Dining at Vino Wine & Tapas Room

Recently, my wife and I moved to Tarzana and have been scouring the neighborhood looking for delicious restaurants that don’t break the bank.  We visited several that were quite the fail and then we found our current favorite.  I present to you: Vino Wine & Tapas Room.  Located on Ventura in Encino, this small, comfortable eatery whips up delicious fare. 

We have been to Vino several times now and they have many different dishes and wines.  Although their wine list has a nice array from different regions around the world, we usually pay corkage.  We took my grandparents recently and had a wonderful time at a semi-private table near the back.  I brought one of my favorite rosé Champagnes, Billiot, and it paired wonderfully with many of the tapas.  Billiot is a grower champagne with grapes from Ambonnay.  All Grand Cru juice, the value is outstanding.  Pairing with the Billiot, we had Manchego, a thick slice of the cheese on a croqueta smothered with a sweet tomato vinaigrette.  We also had Albondigas, a sirloin meatball on top of savory mashed taters.  I love how rosé Champagne (or any rosé for that matter) pairs with so many different foods and can even cross over and pair with meats. The Billiot rosé is beautiful and offers a nose of dough, cinnamon, orange zest, and berries like raspberry and cherry.  Full creamy bubbles and delicious lip-smacking acidity constitute the palate.

My favorite “big” small bite is the New Zealand Lamb Chop.  I love pairing lamb with Syrah, and one of my favorite Syrahs is JL Chave Crozes-Hermitage from the Northern Rhone valley.  It pairs magically with lamb.  Soft tannins with tart raspberry flavors, all meshed together with fresh cracked black pepper, this is a classic French Syrah.  Syrah is fast becoming one of my favorite varietals.  It’s very versatile with food and I simply relish the peppery flavors.  The chops are prepared with, what do ya know, pepper and herbs encrusted with a wine reduction sauce on top. 

The ambience is terrific and on most weekends, they have live saxophone crooning at the front of the restaurant.  The chairs are very comfortable and the service is super friendly.  I like to describe the lighting as happy and dark.  All wine is served in Riedel stemware (specifically, Vinum Extreme).  For a less personal experience, there is always at least a small crowd at the bar where energetic conversations abound.  I highly recommend checking Vino out, but make sure you come by and pick up a couple bottles from me, custom matched for your food. 

Cheers!

Handmade or Brandmade?

When it comes to wine, and more recently beer, there has always been room for the big guys and the small guys, for the handmade and the machine made.  For many people, they gravitate towards the known versus the unknown.This is understandable.The most successful companies have been able to grow because their products are reliable and available.  The wine industry has been slowly changing and as the internet continues to grow and boom, people can now find small producers that were previously unavailable to them.  The little guys can now collectively rival the big guys, and organic ideals (especially marketing) are no longer far fetched or rare. 

Personally, I am a grassroots kind of guy.  I love handmade Pinot Noir, grower Champagne, and craft brewed beers.  I love seeing and tasting the art in a product that was made with few pairs of hands.  I eschew large corporations to a certain extent because the more people involved in a product, the less it is a work of art.  I’m not opposed to money by any means (I’m neither yuppie nor hippie); there just tend to be too many sacrifices for the sake of a buck.

For the average wine drinker, choice often times comes down to how adventurous they are: Ravenswood Zinfandel versus Nalle, Mondavi versus Neal Family, Veuve Clicquot versus Billiot.  Is it worth it to you to try a new product, even if it is a miss?  Or would you rather always buy by brand?  Also, trust plays a large role when choosing your evening beverage.  Many people have learned to trust me and my palate here in the store and will practically buy most any bottle I give them that meets their needs.  Other times, no matter how much I want them to buy a better bottle of champagne (For a slightly lower price at that!), they go with the (insert popular name brand) because they trust that brand.

It is definitely true that many of the top name brands make a name for themselves by being reliable.  With Grand Marquis, they actually pay someone to make sure each batch of Champagne tastes exactly like the last batch.  These master blenders are extremely skilled at remembering the flavors and nuances of the house style and tailor each batch’s blend to taste the same (I think this blend needs .5% more Chardonnay from this vineyard…). Grower Champagnes do have house styles as well, but they aren’t as rigid and have more freedom to explore variances in subplots of land and vintage distinction.

To me, it comes down to why a winemaker is making their juice.The majority of smaller producers seek to express the individuality of their land and let the vintage speak its mind. It is rare for a large brand to have transparency and vintage expression.They seek to control, while a wine making team like the Nalle family seek to give up some control to their vineyard and showcase the…wait for it…terroir (I know the dreaded T-word for some people). 

I would like to implore anyone reading this: if you have any desire to drink wine in this life, seek out and explore new wines and wine makers.  Trust your local wine salesman.  Let him put a couple bottles in your basket that you would not have picked out yourself.  If you don’t like them, go back to him and tell him why and let him learn what you like.  Also, seek out the small productions wines.Try some wine with terroir.What are your thoughts on the matter? Please leave me a precious comment and keep enjoying life with peace.

Caviar, Lobster, and Halibut… O My!

