The Wine Country

Food and More Food in San Francisco

2012-01-17T09:53:00.000-08:00

By Randy Kemner, Proprietor

Once again, it was time for Dale and me to attend the annual Fancy Food Show in San Francisco’s Moscone Center. You might recall in last year’s post which gourmet snacks and condiments we discovered at the 2011 show, and now we were on a quest to discover more new nibbles, oils, vinegars, jams, cheeses, spices, mustards, cookies, crackers, pasta sauces and chips for the coming year.

For us, this trade show—taking up two whole convention halls full of the nation’s finest specialty foods—is where the nation’s grocery store shelves stock in the future. Only we’ll offer them first. It’s pretty exciting to discover a new company, a new product, a new twist on an old theme before the big guys turn them from artisan producers into another corporate cog in an industrial food chain.

In order to get an early start on Sunday’s show, Dale and I decided to travel to San Francisco on Saturday, get settled in the Market Street Westin and have a nice dinner in a city known for its nice dinners.

I’m thankful for Jet Blue and the Long Beach airport. From the time I called Yellow Cab to being dropped off at our quaint city airport was just twenty minutes. No lines. No waiting. No hassle, except for the usual stupidity of removing our shoes at the TSA checkpoint.

The flight was uneventful—a cup of coffee, some mixed nuts, skimming a business pamphlet. When my ears began to stuff up, I knew we were already on our descent to San Francisco.

After collecting our bags, we simply followed the signs to the BART terminus, bought our tickets at the vending machine and waited 15 minutes for the next train to downtown.

Since Dale had done such an economical job of packing, we had only one suitcase and our laptop, so we sat through the tunnels and occasional glimpses of Daly City and South San Francisco before arriving at our stop at Montgomery Avenue and Market Street. A ten minute walk to the Westin at Third and Market was all that was standing between us and our domicile for the next two nights.

Dining at The Slanted Door

Dale and I took a 10 minute cab ride through the busy streets of downtown San Francisco on our way to the Ferry Building at the Embarcadero to dine at The Slanted Door. It was already dark outside, the air was cool and the night was bustling like big city Saturday nights are. There was a celebratory spirit that night because the 49ers had just defeated the New Orleans Saints in a playoff game in a breathtaking fashion, with four lead changes in the last four minutes. Hours later there were still inebriated shouts audible from bars down the street as we reached our destination.

Last year we tried to eat at this great Vietnamese-fusion restaurant, but there wasn’t a seat to be had on a Sunday night. A year later, Dale had the foresight to actually make a reservation, and we arrived with a minute to spare. I had hoped we could get one of the small tables next to the windows with the stunning nighttime view of the Bay Bridge, all lit up with lights that gave a Tivoli-like beauty to the landmark. Luckily, we were led to the last empty two-top and Dale sat facing the spectacular view.

We were presented the wine list, and it is the kind of courageous effort that puts appropriateness ahead of cynical commercialism. That is to say, they were selected for the food, not for their familiarity. Most of the wines are German, Austrian, from the Loire and white or sparkling. The red wines are a wine geek’s dream: Bourgeuil, Poulsard, St. Laurent—wines that most American wine enthusiasts have very little contact with. There a handful of reds from Burgundy and a sprinkling of domestic reds and whites that was even more remarkable for its paucity given we were less than an hour from the most famous wine country in America.

One might be tempted to ask why the restaurant didn’t offer the types and brands of wines that most people knew and loved. The answer, of course, is contemporary styles of domestic reds and whites, while popular, simply screw with the subtle flavors and sub-tastes in this remarkable cuisine. The fact the restaurant was jammed, and has been for years, is testament to the decisions made by the wine staff as well as the cooking staff.

Dale and I ordered a glass each of sparkling wine, an excellent, minerally, inviting Cremant de Bourgogne. I knew the bubbly would taste great with some raw oysters, so we ordered a selection from the raw bar, and the mollusks were all fresh, beautiful, great tasting and accompanied by the most amazing mignonette we’ve ever sampled.

When ordering our appetizers and main courses, we wanted to sample as many different flavors as we could eat, and the only way wines were going to have a chance at matching our dishes would be to order wines by the glass. If you don’t know your Gruners from your St. Laurents, you won’t have to worry at The Slanted Door. You can put full faith in their choices. As it turned out, the red and white wines were just as brilliant and food worthy and adaptable as the finest carafe wines of country restaurants in France and Italy.

And what did we select to eat? After tour raw oysters, we noshed on very fresh spring rolls with a not-so-sweet peanut sauce and wood fired mussels in a richly flavored broth with glass noodles and a little ginger. The Hirsch Gruner Veltliner we sipped was aromatic and alive and proved delicious with each of the two dishes.

For the main courses we split a perfectly cooked, white-fleshed black cod with a medley of forest mushrooms. Then two stuffed chicken legs were presented, beautifully cooked, juicy and golden-bronze. The stuffing had forest mushrooms, glass noodles and finely diced vegetables, and all of that was contrasted with our spicy, exotic, aromatic St. Laurent. When Dale had first seen the dark color of the wine as it was placed on the table, she was pleasantly surprised to find it soft, gentle and fruity. She loved drinking the exotic Austrian red with her chicken.

The dessert menu was handed to us, but we simply had overeaten. There were plenty of desserts I’d love to have sampled, but neither of us had the room.

I suppose the great takeaway from our meal at The Slanted Door is that a dedication to a wine list need not be choosing wines meant to win Wine Spectator awards for their size or breadth. Good taste can’t be learned in books. And the courage to follow a vision when it is pulled off so brilliantly is worthy of celebration.

After dinner, Dale and I looked into all the shuttered shops of the Ferry building, including chocolate shops, a wine shop, an organic grocer, Cowgirl Creamery and McEvoy’s olive oil shop. Then we walked up Market Street, past the sewer exhaust fumes and the homeless trying to find warm places to spend the night, past the cable car terminus at California Avenue, past the revelers still celebrating the 49er game and made our way back to the Westin on 3^rd Street.

“Nightcap?” I asked.

“Sure,” Dale answered. So we walked into the bar where the patrons were still watching replays of the 49er game. Dale ordered a Prosecco with St. Germain Elderflower liqueur and a lemon twist and I splurged with a glass of Macallan’s 18 year old single malt Highland Scotch whisky and a side of ice cubes.

The Fancy Food Show would begin at 10 a.m. the following day, but tonight we were savoring a wonderful meal and the end of our travel day.

The January 2012 Fancy Food Show

After standing in line for twenty minutes to get our “Express-Line” credentials, we made our way down the steps of the Moscone Center South Hall, walked through the connecting underground passage to the North Hall and began browsing up and down every aisle, checking out packaging that caught our eye, and products we might be able to bring in to our store. I’ll spare you the things that didn’t impress us—the chips that were soggy, or the sauces that didn’t pop—but as always there were reminders of previous discoveries and items new to us that captured our fancy.

Of course, we were re-acquainted with some of last year’s discoveries, like McEvoy Olive Oil (we got a recipe for olive oil and lemon cookies we’ll share later), Vin Tuccis, Somersaults, Abba Pickled Herring, Lars Ginger Snaps and Swedish-style Mustard, Cream Nuts Peanut Butter and Peanut Butter clusters, Cookies and Corks (great tasting sweet and savory cookies designed for wine pairing, of which I am entirely cynical, yet still in love with the cookies), Happy Goat caramels and Deep River Multigrain Tortilla Chips (from that Tex-Mex capital, Connecticut). And we re-ordered the Brittany butter cookie tins and sea-salt butter caramels that were a hit over the holidays. But we were there to discover new things, and here were some that most piqued my interest:

Sanders Dark Chocolate Peppermint Pattie—Creamy insides and a solid coat of chocolate on the outside. A giant size was available. I could imagine a lost weekend with it.

Mr. Beer Home Brewer—Sure, it’s a cheesy looking plastic keg. And I don’t have a clue as to how good the beer will turn out in the end. But it could be fun and educational to mess up your kitchen for a few days. A good science project for the kiddies, too.

Fra’mani Salumi—They looked good, the pancetta and the roasted pork loin in the vacu-pak. The samples melted in our mouths.

The Perfect Bite Co. Frozen Appetizers—We were met early in our search by a bite-size quiche that oozed its deliciousness. The pizza-like basil pesto & tomato flatbreads were also perfect. I can imagine our customers picking up a couple bottles of red wine and a couple boxes of these treats and chowing down on them nightly. Great in the freezer for unexpected parties—or expected ones. Put two people together and you have a party, I say. The only problem, as I see it, is The Wine Country doesn’t own a commercial display freezer. We could spend $6,000 on that, or we could spend $6,000 on a new copy machine.

No Time 2 Cook—These plain-wrap tins and plastic soup bowls had pre-cooked frozen meals that, if you selected wisely, were just like mom cooked, if mom knew how to cook. The Chicken Pot Pie and Shrimp & Crab Bisque samples were tasty. The Seafood Gumbo and Crawfish Etouffé looked intriguing. The only problem—will anyone buy them at $15 apiece? Since we don’t own a freezer yet, the answer is moot.

Looka Macarons—Beautiful, pastel macarons—as pretty as Paris—with a gooey filling packaged in an attractive box in our freezer section. Only we don’t have a freezer yet. Same story.

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams—In our search for the creamiest, silkiest, most delicious packaged ice cream, Jeni’s is currently on top of the list, based on the sea salt caramel ice cream we sampled. The secret to this Ohio company’s excellence, they said, were the grass-fed cows that produced great cream and the ingredients like Uganda vanilla beans, copper kettle-cooked caramel, single-farm chocolate and handmade, blow-torched marshmallows. We need a damn freezer. We gotta get looking.

Justin’s Dark and Milk Chocolate Peanut Butter Cups—We discovered these great Boulder Colorado confections last year, and failed to find a way to get them out to the West Coast affordably. We’re still working on it. They are rich, solid and too-good-to-be-true. Crack for the sugar-addicted.

Polka Dot Sweet Potato Crackers—In original, rosemary & olive oil, chipotle with smoked paprika and cracked black pepper flavors. Dale was particularly enthused with this crispy niblets.

180 Snacks—Almond Pops with Blueberries, Almond Pops with Cranberries, Almond Pops with Mango and Pineapple. Popcorn clusters with lots of sticky stuff. You can eat them in the car on your way home from The Wine Country.

Simply 7 Snacks—Hummus Chips and Lentil Chips. Very light, lightly seasoned alternatives to potato chips in Sea Salt, Tomato Basil, Creamy dill, spicy chili pepper and Bruschetta flavors. Perfectly adequate.

L’Epicurean Jams—From the South of France, the flavors are amazing Apricots & Lavender, Pistachio curd, lavender jelly, Black cherry, Blackcurrant, fig balsamic jam. Who is going to buy jam at a wine store? I hope everyone. These are the real deal and you just gotta have ‘em. They were ordered on the spot.

Fire & Flavor Oven Baked French Fry Seasonings—Just add potatoes and olive oil, bake them in the oven. Sea Salt & Vinegar and Sweet Ancho Chile flavors. Are they any good? I guess we’ll just have to find out. They should be healthier than Del Taco’s fries.

Gus (Grown Up Soda)—Dale and I part ways here. We’ve carried these not-sweet sodas before, so we sampled them again. She loves these fizzy soft drinks because they are refreshing and not sweet. I admire them, but don’t want to drink them because there’s just something missing—sugar, probably.

B.R. Cohn Balsamic & Shallot Mustard and Stone Ground Mustard—the winery, established by the former manager of the Doobie Brothers, has long branched out into olive oil and vinegar production. The mustards are vinegary, but get the job done—really good mustard foundation.

Rogue Creamery artisan cheeses—Lavendar Touvelle, Smokey Touvelle, Crater Lake Blue (a Roquefort-style) and Oregon Blue (creamy and irresistible.) We’ve carried these from time to time in our cheese department. Now it’s time to get them back in and for you to try them.

