a whole, not about himself as an individual or the specific places he farms, as there are no single vineyards mentioned on his labels.

“We’re all about this county,” said Cloutier of he and his wife/business partner Avery Cloutier. “We knew it was cool before people learned how to pronounce the town names. Our goal is to be lifting the whole place.”

After 17 vintages of working cellars and vines for others, Cloutier recently moved into his very own winemaking facility inside the co-op warehouse complex known as the Buellton Bodegas. This is where he makes the pinot noir-focused Sea Creatures — including a rare white pinot called “Blanc de Gnar” and a pinot-based rose called “Pretty Gnar” — as well as a second brand called Là Bas, which features small-batch bottlings of different grapes, so far including gamay, syrah, and red blends.

One such vineyard is the Dark Star Ranch, where five acres of pinot noir, syrah, grenache, and viognier grow at the bottom of the Nojoqui Grade, set amongst those out-of-place log cabin mansions that a cardiologist developed as an architectural showcase two decades ago. Just across Highway 101 from Folded Hills, the property sits in one of Santa Barbara’s most unique microclimates — only five miles from the chilly Gaviota Coast, yet reliably warm, as the towering Santa Ynez Mountains provide shelter from the oceanic onslaught.

“The fog bank sits right here, with good cloud coverage but the drying effect of the sun right next to it,” explained Cloutier, who further appreciates the sandy loam soils. “It’s all ocean. It’s everything I go after.”

His father worked in aerospace, living for years on various Pacific Ocean islands before settling near Vandenberg, where his career concluded at Lockheed Martin. About 40 years ago, he met Jesse’s mother, who’d grown up French Creole in the Seychelles, but moved to Santa Barbara to be near seven of her nine siblings. “She yelled at me in French my whole life,” Cloutier laughed, noting that she taught grade school in Cuyama and Lompoc for 20 years.

The Righetti High grad was a junior at UCSB studying business economics when his sister, who now runs a winery and brewery in Australia, convinced him to work a summer job in wine country. After a couple months inside Foxen Winery’s historic barn, Cloutier was hooked. He immediately transferred to Sonoma State to finish college with a wine emphasis on his business degree.

He worked on Russian River Valley pinot noir for three years, then did harvest gigs in Australia before moving back to the Central Coast in 2013. While again at Foxen, he met Avery, who was working down the street at Zaca Mesa. Today, she works for the Miller Family Wine Company. 

Right about the time that the Cloutiers were ready to launch their own brand in 2017, life threw Jesse a changeup. He was diagnosed that July with an aggressive leukemia, and doctors didn’t give him much hope of surviving. Avery stuck by his side while he spent months in the hospital and underwent three years of chemotherapy, working for some of that time at Stolo Vineyard in Cambria.   

“Through a combination of science and hope, it just worked out,” said Cloutier, who regained his health but never lost sight of the experience. “There’s nothing good about cancer, but to have that smack you at 29 years old, at the peak of arrogance in any man’s life? It’s a good time to decide to do all your work yourself.”

That’s why he’s excited to finally have his own place and doesn’t plan on making anyone else’s wine for the time being. “It’s taken 17 years to get to this point, and I’m pretty stoked to have at least one year of nothing but my own fermentations,” said Cloutier.

Officially launched with the 2020 vintage — “The universe said ‘Chill,’ in 2017, so we tried again three years later.” — Sea Creatures is wrapped in labels designed by Cloutier’s childhood friend, Clint Darby. They’re rich in storytelling and symbols, involving the islands from his family’s past to the fogs and swells that create the unique climate of the Santa Barbara Channel, from Point Sal to Rincon. Production for both labels remains very small, around 650 cases across both brands for the 2024 vintage.

His most unique wine would be that Blanc de Gnar, in which pinot noir grapes — picked somewhere between where you’d pick sparkling and rosé — are immediately pressed to make a brisk white wine. “Oysters, that’s what I make this for,” said Cloutier. “Avery eats her body weight in oysters at Bar Le Cote.”

He’s committed to letting each vineyard and vintage lead the way, allowing them to be leaner or riper depending on what nature gives, rather than chasing trends. “I don’t give a shit about alcohol,” he said, referring to how many winemakers worry about and try to control whether their wines have higher or lower alcohols. “If I want more alcohol, I’ll drink whiskey. If I want less alcohol, I’ll drink Modelo.” 

Today, the Cloutiers try to live a simple life, reflective of the region’s rural soul. “We have a little garden. I fish. I hunt a little bit. We eat,” said Cloutier, who was lamenting the apparent death of his 2004 Ford Ranger after 484,000 miles.

One day he’d like to grow all of his own grapes, if the universe abides. “It’s the land that makes this place great, it’s the cadence here,” said Cloutier. “Everything that makes this a place where people didn’t want to live 20 years ago is what’s making people want to live here now.” 

See seacreatureswine.com.