I had the luxury of spending a beautiful week in San Clemente.  The weather was fine, as was the wine.  Also, my grandparents live there, so it was a nice, relaxing, affordable vacation.  I brought a case of wine down, equipped for any food pairing that might be thrown at me.  I am very interested in pairing food and drinks, although my wife and I aren’t as adventurous as I’d like.  We were able to break some boundaries on this trip, though.

We made up our minds to try lobster, hopefully as fresh as possible.  We love dining at the San Clemente Pier where there is a restaurant that serves very fresh fish called…wait for it…The Fisherman.  On a pleasant Thursday, we drove to the busy pier rather early because a Reggae concert was about burst into rhymes and beats.  To our dismay, even though their website said otherwise, they did not currently have lobster.  Another local restaurant, The Charthouse, did and so we took a drive up to the top of Dana Point.  The view was fantastic, overlooking the harbor and the plethora of sailboats.

I brought three bottles of wine, in case one of them was corked.  I was very glad I did, too, because the Muscadet was corked .  The other wines showed very well.  I brought a Bourgogne Blanc and an Austrian Riesling.  I enjoyed both immensely.  My wife favored the Burgundy, while my Grandfather favored the Austrian.  Incoming Rant: waiters need to be less pushy pouring wine.  Ours kept asking to pour wine for us, but we wanted to keep going back and forth and he wanted to fill our glasses up…tsk tsk.  A wine glass should rarely be filled above a quarter of the glass.  I prefer a mini carafe for wine by the glass. End of Rant

My first course was the salad bar.  My Grandpa was excited because he loves caviar and they have it among the greens.  My wife and I put small portions on a cracker and settled back in our booth.  She went first, taking a small bite of the cracker and quickly grimaced while I lol’ed.  I had a hard time breaking the barrier, but I ended up shoving the whole cracker in my mouth at my Grandpa’s goading.  It was quite salty and very fishy.  Thankfully, the cracker covered some of this, but I can say I do not care to try caviar again.

Our second course was Australian lobster tail.  It wasn’t fresh like I wanted, but it was served with butter!  With burgundy in one hand and a fork in the other, I went to town.  It was sweeter and richer than I expected.  The only thing I did not like so much was the texture.  The way they cooked it lent it to be rubbery.  I’ve been told cooking it after removing the tail makes it more tender and less chewy.  I would definitely be interested in trying fresher lobster that was prepared differently.

Our last course was a slab of fish and rice.  I chose halibut and my wife chose salmon, neither of us having had either.  Her salmon was killer!  My halibut was very nice as well and the Riesling was a marvelous pairing here, as to be expected.  I was so pleasantly full, and a bit buzzed to boot.  My first lobster experience went well, just not as perfect as I would have hoped.  Check out the comment box below and please let me know how your first lobster experience was and what wine you paired with it.

 

Rudipalooza!

Rudi Wiest imports fine German Rieslings and Pinot Noirs (some consider him one of the pre-eminent importers of German and Austrian wine) and this tasting focused on the exciting 2010 vintage. The quality is extremely high and even the value-oriented Rieslings have muscle and minerality.

One of the standout estates was Monchhof.  Monchhof owns parcels from several notable vineyards, including Ürziger Würzgarten (as seen in the photo).  Even their simple estate Riesling has great acidity and slate notes.  I think their best value is their Auslese.  The wine should retail for about $30 for the 750ml and this makes it one of the most affordable on the market. Yet it has the zippiness and pleasure that you would ask for in a more expensive Auslese.  Also, check out the photo and notice the slate covered hills.  These hills have no topsoil and are steeply inclined. Germany averages three undocumented deaths a year during harvesting! So If you ever go to Germany and harvest grapes, please be careful.

After tasting through the Monchhofs, I moved on to a very popular table laden with bottles from many estates. These bottles are part of a category picking up steam among winos.  For some people, kabinett must levels lead to a wine that is too sweet for their palate.  Feinherb (literally “Fine Dry”) fits a great niche.  Feinherbs possess less sweetness than most off-dry Kabinetts; the American term for these wines is medium-dry.  These wines are extremely food friendly, especially since Trocken (Dry) Rieslings tend to have higher alcohol levels, sometimes as high as 14% which doesn’t pair well with spicy food. Medium-dry Rieslings fulfill the need to quench firey food without being too sticky sweet.  My wife and I drink these commonly and there is always a bottle in our fridge.

The event took place at Lawry’s Steak House and since the chef is German, he whipped up some delicious German fare for the tasting.  I was fortunate to fill my plate up with some of my favorites: pretzel bread (the standout for sure), as well as mustard, German meats and cheese, and cold meatballs.  Riesling is versatile and there was a Riesling at the tasting that paired with each food item perfectly.  Many people don’t think of drinking white wine with meat, with the exception of fish, but salty meats pair marvelously with German Rieslings.

Rudi also imports some great Pinot Noirs and several other lesser known varietals.  German Pinot isn’t always held in high esteem, but Germany continues to modernize their winemaking techniques and the quality of their Pinot has increased accordingly.  The small, incremental warming of the weather has also affected their Pinot, allowing the grapes to fully ripen, yet retain all the acidity and minerality we would expect from a good Pinot Noir.