Oren’s Kitchen Wild Rosemary Almonds, Indian Ajwain Cashews, Coconut Chili Macadamias. As we approached Oren’s table, the rep named Rachel looked at our credentials and exclaimed, “I love your store! I read Samantha’s blog!” That was enough to get my attention all by itself, but these flavorful nuts sealed the deal. Beautifully seasoned and fresh tasting, not an easy task to get right in packaged nuts. We also ordered them on the spot. Thanks, Rachel.

Goose Island Beer—We had these Chicago-made Belgian-styled ales in the store before, but they changed distributors and we lost contact with them. Now, hopefully, we’ll get em back in. Beer names like Mathilde and Sophie are poetic and so, uh, Chicago.

Dinner at NR74

Michael Mina’s 2 ½ year old restaurant was packed when we arrived for our 8:15 reservation and the lounge was full of diners waiting for their tables. The long, dimly lit room was modern, and overhead wines were listed on several boards that looked like the old-fashioned black and white Departure/Arrival signs at De Gaulle airport. It was a bit hard to find a waitress, and harder to get the bartender’s attention, but I managed to order a whiskey sour for Dale and a gin martini for me.

“Do you want lemon or an olive?” the bartender asked.

“What?” I asked through the din.

“Lemon or an olive?”

“Olive.”

When our drinks arrived, my Martini didn’t smell of gin—it smelled of lemon. It was sliced nicely, though.

NR 74 is the name of the state road that runs north and south along Burgundy’s prestigious Cote d’Or wine region, and the selection of wines by the glass reflected that theme. I was thrilled to see Volnays and an aged Pommard, Dauvissat Chablis and Cotat Sancerre all being poured by the glass, protected by a Cruvinet-like dispenser. When we were seated at our table and I got to actually see the wine glass prices, it made me choke a little. The costs of glasses of those wines were what I usually pay for a bottle--$25, $30, $35—but it was an opportunity to sample wines I usually don’t get to drink. The bill won’t be due ‘til next month.

We were seated at a two-top near the window and had good service from there on out. Dale ordered a wonderful smoked salmon tartare with a perfect brioche, a beautiful egg-shaped scoop of fluffy crème fraiche, dill and a dab of whole grain mustard. She drank a glass of Cotat Chavignol, pleasant, but hardly the truest Sancerre I’d ever sipped. I ordered a velouté with puréed green lentils, mushrooms and a whole egg served in a soup bowl. The thick soup was a savory treat for a cool evening, and my Jean Dauvissat Chablis Premier Cru was a merely O.K. accompaniment. Honestly, I’d have prefered our Azo Chablis for an authentic-tasting pairing, costing less per bottle at The Wine Country that the Dauvissat cost for a modest glass that night.

Next came a perfect Comté soufflé, split open and a creamy sauce poured inside by our server. Dale and I had enough to satisfy us both, although the Diochon Moulin a Vent I ordered was a bit aggressive for the suave egg dish. A Vouvray or a lighter red from the Savoie would have been a better choice if I had it to do over again.

I was officially satiated before our main courses arrived. That happens a lot when we eat out. We want to nibble everything, and we think we have to eat it all to get our money’s worth. But it’s always just too much food, and the inevitable result that night was discomfort, not satisfaction. The curse of the bourgeoise.

Dale’s black sea bass was cooked to perfection, accompanied by mussels, sweet prawns and a subtle garbanzo bean square. She drank a lovely glass of DEux Montille St. Aubin with her fish.

My course was made up of lightly charred Wagyu beef strips with Bordelaise sauce drizzled on top that was flavorful, but not as tender as the filets we dined on when Dale cooked them on our outdoor grill. Two small mounds of braised short ribs provided a surprise bonus on the side, pot roast from heaven. Served separately was the accompanying artichoke heart and potato gratin which was creamy and good, though the flavor of the artichoke was assertive. My wine was a 2002 Pommard Premier Cru, with classic Burgundian nose, but not enough fruit to really hold its own with my full-flavored dish. I honestly don’t know what red wine I would have preferred. I keep being haunted by my memories of Ridge’s excellent 2007 estate red wine, but I would never know unless I had a glass at the time. The steak just needed a bit more red wine than the aged Pommard.

We were so stuffed we could barely move when the dessert menus arrived. Dale sat quietly while I ordered the not-too-sweet chocolate mousse and silky chestnut ice cream medley which had a small candied chestnut served aside. I forced myself to eat it, then it was really time to go.

We decided to walk the twenty minutes back to our hotel, and as we proceeded the wind picked up at our faces, bringing colder and colder gusts with it. My blue blazer was no match for the San Francisco chill. The revolving doors of the Westin provided our respite and we made our way back up the 19 floors to our room. No nightcap this time.

The next morning after vivid dreams that faded into the ether, we looked through all the handouts and cards we had collected at the food show the day before. This was our source material—the foundations of the decisions we would make involving our purchases for 2012’s gift basket and gourmet food sections.

A New Year Full of Possibilities

2012-01-14T12:11:00.000-08:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

O.K., it's over.

I'm declaring my annual post-holiday depression officially over.

Each year we work constantly, feverishly and at full tempo for two solid months, planning our purchases, co-ordinating our deliveries, merchandising, marketing and yes, selling wines at triple the pace of the rest of the year. Beginning with the release of Nouveau Beaujolais, through Thanksgiving and the lull afterward when people are jamming the malls searching for the best deals on the latest I-Phones, we never stop planning, working, stacking, calling, ordering, building gift baskets, searching out obscure wines for clients, writing e-mail copy, selecting our Wines of the Year and promoting them.

On and on it goes, intense, collegial, fun, but intense all the way through New Year's Eve.

Then it stops. The pressure, the excitement, the motion of it all. And each year about this time I feel physically and emotionally spent. My body feels like it has an extra weight on it and I just want to stop time for awhile, yet there is not time to rest. I can't sleep at night. You see, time doesn't stop, our customers still have needs, the landlord still needs his rent, and our staff needs their leader to chart the course for the next year. I need some self-restoration in there somewhere.

It's not enough just to plan out a year's worth of tasting events and classes, which I've done. It's not enough to readjust our growth plan and develop a budget for the coming year, which I've yet to do.

To top it off, I came down with that nasty chest cold that's going around a couple nights before New Year's Eve, which made me more tired than usual. I suffered from paralysis of effort.

"Why don't you see your doctor?" Dale suggested. After two weeks of coughing and runny noses, I got my prescription for a Z-pack and prednisone. Within hours I began to feel better.

It's now Saturday noon. In a couple hours, Dale and I board Jet Blue for San Francisco and the Fancy Food Show for two days of munching, nibbling, sipping, tasting and slurping all kinds of gourmet food items. You may recall in an earlier post our discoveries of last year, and I anticipate foraging for new food items for our store shelves and gift baskets. Things like chips, dips, salsas, oils, candies and more. It couldn't be more fun and more exhausting at the same time.

Tonight we dine at the Slanted Door, the famous Vietnamese-French restaurant we couldn't get into last year. Tomorrow night, it's Sunday Supper at RN74.

So I'm officially declaring my mourning period for the 2011 holiday over. There is a lot of work to do, and I'm ready to take it on.

A word of warning to you, our beloved readers and anyone who ambles in The Wine Country: get ready. When I'm motivated, I can't stop.

And I'm motivated.

It's Not Just for Celebrating

2011-12-31T13:36:00.000-08:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

A few days ago a little lady came up to me to recommend a half bottle of champagne for her New Year's Eve celebration. Poor dear, I thought. She's spending New Year's alone.

"I come here every year for my champagne," she said, prompting me to invite her to visit more than just once a year.

"I love champagne, but it doesn't love me," she answered. I asked her why.

"It goes right to my head and makes me dizzy--really loopy," she answered. That might be another explanation for the half bottle, I suppose.

I've heard that the bubbles in a bottle of champagne are an alcohol-delivery-system, sort of an accellerant to loopsville. How or if that works, scientifically, is beyond me. It could be one of those old wive's tales that helps explain waking up in a strange bed the next morning with someone you don't quite recognize.

Then again, like all alcoholic beverages, champagne works differently on different people.

No one knows the individualized ways people respond to champange better than Samantha Dugan, observer extraordinaire. Sam is The Wine Country's champagne buyer (more details at her blog sansdosage@blogspot.com), a person who has been conducting seminars and tastings at least five times a year for more than a decade. She is devoted to small-grower champagnes most people have never heard of (75% of all champagne bought in America are from three houses--kind of like the diversity of catsup brands), and she evaluates bubblies from a different lens than most once-a-year champagne drinkers.

Samantha believes, and I agree, that a good champagne is a good wine before the bubbles are even created. And truly good wine is made in the vineyard, not in a lab. For some, the fizz is the magic--you'll see them enjoying California plonk-with-carbonation at Sunday all-you-can-drink brunches. But with Sam, it's all about the wine first.

Occasionally we'll encounter an occasional champagne drinker swearing about the quality of a brand that makes a million cases each year.

"I looooove Veuve Clicquot! It's the best!"

Well, maybe, if the best is a choice between that and Korbel. But put a glass of Yellow Label next to a glass of Billiot, Camille Saves, Jose Dhondt, Agrapart or R. H. Coutier and see which bubbly tastes better. Our grower-champagnes are more complex, deeper, more flavorful, more individual than the mass-produced one, and they have a longer, more satisfying aftertaste than the main brands. After drinking them for a year or so, even the so-called tete-de-cuvees of the big houses--Dom Perignon, Krug, La Grande Dame, Roederer Cristal--seem lacking, although their prices certainly aren't.

To be fair, some champagne connoisseurs swear by the quality of wines like Dom when held in perfect cellars for 20 years. I hope someone shares some with me one day. But in all practicality, most of us buy champagne off the shelves to drink now. That's where a little experience, discernment and some advice from Samantha will serve you very well. Most important, it'll increase your appreciation for the stuff so that it isn't just a once-a-year ritual.

Indeed, over the past twelve or thirteen years, Samantha has introduced so many people to her selection of favorite producers, I am amazed at how many people go straight to their Agrapart or Pierre Peters, and how relatively few people ask us these days for Moet or Clicquot. It can be daunting at first to spend $40-$50-$60 or $70 on a bubbly you've never heard of. (Maybe New Year's Eve is an exception because so many people haven't heard of anything, but want a quality bubbly for midnight and will spend the money for the experience.) But once you've cleared that hurdle, good things are about to happen. Find out for yourself.

In a perfect world, Samantha would like to have more people integrate champagne into their lives throughout the year. We've always touted it as the perfect ice-breaker to kick off dinner parties, and Samantha's bubblies are wines so full-flavored she even likes to serve them with certain dinner courses. Or with fries and potato chips. And there is nothing like an unexpected pop of a cork to brighten the end of an otherwise dull day. This kind of $40 indulgence will do more for matrimonial harmony than a $40 Chardonnay, I'm willing to bet.

The past two days have been an exhausting, but gratifying lead-up to New Year's Eve, which at the time of this writing is tonight. On Thursday, Samantha hosted a tasting of champagnes priced $40 and under from 4:30 to 6:45. Then she and her crew cleaned up quickly and set up for the first of two nightly seminars showcasing her "Best Champagnes of 2011," each commencing at 7:30. All three events exceeded our expectations--people were eager to throw off this lousy year with a bang, and they came ready to enjoy themselves.

And they did. Emmensely. At the conclusion of the second night's seminar, those in attendance rose to their feet and applauded Samantha and her courage to fight the tyranny of the mediocre.

And they bought a lot of great-tasting champagnes that night. You might not recognize the names of those tiny houses, but you'll love sipping on their wines. If not tonight, soon.

And if Samantha has her way, often.

Being Truly Thankful

2011-12-23T09:21:00.000-08:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

Samantha Dugan told me a story a couple of days ago about a woman--a good customer--who came in the store earlier that day.

She had a $10 coupon for Bev-Mo, but as she was driving there she told herself, "What am I doing?" So she turned her car around and drove straight to our store.

"I don't care if Bev-Mo goes out of business. But I do care if something happens to The Wine Country."

I've been thinking a lot about small businesses lately and the onslaught of corporate, big-moneyed competition putting overwhelming pressure on them, causing all too many of them to shutter their doors. The stories of small-town merchants being put out of business by Wal-Mart and their Chinese-made products are well-known, but there is something closer to home we all should be concerned with.

I've written about this before, but it bears repeating.

Think of the businesses that make up your town--the independent shops and restaurants that give your home its individual character. The great breakfast place, like our Starling Diner on 3rd Street; the best sandwiches in town from Olive's on Broadway and on 2nd Street. The pickled eggs and Joe's Special sandwich at Joe Jost's. The cozy dinner houses of Fora, Lasher's, La Parolaccia, Vino e Cucina and Delius. And the grand dining of Michael's on Naples. Think of the funky shops and coffee houses on 4th street that have revived that neighborhood. And even the ethnic restaurants in every neighborhood in the city.

Now imagine all of them gone, replaced by Applebee's, Chili's, T.G.I. Friday's, Black Angus, Olive Garden or any other in a long list of commisary-cooked, institutional restaurants that dot every bedroom community off every interstate in our country. Think of how you feel when you walk the aisles of Rite-Aid, Wal-Mart, Target, Home Depot and another Bed, Bath & Beyond. Is that what we all aspire to?

The consequences are simple to comprehend. When we lose the individual character of our special places, we get products and services decided by a corporate spreadsheet somewhere. We have to buy what THEY offer, what THEY allow us to. And most of it is cheap and efficient, but soul-less.

As long as there are businesses like The Wine Country standing as an alternative to the oceans of mediocrity of most chain stores, we all win.

That brings me back to the woman who turned away from Bev-Mo to visit us. I'm simply humbled by that gesture--I truly am. People like her--and you--have allowed us to serve you for seventeen Christmases now. It is my personal holiday wish that we'll continue to serve you for another seventeen. And we'll do our part searching out wines, spirits, beer and nibbles that make all our hearts beat a little faster. And we can't wait to share them with you.

Have a Merry Christmas and a happy and prosperous New Year. And most important, be safe.

Fuzzy Math and Other Christmas Stories

2011-12-18T10:57:00.000-08:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

The papers are loaded with grocery store wine ads touting 30% off sales.

Without sounding too snarky at Christmastime, are you really excited about saving 30% on Cupcake Red Velvet?

The latest round of ads limit the 30% off "deal" to wines over $20 a bottle and exclude Champagne and sparkling wine, conveniently two weeks before the biggest bubbly day of the year, New Year's Eve. It seems grocery chains need to thin out their poor-performing high-end inventory, providing more evidence our "Main Street" economy still isn't very happy.

I've kinda noticed people are a little more glum this season than in past years. Usually when people walk into our store in December there is a little spring in their steps--after all, next to Disneyland The Wine Country is the world's happiest place. But this year so far it looks more like the walk of the living dead. I have this nagging sense people are shopping for presents because they have to, not because they want to. And I want The Wine Country to be a refuge for people who get depressed other places, but not here. I hope that changes during the last week before Christmas.

I always envisioned our store being a community stop-over for sound and sometimes thrilling wines at day-to-day prices. For example, I'm absolutely nutty about the new category of moderate-alcohol dry white wine bargains we're stocking from France's Cotes de Gascogne with names like Tariquet and Bidalere that sell for $8.99 and taste more like Sauvignon Blanc than most Sauvignon Blancs.

I realize that a $9 bottle of wine is still not a $4 wine, and we'll have to concede that market share to Trader Joe's and Albertson's. As our colleague Bennett Traub noted recently, "there is a floor to the price of quality wine--and it isn't $4." But there is plenty of thrilling wine available for under $15 if you know where to look. And getting 30% off industrial, mass-produced, overly manipulated corporate wine marketed in corporate venues isn't where you'll usually find them.

In this new Post-Parker world, enlightened wine shoppers care less about $500 Grand Cru Burgundies with 94 points than they do about finding affordable wines that'll taste good with their roast tonight. Even those folks who just want to drink wine--and could care less about wine "pairing"--are aware that there is a lot more flavor out there than Cabernet and Chardonnay, the chocolate and vanilla of restaurant wine lists. And many of them cost a heck of a lot less than they were paying before.

That's something to get excited about this holiday season.

With a week left before Christmas and two weeks before New Year's Eve there is ample time to become a hero at work and with your significant other at home.

1. Buy a case of J. Laurens bubbly and twelve bottle bags and you have gifts for your office staff that'll bring smiles to everyone. It'll set you out only about $200, but the good-will you establish at your workplace will last all year long.

2. Serve Gaston Chiquet's delicate Blanc de Blancs champagne as an aperitif for New Year's Eve dinner and Mark Hebrart's Special Club at midnight and you will get laid. Maybe not then, but soon.

3. Your important clients deserve one of Dale's beautiful gift baskets. If you've forgotten anyone on your list, they present an impressive, thoughtful, delicious solution to your predicament. From $29.99.

4. Don't wait until Christmas or New Year's Eve to open a bottle of grower champagne for your wife, your husband, your partner or your girlfriend. This is a stressful time of year for a lot of folks, and a surprise "pop" from a bottle of Camille Saves or Agrapart will soothe the nerves and raise more than just your spirits.

5. Make plans to join us Thursday December 29 for the first of two nights of enjoying The Best Champagnes of 2011 with Samantha Dugan, our Champagne Mistress at only $55 per person. (Earlier that afternoon from 4:30 to 6:45, Samantha will be offering her finest five Champagnes under $40 at our last Commuter Tasting of the year. Cost is just $15.)

6. If there are spirits drinkers on your shopping list, we have some of the coolest bottles in town, including Del Maguey's Vida Mezcal and Domaine de Boingneres incredible Bas Armagnac Reserve. Giving a gift like those will demonstrate you not only have impeccable taste, it'll prove you went the extra mile and didn't pick up a bottle of booze along with your Whitman's Sampler at Rite-Aid.

7. You may discover the Santa Cruz Mountains are producing some of the most sophisticated wines in California right now, particularly Ridge Vineyards and Mount Eden Vintners.

8. Bring a bottle of McEvoy's Marin County olive oil as a hostess gift this holiday. If there is a better oil produced in California, we haven't found it. While you're visiting our gourmet food section, also pick up some Brittany butter caramels made with fleur de sel, or Happy Goat Winter Spice or Vanilla Bean goat's milk caramels, or locally made artisan caramels from Little Flower Candy Company. The sea salt ones are my favorite.

9. Buy a case of Bidalere or Tariquet white for everyday and splurge on a fun bottle for the weekend. Then invite some friends over to share both.

10. Just stop by and say hi. It gives us a lift to see all of you this time of year. It reminds us how lucky we are to be working in a field that lets us live out our passion and serve our community in a most important way.

Christmas Music

2011-11-30T10:27:00.000-08:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

To any owner of a small business, attention to detail is often the measure of success or failure. In a retail store it may be obvious, like managing cash flow and inventory, or mundane--making sure the bathrooms are stocked and clean.

Most important, a retail environment must be welcoming to its patrons. As a first measure there must be friendly and helpful service at all levels. But the environment itself must evoke feelings of attraction, and that includes invitations to all five senses, which involves lighting, aromas, temperature, tasting (if in the food and wine business, as we are) and sound. If any of these elements offends people, retailers are in trouble.

One of those details is the sound of the place. In some ways a wine store is like a book store, with rows and rows of interesting labels that evoke geography, history, culture, cuisine and pleasure. It is often a place for contemplation, yet total silence can be oppressive and uncomfortable. Background music is the answer for most retail environments, and the kind of music played and its volume is as important in setting the mood of a place as any other factor that involves the senses.

My wife Dale commented the other day that it doesn't feel like the holidays. "Eveything seems so manufactured, on a schedule, doing things because the calendar tells you to. I just don't feel Christmas-y."

"That's because we live in southern California," I answered. "We don't have snow to signal the season. We only have the calendar. That's why spray-painted Christmas trees were invented here."

So now it's December, the most important retail month of the year and it was 80 degrees a couple days ago. If we're going to feel Christmas-y, we'll have to manufacture it for ourselves. That means the sights and sounds of the season. The calendar is ticking.

In the wine shop we have customers for gift baskets, wine accessories, gourmet foods and wines and spirits of every kind, for every use from holiday entertaining to the "wow" bottle. We need to create an environment that simulates the Christmases of our memory. Evergreen garlands, red bows, velvet stockings, strings of lights, brightly colored packages and, of course, Christmas music reminding us that the holidays are just four--three--two weeks away.

Is anybody really turned off by Christmas music? I have to ask this question because Fox News has insisted there is a war on Christmas in this country. You wouldn't know it by the lines outside Wal-Mart on Thanksgiving evening. Still, there are schools that have banned all but the most secular "holiday" music from "winter" pageants for fear of establishing a state religion in middle school. That leaves out almost all great music written before 1750, including Handel's Messiah. Not very scholarly, if you ask me.

Banning Christmas carols anywhere is an affront to our collective culture, no matter what religion--or non-religion--you adhere to. Christmas Day is a national holiday, for crying out loud. Fox News needn't worry that's going to change anytime soon.

Christmas has become, shall we say, Christmas for retailers. Sure, it has its roots in Christian theology, and over the years composers and songwriters have been inspired to write some of the world's most enduring music from it. These are the tunes we grew up with, the soundtrack to our lives. Banning them for fear of violating the Establishment Clause or offending Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or non-theist listeners robs them and us of our shared cultural heritage. Is "Away in a Manger" a threat to anyone? I must remind you that the most successful Christmas song of all time was written by a Russian Jewish immigrant named Israel Isidore Baline, who the world knows as Irving Berlin. The song, of course, is White Christmas.

Christmas is a legal holiday in a country that has no official religion, guaranteed by the First Amendment. Its religious significance lies in the hearts of our country's people to greater or lesser degrees, but the feelings of good cheer from giving and recieving, say, a gift basket or a specially selected bottle of wine are nearly universal--gift giving transcends religious and cultural differences. Christmas music is a seasonal reminder of that spirit of good cheer. Without it, our lives would be as dull as the winter sky.

Even in southern California, the home of the flocked Christmas tree.

Holiday Preparations at The Wine Country

2011-11-21T09:26:00.000-08:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

In my last post, I defended Nouveau Beaujolais as a seasonal, celebratory wine. The date for this year's Nouveau release has passed and the results were more diverse this year than in recent memory. Of our seven offerings, one was shy and tart, one was very un-nouveau and "natural wine-y", two were of standard quality and three Nouveaus I could drink quite freely and quite often. That is what I'd call a mixed review of the 2011 crop.

There wasn't the same enthusiasm for Nouveau Beaujolais this year that we had last year. There simply weren't as many people curious to try them. One Bay area colleague told me "the Nouveau thing up here has kind of gone," and some of the fun of the release may be declining with a new generation of wine enthusiasts. And you can never count out the mood of people to celebrate when our country feels so heavy-hearted these days.

Still, with Thanksgiving looming, and with it the chance to substitute what's really important for anxiety over the economy, the light-styled, vivacious Beaujolais is one of a handful of all-purpose wine choices appropriate for a meal as challenging as the sweet/savory/rich/diverse food in a traditional holiday table.

In short, we will sell out of our Nouveau Beaujolais before Christmas, just not as quickly as last year.

There are other wines we like for this purpose, too. First, there are grown-up Beaujolais, the Crus and the Villages, there are Vouvray and Montlouis, two relatively unknown white wines that sing with this kind of meal and there are my favorites, the fruity-styled German Rieslings which we featured at last Saturday's wine tasting.

We had a lineup that went from the bone dry Lietz Eins-Zwei-Dry, to the gentler off-dry Selbach Incline, to the statuesque medium-dry Donnhoff Estate Riesling to the delicious, masterful, generouly sweet Spatleses from Monchhof, Reusher-Haart, Gunderloch, Dr. F. Weins-Prum, Kunstler and Von Buhl. Rarely does one attend a wine tasting where every wine on the table is impeccable at all sweetness levels, but then, that is Riesling's genius, isn't it?