Another even more unique wine I had the pleasure of sampling was a Scheurebe from the producer, Pfeffingen.  This wine is fermented Trocken. It yields a wine that is creamy and fruity at the same time.  Scheurebe is a hybrid grape created by Dr Scheu from Riesling and an unknown wild grape from Germany.  Rebe means vine, so the word Scheurebe means the Dr’s vine.  I find this wine fascinating; it shares so many nuances similar to Riesling, yet is a bit fuller and creamier.

If you are as excited as we are about German Riesling, please feel free to contact me via email: Brently@whwc.com.  2010 German wines will be arriving through out the year, but some have already hit the stores.  I’d love to gab about your latest Kabinett you’ve popped…

Food-Friendly Wines from Hungary

Last night, I had a delicious terroir-driven wine from Hungary.  Hungary is mostly known for their dessert wine Tokaji Aszu, but they produce some excellent dry and off-dry wines and they are really ramping up the quality.  There is a lot of buzz around the 2009 vintage in France, but 2009 will be a stellar vintage for Hungarian whites as well.

These wines are mostly made from a grape called Furmint.  Furmint features flavors of honey, baking spice, nectarine, and lime.  I took home the 2006 Demi-Sec from Királyudvar, which wasn’t as sweet as I thought it would be.  It was perfect with the Mexican-style plate I had, full of meat, beans and rice.  The texture was real silky.  My first inclination was to think the body was thin, but that wasn’t true, it was just so, well, silky. 

So much of the food we eat here in California is spicy. When my family barbecues steak, they add Montreal steak seasoning, which has red pepper in the blend. We also eat a lot of Mexican and Chinese. White wines with a bit of sweetness pair magically with these foods, maybe with exception of the steak, but hey, to each his own.  Many people are completely against wine with any sweetness to it.  I’m not sure where that comes from, but it is definitely a social thing to some degree.  Some people may think they’ll be looked down upon for drinking a German Riesling, most sommeliers love the sweeter style.

I am absolutely in love with Hungarian wine as well as German Riesling.  I implore our readers to try pairing one of these wines with spicy food.  After all, do we drink our iced tea with no sugar?  Our lemonade with no sugar?  Our coca-cola with no sugar?  Feel free to pop by and gab with me about these wonderful styles.  I can also be emailed about my favorites at Brently@whwc.com.

Venturing to Austria “Uncorked”

Recently, I had the opportunity to go to Austria Uncorked, an Austrian wine tasting at the SLS Beverly Hills Hotel.  This event was very well put together, with literally hundreds of wines available for tasting.  The experience was eye-opening for me; there were so many different styles of Gruner Veltliner.  Also, the Rieslings from Austria are quite different from their German counterparts.  After sampling most of the whites we carry in the store, I was able to branch out and taste some delicious reds and dessert wines that pretty much rocked my world.

There were many standouts among the Gruners and Rieslings.  Some of my favorites were definitely from Nikolaihof.  These wines are full of complexity and many see extended aging on the lees, which gives them a full mouthfeel.  Nikolaihof has been a wine estate for over 2000 years and has been biodynamic since 2004.  We carry their 2007 Riesling from the Wachau region.  This wine is  fermented almost to dryness and has rich flavors of lime and nectarine, with stone and subtle yeasty aromas.  I also became a big fan of Schloss Gobelsburg and their fabulous line of Gruner Veltliner.  They have created a delicious reserve Gruner from the Kamptal region.  This wine has great intensity of fruit and crisp minerality; it’s a very balanced package, dying to be paired with anything that contains salty bacon. Gruner is also one of the few wines that handles asparagus and artichokes and does a good job of it.

Some Austrian grapes that are even less spoken of than Gruner are the three main red grapes of Austria: Blaufrankisch, St Laurent, and Zweigelt (A cross between the former two grapes).  These grapes produce some delicious wines that are extremely food friendly.  We carry one such red: Umathum Zweigelt from Burgenland.  This wine is delicious: full of spice and everything nice.  In the glass, the wine is dark red with aromas of cherries, plum, spice and crushed rock.  Filled with terrific acidity, fruit, and minerality, these wines pair extremely well with chicken, pork, tender beef, and other hearty dishes.

If you are still hungry to explore Austrian whites, I have a suggestion for you. One white grape stood out to me because it was fairly different than the lean Gruners and Rieslings I was tasting. Roter Veltliner, a pink skinned grape that is thought to be the grandparent of Gruner Veltliner, has great body and fruit.  On the nose, Roter smells sweet.  This is referred to as having an aroma of sucrosity, yet yields none of these foretellings in the wine itself.  This makes the wine sly and delicious, similar to Torrontes from Argentina.  We carry one Roter Veltliner: Mantlerhof 2007 Roter Veltliner from Reisenthal.

I hope my enthusiasm for Austria and and this marvelous tasting excites you as well.  Feel free to come in and talk to me more about these great wines.  You can also email me if you have any questions: brently@whwc.com

Cheers!