Bennett Traub, our domestic wine buyer, doesn't abide by imported wine for our American feast. He starts with Chardonnay as an aperitif, then prefers Pinot Noir and Zinfandel with his turkey (although if one wanted to argue the provenance of those grapes, one could point out their origins in Burgundy and Croatia. If he truly wanted to serve American wine, he could serve Concord grape or any of a number of indigenous American varieties. Bennett, however, isn't such a purist that he would drink lousy wine just to prove a point.)

Bennett's Thanksgiving table is savory, without the complex-wine-killing challenge of sweet salads and candied yams, so his choices stand a much better chance of providing real pleasure with his meal.

Ronnie Grant, who is Italian by marriage, may serve a Brunello or a Barolo with his meal. Sans sweet potatoes, these are intriguing choices also.

Samantha Dugan will be drinking Champagne. That is a certainty. She hasn't yet decided what else to serve, but I think I have better than 50-50 odds it will say "appellation-controlee" on the label.

Our two newest employees, Jennifer and Tim, have been exposed to wine fairly recently, but they have had a crash course in the wines of the world while attending our wine classes and tastings. I'll be curious to see what they select for their own tables after such an intense intitiation.

Walking into The Wine Country is a lot of fun these days as a bunch of new products have appeared in our wine, spirits, beer, food and gift sections. I'm particularly enthused about the McEvoy Rancholive oils from Tuscan varieties grown in Marin County.

The other enthusiasm I'm dying to tell you about is the results of our annual Wines of the Year tasting. A few winners are showing up and you might guess as to what they are by the size of the stacks. We'll reveal the winners and the finalists in our December 1st edition of The Wine Country online newsletter, and we'll offer the top wines in our final Saturday tasting before Christmas Saturday December 3rd from 1-4 p.m.

The same issue will also feature our Beers of the Year and our Spirits of the Year, so if you haven't signed up for our e-mail list, do so right away.

And I needn't remind you that our gift baskets contain goodies which you actually would buy for yourselves. No cat-food pate, no stale crackers, no waxy chocolates. If you want to give a gift that'll make everyone smile, Dale's hand-made gift baskets will succeed every time.

Celebrating the Season with Nouveau Beaujolais

2011-11-13T17:12:00.000-08:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

The last seven weeks of the year--the Holiday Season--are the most important weeks of the retail year. Thanksgiving is a big week in the wine and food business, and the entire month of December is a frenzy of activity from gift basket assembly to Christmas wines all the way to New Year's Eve Champagnes.

In our wine shop, the holiday season kicks off with the worldwide release of Nouveau Beaujolais on the third Thursday of November, conveniently one week before the great wine holiday Thanksgiving.

I first heard of Nouveau Beaujolais about thirty years ago. It was the first wine release of the vintage and it was celebrated in Paris and all over France. Master promoter Georges Duboeuf thought it would be a good idea to bring Beaujolais, Paris and France to the rest of the world by pre-shipping each year's new wine to warehouses abroad so it could be released at the same day everywhere. In 1985, the third Thursday of November was selected as the uniform release date for Nouveau Beaujolais by the French wine authorities, the INAO.

Ever since, Nouveau Beaujolais parties have sprung up, Nouveau Beaujolais nights at French restaurants with Edith Piaf singing in the background, and of course, all major wine stores offering a selection of the Nouveaus for their patrons. It's a great way to have Paris come to you.

Each year, The Wine Country joins in the fun by selecting six or seven Nouveau Beaujolais from reliable producers, and they usually sell out within about a week. Yet each year we seem to have to explain ourselves to wine snobs who place Nouveau Beaujolais somewhere in the wine heirarchy between White Zinfandel and Gallo Hearty Burgundy.

Wine snobs are missing the point, as they almost always do. Nouveau Beaujolais is not supposed to be a Grand Vin, just like In-N-Out is not supposed to be Haute-Cuisine. Nouveau's appeal is its honest frivolity, a fruity, frothy, lively wine that modern custom has embraced as a souvenir of the recent harvest and as a simple beverage of good cheer.

Some wine people blame the relatively simple Nouveau Beaujolais--often the only wine from the Beaujolais region some people have heard of--for besmirching the reputation of serious Beaujolais producers. It certainly is true a mass-production, thin and characterless Beaujolais from a company like Jadot or B & G has turned off a lot of people to this fine food wine. But only the most superficial wine dabbler would dismiss an entire wine region after drinking a Costco wine before exploring the depths of that region's offerings before making final judgments.

Beaujolais is located south of Burgundy, near the French gastronomic capital of Lyon. The gravelly soils make a good host for Gamay Noir, the grape of the region. The finest and deepest wines are usually from the hillside Crus, named after the 10 villages/regions that lie next to them: Brouilly, Cotes de Brouilly, Julienas, Saint Amour, Chiroubles, Fleurie, Chenas, Regnie, Moulin-a-Vent and Morgon.

To many American wine lovers, the "finest" and "deepest" kinds of wine are all that is desired, but there are many Beaujolais that are delicious when made in a less concentrated style. Beaujolais and Beaujolais-Villages are appellations that can offer wonderful wines when the producer knows what he is doing. A shimmering glass of Beaujolais accompanying a roast chicken, a prime rib or the upcoming Thanksgiving meal is a revelation when all you've experienced are "fine" and "deep" wines of, say, Darioush.

When you visit Beaujolais, you may catch a vigneron slicing off a piece of salami and a piece of cheese to munch on with his casual wine. It's profound in its simplicity.

We eat ham for Easter, corn on the cob in summer, pumpkin pie and roast turkey for Thanksgiving and we drink eggnog at Christmas. These are seasonal pleasures tied to American culture like baseball in the summer and football in the fall. Nouveau Beaujolais comes to the wine lover in such a seasonal and celebratory spirit.

Not all meals are created equal, so it is with wine. But you deprive yourself of a lot of joyousness if you don't go with the flow of the seasons and stick to a strict regimen of branded wine. To me, it's like eating the same meal every day of your life. I like haute cuisine and I like In-N-Out cheeseburgers. I like drinking rose in the summer and I like drinking Nouveau Beaujolais in the fall.

And I'll be there with the rest of you Thursday November 17 sampling the Duboeuf, the Ferraud, the Drouhin, the Dupeuble, the Jean Foillard and the Bouchard at The Wine Country's annual Beaujolais Fest. French music will be on the stereo and we'll share our appreciation of the season with wine lovers the world over.

Then winter comes and I'll drink something else.

What's Not to Love?

2011-11-06T14:58:00.000-08:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

During the past couple weeks, I've received some concerns/complaints/bitching about The Wine Country's love of French wines. It has been implied that we don't love our domestic wines, which isn't true at all.

As a store, The Wine Country's customers spend more money on domestic wine than any other country's wines, so what's there not to love?

Sure, we complain about high alcohol in certain California wines (and any other region who makes table wine resembling Amarone), but our complaints are really directed at wine writers who encourage this kind of winemaking.

Our critics have a valid point in these tough economic times, though. They assert we should promote American wines to encourage people to buy American, although in our 16 year history, American wines have been so popular with our customers they've never really needed promoting, just describing. (Do we have to buy American if we get a headache from Zinfandel? Bayer aspirin is headquartered in Germany.)

It's important for all of us to buy American whenever we can. And when it comes to food, it's important to also buy locally, too. We need to pull together in this crises, and in my opinion, the health of our economy depends the most on getting unemployed people good jobs right now. But this essay isn't about politics, it's about taste.

We are about to enter our holiday season, and our staff is of many minds on how to celebrate with wine. Bennett Traub believes we should all drink American wines on our great American Feast Day, Thanksgiving. He gives his examples in our November newsletter, such as greeting his guests with glasses of rich Chardonnay. It's a fine idea.

Greeting your guests with Champagne is also a fine idea. As is making a cocktail with Bourbon, or with Scotch if you don't like Bourbon. You see, it's all about taste.

As far as drinking American to support American workers, well, that's a complicated proposition in this global economy. By the way, how many California field workers are Americans, for starters? How many California wineries are owned by foreign liquor companies? How much of a California winery's equipment is made in Germany or France? Does it matter to truck drivers, distributors or wine shop employees where the wine they're transporting and selling originates? They get paid whether the wine comes from Asti California or Asti Italy.

The real worry in California is whether winery owners who leveraged themselves based a selling price of $250 a bottle will still be around in another decade. What's to become of those jobs?

Think of the wines you love to drink. Are they Chianti, Brunello and Barolo? Are they Alsace Pinot Gris, Riesling and Gewurztraminer? Is it German Riesling? Are they French Sancerre, Muscadet, Vouvray, Champagne, Bordeaux, Burgundy, rose? Is it New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, Australian Shiraz, Argentine Malbec, South African Pinotage or Chilean Carmenere? Is it Napa Valley Cabernet, Russian River Pinot, Carneros Chardonnay, Anderson Valley Gewurztraminer or Dry Creek Zinfandel?

All of these wines are unique and they all add to our cultural richness.

And they all taste good to a lot of people.

So if we sing the praises of our new Loire discovery or the rich grower champagnes from Gaston Chiquet, it doesn't mean we don't support Caymus, Rombauer and Cakebread. I would argue that whatever we choose to buy and drink makes this tough ol' world a little more beautiful.

Wherever it comes from.

Oyster Schmoyster

2011-10-30T16:08:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

O.K., I'm a bit bummed.

Yesterday The Wine Country put on our annual Oyster Fest wine tasting and only a handful of folks came out for such an extraordinary event.

The oysters were in season and were acquired from an impeccable source: Santa Monica Seafood. For three hours beforehand nearly a thousand oysters were shucked by my wife Dale and Ronnie Grant, our Italian and Spanish wine buyer. A homemade mignonette sauce, a cocktail sauce and fresh lemons were available, as they have been each of the past eight or nine years we've been hosting these shindigs. Each fresh oyster cost our customers a paltry $1.67 apiece, so it was affordable. We served our oysters with 10 perfectly crisp white wines, including Champagne, Sancerre, Muscadet, Chablis and a host of other racy whites. Everyone who attended was happy as (shall I say it?) a clam.

So why was the event such a bust?

I have some theories:

1. Despite the fact that October saw the biggest gains on Wall Street in over 20 years, everybody knows the economy in the real world stills sucks a big one. People don't have much money to spend on things as frivolous as an oyster and wine tasting.

2. We didn't advertise the event in our local newspapers.

3. People have a lot they can do on a Saturday in Southern California, unlike places like Nebraska where everyone in the state goes to a college football game. Perhaps we were too busy having fun outdoors in our 81 degree weather to bother with an indoor event.

4. Long Beach (a suburb of Los Angeles once known as "Iowa-by-the-sea") isn't as receptive to the joys of raw oysters and crisp white wine as, say, all of Europe. In fact, not very many places in the U.S. are, excepting San Francisco, New Orleans, Seattle and New York City.

A lot has been written on that subject of oysters. Perhaps the answer lies in the literary world.

“As I ate the oysters with their strong taste of the sea and their faint metallic taste that the cold white wine washed away, leaving only the sea taste and the succulent texture, and as I drank their cold liquid from each shell and washed it down with the crisp taste of the wine, I lost the empty feeling and began to be happy and to make plans.”

—Ernest Hemingway, A Moveable Feast (1957)

He was a bold man that first ate an oyster. —Jonathan Swift

The oyster's a confusing suitor;

It's masc., and fem., And even neuter.
But whether husband, pal, or wife,
It leads a soothing sort of life.

I'd like to be an oyster, say,

In August, June, July, or May.

—Ogden Nash

Perhaps nothing sums up eating an oyster for many of us better than this short video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQYoz-Cac4o

Last night Dale and I were guests of Tom and Pat Reep at the Long Beach Symphony Pops concert. We brought some leftover oysters, a bottle of Muscadet and a bottle of Sancerre for a pre-concert degustation. Tom scarfed up those suckers like it was his last meal. "I really wanted to come to your Oyster Fest," he said. "But I had too much to do."

While waiting in line for the men's room during intermission, I ran into not fewer than three customers who told me they, too, wanted to drop by for some oysters, but life got in the way.

So perhaps oysters and crisp white wine are something that more people appreciate than I thought, but still ranks down several notches on people's things-to-do-on-a-sunny-October-Saturday list.

For those of us who were there, it ranked quite up there.

Surprises at Work

2011-10-24T09:30:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor
One of the perks of working in a wine and spirits retail store is that things rarely get dull around here. Sure, there are chores we have to do, like mopping restrooms, taking out the trash, slicing cheese and bread, cutting cases and merchandising products, but every one of those tasks has a plus side.

For example, suppose one of us is stressing over whether a customer is going to enjoy a particular wine we recommended (and we do care enough to stress over such things) or if we should buy 5 or 10 cases of a wine on a tight budget, doing something physical like stacking wine or facing shelves provides a welcome break. There is a zen-like peace that can occur when doing repetitive work, and the added bonus of being creative with a display, whether it's cheese arranged on a plate or composing stacks of boxes of wine in an appealing way, provides each one of us a sense of accomplishment. It's a mind thing, but little things like this are satisfying.

Then there are the bigger things, like learning about our products in ways we never thought of before, whether it's Etienne de Montille giving a Burgundy history lesson adding another level of appreciation for his remarkable Burgundies, or it's a Scotch whisky representative explaining the role of the negociant house in creating products for connoisseurs. I've been in this business nearly 29 years and I'm constantly learning things I didn't know about this fascinating line of work.

I've written before about how no two people taste alike, and that fact alone creates challenges for marketing, merchandising and customer service. What good are shelf-talkers (those little cards that tell about the bottle on display) when the descriptors describe an experience someone else has with the product? Does the writer actually think his reader is going to discern the exact same qualities, down to the mango/vanilla/horsehide/bing cherry flavors? (Notice I didn't say Ranier cherries.)

Still, we must try to communicate our enthusiasms when they present themselves, even if words are often inadequate. And there are a few things I've been most enthusiastic about these past couple of months.

Since re-assuming (at least temporarily) the buying duties for our fine spirits department, one of my tasks is to meet with suppliers and sample the latest innovations in whipped cream vodka as well as discovering artisan classics like Armagnac and Calvados that are unknown to most of us. It's one thing to say, "I think this tastes like Kool-Whip for nineteen year old girls with fake IDs," and another to determine whether or not The Wine Country would benefit from such a product. (So far, we've resisted finding out.)

On the artisan side, we still have to ask the commercial viability question if we are to offer products few know about, like farmhouse brandies and negociant cask-strength Scotch whiskies. You see, it doesn't really matter how wonderful these products are if nobody cares enough about them to purchase them. We're not operating a wine and spirits museum; this is a commercial enterprise specializing in museum-quality products. All of our buyers, including me, have to deal with this reality.

Yet our emotions often lead the way, which compels us to buy unusual wines from France's Savoie and Jura, Italy's Basilicata and Val d'Aosta, California's Dornfelder and Albarino. We know the store isn't going to get rich selling these wines, but our store will be richer for offering them.

And the pleasure I've received by discovering the rich apple brandies of Calvados from Michel Huard, Adrien Camut, Domaine de Montreuil and Chateau de Breuil; the complex brandies of Armagnac from Domaine de Boignieres, Pellehaut, Tariquet, Ravignan and Chateau de Briat; and the fabulous Scotch whiskies from the negociant house of Gordon & MacPhail, including perhaps my Scotch-of-the-Year Mortlach 15 year old Speyside, and the silky Glen Grant Speyside whiskies we just acquired.

That is the easy part, the fun part. The challenging part is to find customers who will love these bottles as much as I do. These are the people who, like us, will be richer for the experience of savoring them, knowing they are not only drinking a great product, they will have the satisfaction of sharing something special with their friends.

That is where our job takes a noble turn.

A Sense of Community

2011-10-16T11:28:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

Josie, a long time customer and regular attendee of our Saturday and Thursday wine tastings, came up to me yesterday and told me something that touched me greatly.

"I want you to know how much I love you and your staff. Over the years you've taught me so much about wine and I feel at home here."

Josie shops at other wine stores and goes to tastings at different venues, as she should if she wants to explore wines we don't carry, for example. But she always returns to us because we are respectful of her and because she knows we work hard to offer experiences that interest her.

Josie's daughter Adrien, now a young woman working for a beverage chain store, spent much of her adolescence accompanying her mother to our store, curious about our bottles from faraway places. Once she turned 21 she attended many of our tastings and wine classes, often bringing friends to help them with their wine education. Josie told me that her daughter would swirl a wine at home and say, "I wonder what Uncle Randy thinks about this wine."

Wow.

I'm continually awed and sincerely humbled by the impact our store has on our people. Like the time my high school history teacher's widow held her husband's memorial service in our store. Or when the couple who regularly attended our Saturday tastings called one Saturday afternoon from their wedding reception in Lake Arrowhead to let us know they were thinking about us. Or the hundreds of shoppers who regularly thank us for changing the way they think about and drink wine.

Like neighborhood taverns have done since the establishment of our Republic, there is a sense of community that is fostered at The Wine Country, a feeling of sharing and belonging to a culture that celebrates the wine grower and his work. That's very different than praising a wine for it's rating. You can call it common decency or simple respect. I think it is rooted in fairness for all, and this is carried through the people who work here, in the place Josie referred to as coming home.

I've been interviewed by journalists who ask who my best (or wealthiest) customers are. I honestly don't know, even if financial advisors say I should. My sense of fairness requires I am respectful of everyone, no matter what their station in life, no matter how sophisticated they are about wine. It also demands I examine a vintner's wine every vintage, because he has sacrificed so much to bring it to us. It demands that we treat our wine reps with respect, and even the truck drivers who deliver our products to the store. We need them all.

But if there is a group to be respected who is the most important among equals, it is the stream of people who cross our hearth each day. They are the lifeblood of our business, and without them none of us--not the people who work in The Wine Country, not our reps, their drivers, their vintners, their growers--would be able to do the work we love.

And there's one more thing. Our concern for our customers doesn't end when they walk out our door. We want all of you to enjoy our products to their fullest and come back for more.

That, in a nutshell, is our business plan.

Saturday Afternoon Fever

2011-10-09T13:05:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

Having spent my teens through my early thirties in the music business, I can't help but compare our Saturday wine tastings to show biz.

Much as a good restaurant does every day, there is a lot of prep work to be done: we select a theme for the tasting, then we promote it through our website, e-mails, Facebook, Twitter, flyers and word-of-mouth, choose the wines to be poured, determine the purpose of the tasting, place the wines in the order that shows them at their most favorable, prepare the accompanying meats, breads and cheeses, type up the tasting sheets, set up the tables, extract the corks and be "on" for three hours, ready to lead, teach, inform, explain and answer questions.

Most important is to make each tasting event compelling. It's one thing to say, "here are our Chardonnays," and another to focus on Chardonnays that'll expand your concept of what certain exceptional Chardonnays can do for you. Like make your next chicken or fish dinner exceptional.

This year our Saturday afternoon tastings have provided thrills for our customers in ways nobody, including us, could have anticipated. Having the Grilled Cheese truck outside, not one Saturday but two, doubled the attendance of our tastings while providing a festival atmosphere in and out of our store. And it gave a special significance to the wines being poured.

If you regularly attended our Saturday afternoon tastings you would have experienced sparkling wines and Spanish wines with grilled cheese sandwiches. On another Saturday you would have sampled two types of chili along with wines that could stand up to them. Canter's Deli truck parked outside one Saturday and we featured a thrilling lineup of 2009 Beaujolais inside, a great choice for pastrami sandwiches. In June our annual Rose Fest was held with rotisserie lamb, potatoes, carrots and freshly made aioli. You could test south-of-France wine with south-of-France food.

The end of September brought chef Virginio Picazo to The Wine Country to make paella outside our back door while Ronnie made a red and white Sangria and provided us with other Spanish wines selected to taste great with paella.

One of our customers asked me, "How are you going to top that paella?" Well, the next week Samantha Dugan selected ten fantastic cheeses from around the world and ten perfect wines with those cheeses for a master class in pairing and cheese selection and presentation.

And our amazing Saturday events keep coming.

On October 29 we'll bring in bushels of raw oysters and we'll offer some of the most vibrant, thrilling white wines to wash them down with. November 19, we'll cook up some turkey, dressing, yams and cranberries to test out our finest German Rieslings for Thanksgiving. And our last Saturday tasting of the year will feature our staff's selections for 2011's WINES OF THE YEAR!

What is our aim in presenting this wide array of wines year in and year out? It's to provide our customers the opportunity not only to sample wines they might not sample on their own, but to provide a context in which they can enjoy them once they get our wines home.

You see, going to wine tastings is a good way to learn about wine and to determine which wines please you, but tastings only tell half the story. The more important lessons will be learned at home. How are you going to experience your wine? At an outdoor picnic, snuggled cozily by the fireplace, with a meatloaf, burger or fried chicken, on a weekday, at a special dinner with friends, over a holiday celebration, or slurping down oysters? Will your favorite sipping wine still be your favorite with Thai food? With sweet barbecue sauce? With marinara sauce? With dessert?

These are questions few wine outlets concern themselves with, but we obsess over. And our Saturday wine tastings help our customers learn what will work for them.

All for just $20 per person.

The Place for Wine Neophytes

2011-10-04T10:49:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

The more your are exposed to wine, the more you'll learn to love it. An alien flavor the first time out will have a ring of familiarity the second go-round.

At least that's my observation. It has been our mission at The Wine Country to expose as many people as possible to the wide world of wine, not just one little corner of it. A large part of that mission is fulfilled during our many tastings, classes and seminars, and the one I take personal responsibility for is our Wine 101 class, designed to introduce new people to the breadth of available wines, and a little about their context as well--some history, some geography and a lot of food pairing advice.

Wine is daunting for those on the outside. People with little experience in wine are intimidated by the sheer selection, the prices, and particularly the attitudes of those supposedly in the know. So they tickle around the edges, finding a "safe" wine they find pleasant or worse, avoiding wine altogether.

That's where Wine 101 comes in--the next class is Friday October 7 at 7:30 p.m. ($30 by reservation)--an introduction and tasting that allows people to experience some of the world's most thrilling beverages.

If you know someone who is new to wine, or would simply like to sample a variety of good wine, tell them about this enjoyable sit-down class. We all have to start somewhere. Even our staff.

Which brings me to the most important part of this post. One of the newest members of our team, Jennifer Wisniewski, came to us as a wine newbie--we retained her to help us with our online order processing and to compose the e-mails you get from us every week. She, like so many others, knew little about wine when she joined us, but she had an indispensible quality--curiosity. She submitted the following essay for our October newsletter (available on our website at www.thewinecountry.com) which chronicles the first steps of her wine journey from a one-wine palate to a blossoming appreciation for some pretty sophisticated wines. I share it with you here.

An Affair to Remember
A Neophyte's First Exploration Into The World of Fine Wines
by Jennifer Wisniewski

It all began with my first-ever wine tasting. I had just started my amazing new job here at The Wine Country, hired to process on-line orders, pack wines and spirits for shipping, compose our e-mail correspondence and serve in the back office receiving inventory.

I was determined to learn everything I could about all these wines that I had never experienced.

Until that first class, my wine experience was limited to sweet sparkling wines, like a lot of people. Everyone who knows me knows that I have a huge sweet tooth. So, of course, sweet sparkling wines like Moscato D’Asti are perfectly suited to my palate. I never really wanted to try anything else. Like most people I know, when I find something that I really like, I tend to stick with it and not try anything else.

Let me tell you, that first tasting, taught by our Italian wine expert Ronnie Grant, was a real eye-opening experience! I went in to it thinking that I probably wouldn’t like any of the wines, but I was determined to try them all and at least learn about them. That way, if someone asked me, I could give my honest opinion about the wines and let them know what they were like. And boy!, did I pick a whopper of a tasting to start with!

The tasting that introduced me to my new love: Piedmont 101, an introduction to Italian wines from the northern region of Piedmont. Starting with nice bright whites and finishing with a beautifully sweet sparkling wine that was so familiar and welcoming, but with a new spin. It has become one of my new favorite wines to sip. By the time the tasting was over, I felt like I had been on a whirlwind trip around Italy, and then come home to my soft, warm blanket on my comfortable old couch.

We started the tasting with a pair of white wines. I figured these would be nice and refreshing, maybe a little sweet. Up until that point al the white wines I had ever tasted were sweet. Boy was I wrong. These wines were dry, and light. No sweetness at all. One of them had a slightly nutty flavor… Needless to say, they were very far from what I was expecting. The first one I tasted, I was surprised to find that I liked. I had fully expected to take one taste and then pour the rest into the handy little buckets placed strategically along the table. I ended up drinking the entire thing! Granted, it was only about 1.5 ounces, but still…

Then from the whites, we moved on to the reds. Let me just tell you, these red wines had some definite power to them. To someone like me, who had never really experienced wines like these, they were a jolt to my palate in a big way. The first red I tasted was peppery and bold, with a little spice on the backswing. That was the moment I took my first step into my great love affair…

All the wines that came after that first sip seduced me more and more, until I couldn’t believe that I had turned my nose up at sampling wines like these since I had been old enough to take my first drink (legally… growing up in an Irish family you practically drink from birth...)

Now, since that tasting, I have attended many others here at The Wine Country, and I am sure to be going to many more. I have found some other great wines that I have loved. However, I will always remember those first wines I tasted, and how they brought me to my first love. Who knew that the first time I fell in love, it would be with Italy? And I can tell you, I can feel that this love affair is going to last for a long time to come.

Wines from Piedmont 101 that I fell in love with:

Stefano Massone 2010 Masera Gavi

Massone’s Masera vineyard produces a Gavi that has an intense and enduring nose, but it’s definitely the crispness and fruitiness on the palate that truly arouses the wine-lover in me. Like most of the Italian whites here in the store this unquestionably works best at the table; maybe fish, light soups, poultry, or even appetizers. Gavi is made from the Cortese varietal, and that is all Stefano Massone produces.

$16.99 per bottle

Produttori del Barbaresco 2006 Barbaresco

One of the best in Barbaresco. The best thing about this bottling is you can pull the cork now—without cellaring the wine for a number of years—and get immediate pleasure out of the wine.

$32.99 per bottle

Elio Perrone 2010 Bigaro

If you’re looking for one bottle of wine and you have to choose between a Moscato d’Asti and Brachetto d’Acqui, what do you do? Grab a bottle of this. It’s made from both Moscato and Brachetto, two of Piedmont’s great grape varietals. It’s a very enthralling bottle of wine.

$18.99 per bottle

The Grand and Not So Grand

2011-09-22T20:53:00.000-07:00

By Randy Kemner, Proprietor

After an eight hour drive from Santa Fe, through Albuquerque, Gallup and Flagstaff, we arrived at the commercial center of Tusayan, just a few miles ouside the entrance to the Grand Canyon National Park. The main highway in Tusayan is lined with hotels, steak houses, pizza joints, an IMAX theater (showing The Hidden Secrets of the Grand Canyon), and a few fast food outlets. We had made online reservations at The Grand Hotel, because it sounded so—grand—and the pictures made it look nice.

From the outside, it appears to be a comfortable hotel, and on the inside it has a sense of being in the northern Arizona woods with rough-hewn beams, faux trees, a large lobby area, gift shop, espresso and snack bar and a cocktail bar complete with flat screen TV and a pool table. A dull-witted bartender could still keep his patrons entertained.

After settling in, we decided to dine in our hotel’s dining room called Canyon Star Restaurant and Saloon, and to be honest, all I wanted or expected was a sound, basic meal—not the more ambitions dining we had experienced during the past week in Las Vegas and Santa Fe. The enormous circus tent of a dining room was adorned with beams and lampshades that evoked a great North Woods lodge. The bandstand looked like it was ready for a 10 piece dance band, but a lone guitar player in a cowboy shirt was singing a combination of folk songs and cowboy tunes to nobody in particular, the exact same person who was paying attention to him.

When Dale and I entered the expansive space, the cowboy singer was taking a break and an Indian in full regalia was beating a tom-tom on the stage and chanting what could have been Hopi Indian incantations while an eight year old boy, also decked out in Hopi-styled eagle feathers and beaded vestments, was performing a solo Native American ritual dance on the hotel’s dance floor. (After the show, tourists clamored for pictures alongside the smiling cherubic kid. He obliged, with a creepy fixed smile that couldn’t have been topped by the creepy smiles of five year old beauty contestants.)

The kid’s dance was followed by a teenager dancing the famous Hopi hoop dance. This version was a very artful and acrobatic display juggling what looked like five or six hula hoops.

Rather than quibble about the fare, which was barely O.K., I’d rather comment on the wine list.

It was depressing. It looked like the wine buyer wheeled a shopping cart into the nearest Safeway and made his selection from the cheapest, most boring wines on the shelf.

Honestly, I don’t expect tourist hotel wine lists to wow me, but the items on this wine list—especially the glass pours—featured low-end, standard supermarket brands like Red Diamond, Blackstone, Kendall-Jackson, Toasted Head and Chateau Ste. Michelle. In other words, dull. A New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc was a happy exception, crisp anyway. There was an Argentine Malbec and a Vin de Pays d’Oc Pinot Noir that probably sounded fancy when the liquor salesman suggested it to the hotel’s wine buyer.

We drank the perfunctory Sauvignon Blanc and I ordered a glass of Chateau Ste. Michelle Syrah whose main virtue was that it tasted like red wine. Just one flight upstairs in our room sat a bottle of Manciat Poncet Macon Bussieres just sitting there, but I didn’t have the heart to ask if there was a corkage policy.

After dinner, Dale and I made our way back to our room and went to bed early. That night I dreamed Dale was just about to audition to be Lawrence Welk’s new Champagne Lady, complete with an eight-piece audition band. But I became upset in my dream because Dale can’t sing a note. So I woke up early.

The next morning we drove to the entrance to the Grand Canyon. While our car was waiting in line, we saw a sign that read 7 Day Pass $25, Annual Senior Pass $10.

“I wonder if you qualify for that senior discount,” Dale chided.

“I’ll pay the extra fifteen bucks,” I said. “I don’t ever want to think of myself as a senior. Once you start thinking that way, you start acting that way. Screw the AARP.”

As the car rolled up to the window, a lady in a ranger suit leaned over to my window and asked, “Is anybody in there over 62?”

Dale, sitting in the passenger seat, shot back, “He just turned 62 three days ago.”

“Well then,” the ranger lady announced, “you can have a Senior Pass for $10 and it’s good at any National Park in the country for a whole year! Can I see some I.D?”

I wrested out my wallet, paid the ten bucks, got my senior pass and drove on.

The scenery was greener than I had imagined, with small forests of scrub pines on either side of the road into the park. To the left, behind a small thicket of pines we saw several small dome tents gathered around a campsite.

“That’s cool,” Dale said of the campers, “for the wild people. I’m done with tents.”

We came upon the parking lot to the visitor’s center and the pathway to view the canyon. The lot was nearly full, but we found a space near the back and huffed it up to a viewing station. The morning was crystal clear, vivid and the depth of the view more breathtaking than I could even imagine. We stood there soaking it all up, watching the hawks catching the thermals overhead, both of us unable to say a word. We took pictures of each other in front of the mighty chasm, but I knew no picture could really capture the scope of what we were seeing.

We walked down the path to get glimpses of the canyon from other perspectives and came upon two water tanks enclosed by a protective chain link fence topped with barbed wire.

“Do you think that’s to keep out terrorists?” I asked Dale.

“I think it’s more to keep out the wild people trying to go for a swim,” she said.

After taking a few more feeble pictures, we backtracked to Mather Point to take in a great view along with about 100 other people. We could hear foreign languages and Australian accents among those experiencing what we were.

We did the tourist stuff, going to the Visitor’s Center, then walking over to the gift store and buying a jigsaw puzzle of the canyon, a book on gourmet Native American cooking and a book describing all the ways people have died in the Grand Canyon, soon to be a major motion picture. We thought a moment about buying a DVD of a 1967 true life adventure called Brighty of The Grand Canyon, starring an aging Joseph Cotten as Uncle Jim Owen and Jax as Brighty, the world’s smartest burro, but decided to save our money for our last dinner on our epic road trip.

We lunched on apples, Jana Water and a couple breakfast bagels we’d bought at the hotel earlier and simply relaxed at a shaded picnic table next to the parking lot. We watched as people of all nationalities, shapes and sizes arrived. One exceptionally large family (not large as in 16 kids, but large as in super-size-me large) got into their minivan, slung so low I thought it would scrape the asphalt. I wondered if they’d ever read any of Michael Pollan’s books. Probably not.

Tonight we had a decision to make. Should we drive back in the park and have one more expensive night of possibly mediocre, but filling, food at the dining room of the spectacular looking El Tovar hotel, or have we had enough big dinners on this trip and just nibble on a green salad and a bowl of chili here at the Grand Hotel and call it quits early the night before our eight hour drive home tomorrow?

We opted for the latter, and took the elevator to the first floor. There we went inside the dining room and both ordered martinis.

On the Road Again

2011-09-22T15:49:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

There are two types of vacations: the kind where you need to cram in every travel book sight, landmark, museum, point of interest, historical tidbit, notable restaurant and natural wonder into every conscious moment. And then there's the kind where you spend your precious vacation time in restorative relaxation, like basking on a beach or holed up in a mountain cabin.

When I was younger, I opted for the first kind, and I admit I’m still curious about a lot of things and don’t want to miss out on any. But as my age and experience advance, the leisurely type of vacation is becoming more and more appealing.

In truth, I’ve come to realize the best trips are a hybrid of the two—perhaps narrowing a focus here and there while building in time for relaxation and perhaps some sufficient book-reading.

The objective of our current 10-day road trip was to visit friends and relatives in faraway places, see some sights we hadn’t yet seen and find a few restaurants that would provide us the pleasure we felt we deserved during our vacation from The Wine Country. (Vacation should have been in quotes, because our store is never far from our thoughts.)

During our one day in Santa Fe, we took our time getting up after a day of driving and a fabulous and hauntingly good dinner at Café Pasqual’s. To be honest, I wanted to return to that funky-looking, southwest kitsch-filled room for breakfast, lunch and another dinner, but Dale, still full from the night before, wanted to hold off eating until later.

So we finally made it downstairs at La Fonda, roamed its arched hallways and looked at the menu for the creperie in the hotel which didn’t appeal to us at that moment. La Plazeula restaurant in the courtyard had a menu that had Oaxacan eggs and Huevos Rancheros with red and green salsa, so we decided to brunch there. It was around 11:15 and breakfast was still being served.

The meal was satisfying, and afterward we decided to walk the Plaza and the Old Town streets, peaking into art galleries, looking at southwestern jewelry and carvings in windows, just doing the turista thing. One gallery had particularly wonderful paintings from technically gifted artists and if I had an extra $25,000.00 lying around, I’d probably be the owner of a couple of them.

But travel plans for people like us usually begins with where we’ll be sleeping and where we’ll be eating, so our 7:15 dinner reservations at the Inn of the Anasazi loomed ahead. Dale, who has been taking exercise classes at the Ability First swimming pool near the store, wanted to go back to the hotel for a little water-aerobics and that was fine with me.

There wasn’t time to really see Santa Fe and its surroundings—no Georgia O’Keefe museum, in fact no museums at all. We each bought a lemonade from a vendor in the plaza and sat in a park bench people-watching and observing a very determined character throwing feed up into the air to attract the city’s pigeon population. Handful after handful this lanky senior threw, wide arches of tan seed falling to the grass and pigeons by the half dozen flying in from all directions. All of a sudden, a hundred birds took off at once, flapping furiously, circling the plaza overhead in three full rotations, some spinning off for various rooftops, power lines and monuments. It is always a wonder to see the miracle of birds flying in flocks.

Dale's perspective: “I hope they don’t poop on me."

Then it was time for a swim. Caddy-corner to the plaza, our hotel swimming pool beckoned. I side-stroked about two laps and then it was into the spa for some serious soaking. Dale spent the next half hour actually exercising in the water before she joined me. Serious jets—painful on some parts—made relaxing in the hot tub a bit of an ordeal, which I’m sure it was not designed to do.

Back up to the room and it was time to shower and get ready for dinner at the Inn. (Everywhere we ate in Santa Fe was within a short walking distance from our hotel.

The Inn of the Anasazi’s restaurant is in a Rosewood hotel and in contrast with the funky casualness of Café Pasqual’s, there was a subdued elegance to the room. Beautiful wood beams, earthen pottery, abstract swooshes on hide-like canvases and warm lighting made this an inviting setting for dinner.

The Sangria that was missing the night before was on the Anastazi drinks menu and I ordered the hotel's not-sweet, red wine-y version to accompany my duck enchilada mole (with pico de gallo, and cilantro sour cream) appetizer. Dale ordered a “classic martini” which had sweet vermouth and Luxardo along with her gin. She would have preferred a simple dry martini with a drop of dry vermouth rather than the sweet-tinged drink. Still, it tasted fine as a preparation for her delectable octopus and garbanzo bean salad. She ordered a half-bottle of King Estate Oregon Pinot Gris, which, she was happy to discover, married beautifully with her main course as well.

For the main course, Dale ate the Inn’s wild Alaskan halibut covered in a New Mexican Ratatouille, smoked eggplant and salsa Veracruzana. I was rather taken aback at the sight of the dish—when I order Alaskan halibut, I want to see a large white mound of juicy, unadorned fish. But I must admit, after savoring a forkful of her assemblage, it was very, very tasty. It is Santa Fe, of course.

I ordered the bronzed prime pork chop covered in a peach-mustard glaze with an irresistible roasted corn tamale, grilled asparagus and summer squash. O.K., I have a sweet tooth, and yes, sweet sauces are impossible to match with the tangy-tart wines I like to drink, and no, there were no half-bottles of Beaujolais on the list, so I ordered a half-bottle of Hauts Cotes de Nuits, a light red Burgundy with a soulful aroma and an easy-going, simple demeanor.

Maybe a thick, gooey Parkered red would have been the grape gravy that most local wine-o-philes would have selected to wash down the sweet pork. I just wasn’t in the mood for one. We thought a moment about ordering the mesmerizing green chile mac ‘n’ cheese side dish, but we knew we were going to be stuffed enough without it. Why add to our misery over a couple spoonfuls of oozing Nirvana.

For dessert, Dale succumbed to the warm citrus olive oil cake while I reveled in the chocolate pot de crème, each dish helpfully recommended by our server. Now we couldn’t eat another friggin’ bite and waddled the four blocks back to our hotel.

After sleeping in, we showered and packed and checked out of our hotel. We aimed our Prius at interstate 25 and headed south toward Albuquerque, past miles and miles of near nothingness, punctuated by an occasional ranch house. I thought a moment about the people living isolated lives out on the prairie, 40 miles from a gas station, corner grocery, companionship. Were they content in their solitude, perhaps reading great novels at night or glued to Fox News hanging on every word from Hannity and O’Reilly? Sunday church was more than a devotional for them; it provided much needed human connection. There are no taverns or bars on the prairie, either.

Turning west on I-40, we noticed it was time to gas up, so on the outskirts of town we spied a truck stop and pulled in. It was about lunch time and there was a Denny’s attached to the gas station’s store, so we said, “why not?” and went in.

It’s been a long time since I’ve eaten at Denny’s and a lot of things on the menu have changed. There were new items like the pancake ball sundae I couldn’t bring myself to order and the strawberry cheesecake shake I gave in to, choking on either the strawberry seeds or the graham cracker crust that lodged in my throat. In fact, just about everything on the Denny’s menu was either sweet—and I mean whipped cream-sweet--like their pancake puppies, or covered with cheese like their new mac 'n' cheese patty melt.

Dale heard my milkshake order and gave me a withering look, shaking her head slowly from side to side.

“I can’t believe you’re ordering that,” she said with the same expression I used to get from my mother after forgetting to take off my muddy shoes before entering the living room.

All I have to report about our lunch is that Denny’s food lived down to its reputation. But its employees were all very nice.

We settled back in the Prius for the long haul through the New Mexico desert, seeing the beautiful scenery of red-hued outcroppings interrupted by countless souvenir outlets hawking authentic Indian artifacts and at one point an impoverished settlement as depressing as any shanty town in Tijuana.

To break up the monotony, Dale pulled a pocket-sized book out of her satchel and began reading snippets from food journalist Michael Pollan’s Food Rules—An Eaters Manual, an essential tome which basically summarizes his research from his two previous books The Omnivore’s Dilemma and In Defense of Food. As Dale began to tick off really smart ways to think about good nutrition grouped up into his three admonitions, Eat Food (not “edible food-like substances”), Mostly Plants, Not too much, I thought about my own compulsive eating habits and how I needed to change them when I got back home. Rules like #37 The Whiter the Bread, the Sooner You’ll Be Dead and #19 If it came from a plant, eat it; if it was made in a plant, don’t are good advice for everyone on your Christmas list.

I thought about my meal at Denny’s which was the yang to Pollan's ying. I’ll have to be starving to eat there again.

We crossed the border into northern Arizona and it seemed like the vegetation got a little greener, though it was still deserty. Hours and hours we drove until rising up to the refreshingly beautiful conifer forests of Flagstaff. On to Williams, then north on state highway 46 toward the Grand Canyon, the final destination of our road trip.

Eating and Drinking Locally

2011-09-20T09:41:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor
We human beings are creatures of habit. For example, studies have observed when we return to favorite restaurants most of us will order the same one or two items on the menu rather than try new things. When faced with new choices on a wine list, we usually select our old standbys.

It’s not a bad thing, but it tells us volumes about human nature. Most wine people I know are a bit more adventurous in both their wine and food choices. We like to sniff new aromas, try new flavors, experience life a little more fully, but prejudice and timidity often rear their heads even among the culinary adventurous. I was thinking about these things during the next leg of our September road trip.

Dale and I visited some old friends in Grand Junction, Colorado a few days ago and they graciously took us out to dinner at a local favorite called The Winery (of course). Owen and Pauline Oleson (Owen comes from North Dakota where people have names like Oleson) handed me the wine list to make a selection. That is one of the hazards of being in the wine business, expected to know what everyone at the table will enjoy drinking and being an expert on every single bottle from every single producer on every single wine list.

The first page of the wine list was devoted to Colorado wines—and by local, I mean wines made fifteen miles away at the tiny wine region called the Palisades. The rest of the wine list was made up of a rather typical assemblage of California favorites with a smattering of European wines thrown in.

Locavores will jump at the chance to dine at a restaurant which specializes in cooking foodstuffs grown within the proximity of the place, but I’ll bet when it comes to wine choices, most will harken back to their favorites, being creatures of habits and all. I know I do, having evolved a palate that eschews certain styles of wine and embraces others. But here I was staring at a list of locally grown wines I assume were selected for their quality and now I was given an opportunity to drink wines with my meal I can’t find in California.

So I jumped at the chance, selecting what turned out to be a delightful, crisp young Sauvignon Blanc from Plum Creek Winery. Who would’ve thought Colorado was capable of making such a pleasant wine? There are wine people from Colorado who don’t drink Coloradan wines, preferring to order old reliables from established wine regions in California and Europe. Perhaps a bad encounter years ago with a chancy red from the early days of Colorado winemaking turned one off to an entire state’s wines. But I must remind readers that the wines from upstart Santa Barbara County—especially red wines—in the mid-1970s were pretty chancy too.

When it came time for our main courses, the wine list was handed to me again, but this time I simply didn’t want the responsibility of selecting a wine to go with King crab legs, prime rib, Colorado lamb and tournedos of beef, our main courses, so I passed the wine book to Pauline to let her do the impossible.

Pauline looked the Colorado list over and selected another Plum Creek wine, the super-premium Grand Mesa, a silky red Bordeaux-variety blend that was ripe, nicely perfumed and had a very pleasant texture. At well over fourteen percent alcohol, it was not that different from a lot of reds from California, except that it was strikingly effortless to drink.

The annual Colorado Wine Festival was scheduled in Palisade the next day, but I skipped the opportunity to explore the emerging quality of this new region to spend time with our friends. I know I gave up a valuable experience for work, but Jeez, I’m on vacation after all, and wine should serve friends, not the other way around.

After leaving the Olesons, Dale and I drove through Glenwood Springs to Aspen to have lunch at a new Italian restaurant called Casa Tua we discovered quite by accident, and I drank a delightful quartino of Duceto Chianti with my ricotta rigatoni. Drinking local is fine with Colorado lamb, but I still want to drink Italian when I’m eating Italian food. I had forgotten what a good value that affordable Chianti is.

We then decided to take the long road over Independence Pass, a harrowing, but beautiful drive on a road that would probably be snowed in for the season in a few weeks. The quaking Aspens were just about to turn to their fall colors; it would’ve been nice to see them in their full seasonal glory.

Finally arriving at the Continental Divide at the Top of the Rockies, an elevation of over 12,000 feet, I realized why I had been huffing a little for breath the past half hour while merely driving. We then descended the mountain past the marshy headwaters of the Arkansas River to the depressing mining town of Leadville (of The Unsinkable Molly Brown fame). There were some quaint old buildings there, but we had a date with my cousin Sue and her husband Jeff in Boulder later that afternoon and couldn’t stop to investigate.

Completing the Aspen loop, we entered back on I-70 for the Eisenhower and Johnson tunnels and down the long grade to the Great Plains, chuckling at the highway signs warning truckers of the steep downhill grade: “TRUCKERS YOU ARE NOT DOWN YET…”

After catching up over appetizers with the crisp Graville Lacoste white Graves and during dinner of chicken pot pies with both the Chidaine Vouvray Le Bouchet and the Chateau de Puligny-Montrachet Monthelie to see which wine tasted better with the rich crusty favorite, the just-too-sweet Chenin Blanc or the aromatic Pinot Noir, Sue told us Boulder was going crazy over the local food movement. Dale and I retired to rest up for the long day of driving to Santa Fe the next morning.

The next morning we departed Sue and Jeff’s Rocky Mountain aerie and just as Sue had indicated, we saw a sign on the rear of a Boulder bus advertising local eating. It wasn’t advertising a hip restaurant; it was announcing a food movement. It’s a good thing for people living within fifty miles of farms and ranches. Here in southern California, when you’re fifty miles from home, you’re still in some sort of L.A. suburb.

We commenced down I-25 on a six and a half hour journey to our next stop, Santa Fe. Neither Dale nor I had ever visited the historic culturally rich city before. I had tried to visit once before during a ‘round-the-country drive back in 1982, but I was snowed in while stopped at a rest area on I-40 outside of Tucumcari. When I awoke the next morning, my Chevy pickup was covered in snow and the interstate from Albuquerque to Santa Fe was closed off by the New Mexico Highway Patrol. It had taken me 29 years to return.

We arrived at the Old Town Plaza around six o’clock Monday evening and checked into our vintage-1930s Spanish-styled hotel called La Fonda On The Plaza. We had 8 p.m. dinner reservations at nearby Café Pasqual’s, a short two or three blocks away, so we had time to clean up and rest a bit in our vintage room.

Dale and I had selected this small restaurant after some internet research for its reputation, its emphasis on authentic New Mexican cuisine and especially after drooling over its online menu It turned out to be a happy choice for our first night in Santa Fe, because the restaurant, which specialized in organic local ingredients, infused subtle exotic influences (perhaps an Ethiopian spice mixture here or a dash of jasmine there) to its Napo’s Pupusa (griddled corn masa cake with green chile, zucchini, corn, jack cheese and poblanos with roasted tomato salsa and Salvadoran Esabeche) and its Plato Supremo (Anaheim chile relleno and a mole enchilada with Rosie’s organic chicken and Oaxacan banana leaf tamale) and its Conchinita Pibil (Yucatan style pork shoulder marinated in citrus and achiote and slow roasted in banana leaves with pickled red onions served on saffron rice) that lifted the rich, hearty dishes way above the typical Southwest fare. The subtley-flavored, tender pulled pork had been slow roasted inside the banana leaf and had otherworldly essences. The carne asada skewers were made up of grilled Angus skirt steak with roasted tomato jalapeño salsa, and the flavor hinted at a lime marinade.

Since this is a wine blog, I feel compelled to comment on the restaurant’s wine list—a knowledgeable selection of some of my favorite French wines, including Comte Lafon Macon and Pierre Boniface Apremont, along with an Argentine Malbec and some fine California producers.

The trouble for me is the nature of chilies, which are essential ingredients in New Mexico cuisine. Maybe I just have a sensitive tongue, but fine wine loses its fine-ness and usually burns my mouth after eating food with chilies on it. Forget delicacy or nuance, wine gets reduced to awkward and simple fruit flavors, bitter and disjointed tannin (in red wine) and stinging acid—not pleasant versions of wine virtues—after a frontal assault of spicy-hot ingredients.

And still good restaurants with knowledgeable wine buyers persist on featuring fine wine with such food. To top it off, Santa Fe is putting on its annual multi-day wine and food fest called Wine and Chili in a few days. Tickets have been sold-out, according to a local newspaper, which leads me to wonder who’s screwed up here. Is it just me who reacts so violently and viscerally to hot stuff and wine? It certainly seems that way, given the scale of the offense. Maybe people who love wine and the people who love chilies think it’s a good idea to consume your loves together.

At Café Pasqual’s I wished I’d been served a pitcher of Sangria while I sat there unable to finish my glass of Muscadet.

That may seem like a minor quibble, and it is, when eating such fabulous food. In fact, I was compelled to buy not one, but two of the restaurant’s cookbooks for Dale (hoping she could try to re-create some of these dishes at home) before leaving our table.

After dinner, Dale and I took an evening stroll gazing at the beautiful items in the store windows surrounding the old plaza, checking out the very active nightlife trying to walk off some of that rich and satisfying display of local food cooked out-of-this-world. Tomorrow would be a casual day of discovery in this little village-within-a city, but tonight we hit the sack contented we had just eaten a meal we are not likely to forget soon.

A Study in Contrasts

2011-09-17T13:45:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor
In my last installment I reported on our experience in what was supposed to be a great Las Vegas restaurant. I was more charitable about our visit than my wife Dale, who the next morning had amplified her displeasure about the meal.

“It was shit."

Personally, I love to go out to eat, and I pretty much manage to have a good time when I dine out, no matter what the experience. To me the waiter that night who recommended an expensive Amarone to accompany the restaurant’s fish was simply trying to pad his bill. I was entertained at his stupidity rather than be offended. Dale, on the other hand, thought he was a ripoff artist, and not a good one, and the food’s inability to impress made it all the more egregious when the check came.

The next night, we had reservations at celebrity chef Mario Batali and vintner Joe Bastianich’s restaurant B & B, located in the remarkable Venetian Hotel on Las Vegas’ strip. After taking a swim in the Monte Carlo pool (and realizing just how out of shape and inflexible I’ve become) and a soak in the hot tub, we retired back to our room for a light meal of fresh fruit we’d brought along in our igloo and a couple Starbuck’s lattes we bought near the casino floor. We read a little, Dale napped, and I recorded my recollections of the previous night's debacle in the previous post. Before we knew it, it was time to dress for dinner.

We had the hotel’s cab hailer do his work, hailing, I suppose, and we rode it for a ten minute ride to the Venetian. $17 dollars later (everything costs about $20 in Las Vegas—cab rides, valet tips, slot machines. It is especially costly after going to the ATM and not wanting to look like a cheapskate by asking to break a twenty.

The Venetian is a an incredible factory—a mall city, actually, with amazing looking frescoes in the ceiling and warm, inviting hues, waterfalls, walkways and luxury shops designed to make you happy while separating you from your money.

Just inside the entrance is Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bistro, a spot we had loved dining in during our last brief visit to Las Vegas. After walking through one casino—it seemed like there were many in the complex—we saw a sign that pointed us to “restaurant row,” a place that’s a who’s who of eateries fronted by famous restaurateurs and celebrity chefs. Mario Batali’s B & B, Emiril’s Delmonico Steak House, Wolfgang Puck’s Cut and Piero Selvaggio’s Valentino are all next door or across the hallway from each other. And that’s just a fraction of the eateries—Batali has two other restaurants in the Venetian alone.

We arrived early, so Dale sought out her favorite slot game, due to her success in Primm, Hot Shot. After dropping $40 in about ten minutes on the penny slot, Hot Shot lost its position as #1 in Dale’s heart.

When it was time for our reservation, we were immediately seated with a view of the darkly wooded room and the mall hallway and its constant foot traffic and the Delmonico bar. Our server, a blond beauty from San Francisco reminded me of a young Kim Cattrall. Then she got down to business.

“Would you like something to drink?”

“Is it too late in the season for a Bellini?” I asked.

“Not at all,” and she returned with a fresh and very peachy Bellini and a Hendrick’s Martini for Dale.

The wine service the night before was, to put it charitably, improvised, but at B & B, our server knew her all-Italian wine list beautifully. To give an example, I asked her about a wine on the glass-pour list I’d never heard of: Giusti Piergiovanni's Lacrima di Morro d’Alba. She could sense I was thinking it might be a typical Piedmont blend, perhaps Barbera and Nebbiolo. Remarkably, our food server anticipated the confusion.

“It’s not from Alba of Piedmont. It’s a varietal from the Marche. It is easy to drink and has forward fruit.”

I was knocked out at the depth and sophistication of her answer, especially since I gave no clue what I was thinking. What's more, she had a luminescent smile which made us feel comfortable and cared for. What a far cry from the ludicrous Amarone recommendation with my fish the night before.

The amuse bouche came next, with chickpeas and lemon thyme on a crostini, an amazing bite. Then came a warm lamb’s tongue salad with baby chanterelles for me and a curl of lamb sausage with frisée, a roasted red onion and a caperberry vinaigrette, both exquisite, balanced and nuanced.

The primi dishes we selected were gnocchi with a lamb ragu and chickpeas, which Dale selected as her main course, and for me, bone-marrow raviolis with ossobuco ragu, richly flavored—decadent even—and the raviolis had just enough grip to give a little chew. The glass-pour Nebbiolo was solid, perfumed and surprisingly accessible for such a young wine.

When my main course arrived with Dale’s primi, I gazed down on three large golf ball-shaped crispy polenta covered sweetbreads with roasted corn and chanterelles. The crunch reminded me of fried rice balls at our local yakitori and I didn’t care for it. Dale loved the dish, though. So much so that she swapped her lamb ragu for it—we both got the better part of that trade.

For dessert I had a trio of gelati (for the second night in a row), piled on top of one another in a little cup. Dale’s dessert blew her doors off. Fried dates with a coating that reminded me of a beignet, accompanied by a creamy and subtle date gelato and an oozing chunk of honeycomb.

“This is the best dessert I’ve had in my life!” Dale declared. “This meal is TEN TIMES better than last night!”

At half the cost, I might add.

We settled back in our chairs with the most intensely flavored espresso I’ve ever tasted.

The dining experiences of our two nights in Las Vegas were a study in contrasts, proving once again, money doesn’t buy you love.

A Fool and His Money...

2011-09-15T16:44:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

Here we are in Las Vegas. Except for an overnight stay in a cheap room at the Luxor and dinner at Bouchon a few years ago, this is the first time we’ve spent time here in over 30 years.

My how things have changed.

As a working musician in the 1970s, I’d frequently visit Las Vegas, not to gamble, but to see the last of the great entertainers: Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis, Jr., Ella Fitzgerald, Count Basie, Robert Goulet, Liberace, Steve and Edie, Buddy Hackett, Redd Foxx, Wayne Newton and Elvis. I even worked here in 1976 at the old MGM Grand before the fire, when MGM classic movies like Gone With the Wind were being screened at the movie theater in the basement and you could push a button for a waitress to bring you another Black Label. That was before VCRs and Turner Classic Movies, when watching classic films in pristine condition was a rare event.

On one end of the Strip was the sprawling Hacienda Hotel and its ranch-house architecture. On the other end was the high rise hotel, the Sahara. In between were echoes of the Bugsy Siegel and the Rat Pack era—the Dunes, Tropicana, Flamingo, Sands, Stardust, Thunderbird and Frontier. Then there was Circus Circus, built to lure families with their wholesome entertainment and Caesar’s Palace, where an older Sinatra brought in the high rollers and you could shake hands with a very bored and tired Joe Louis who was employed as a greeter.

The mid-70s were a time of transition, though. The MGM Grand was built by a corporation, as was the old International, later bought by Hilton—where Elvis appeared. Wall Street was in—the gangsters were out. And with them, so were the lounge acts where you could see Louis Prima and Keely Smith for a two drink minimum. By the time I worked there, lounge acts were three-piece bands and a singer working on the casino floor and told by the pit bosses to keep the volume down. You could still go out at midnight to the Frontier where the clarinet player in such a lounge spoke Italian to some ex-singer from the old neighborhood and invited him to sit in for the rest of the set. But everyone knew the old Vegas and its freebies and its flair were at an end.

Since then, Las Vegas has been transformed into a serious of theme parks—the Venetian with its gondola rides, the Stratosphere with the world’s highest roller coaster, Hooter’s Hotel with whatever it is that lures people in, New York, New York, the Paris Las Vegas and the manufactured luxury of the Bellagio, the Mandalay Bay and the Wynn. Riding a cab from our digs at the Monte Carlo to dinner at Bartolotta restaurant at the Wynn, I had no sense of geography—the buildings all seemed to spill into one another. The cab driver told us Vegas had opened a new hotel every month since 1989.

Dale and I were planning a road trip this year, to visit friends and relatives in Colorado, then swing down to Santa Fe, and back home to Long Beach via the Grand Canyon. I persuaded her to stop a couple nights in Las Vegas—we could see a show or two and eat at some of the great restaurants that popped up during the go-go era of the early 2000s. It seemed as if every famous chef in the world was opening a restaurant there and I felt really out of the loop, restaurant-wise.

Of course I had been warned by friends and colleagues that the restaurants in Las Vegas didn’t match up to their “mother-ships”, though the prices certainly did.

Dale and I had researched Las Vegas restaurants online: Bortolotta’s name came up over and over as one of the city’s finest, and certainly THE finest for seafood. They flew in fish fresh from the Mediterranean, cooked in several authentically regional Italian styles, the reviewers mentioned. Wow, I thought. That’s for us. We had vivid memories of an incredible seafood lunch at Ristorante Martinautica near the Tuscan/Ligurian coastal border. If it was anything like that, we would be thrilled.

Entering the Wynn last night was amazing—the exterior approach had plush-looking trees planted in terraces to resemble a forest, and inside, more trees in the atrium lit up with miniature Tivoli lights as far as we could see. Wide-eyed, we made our way past an otherworldly outdoor waterfall that looked through the plate glass window as if it were a projection on a blank wall. When we reached the entrance to the restaurant we were pleasantly greeted by name as if they had known us, then led us down a spiral staircase, past a large dining room and into a private alcove where we were seated facing another couple across the aisle and an outdoor garden beyond.

That’s when the fun began

Our waiter, a short, swarthy fellow with an agreeable demeanor and a continental accent which could have been Italian—or not—conscientiously asked us if we were going to see a show later. When we said no, he replied, “Good. That’s the best way to dine at this restaurant—relaxed!”

The waiter, who told us he was from Rome, but acted more like he came from a rug bazaar in Tehran, announced that red wine was more suitable with the fish from this restaurant, and how much did we figure on paying for wine? When I mentioned “$200 or so,” I thought it would be for all wines—not just one bottle.

“Ah, then you would want an Amarone,” he advised.

“For seafood?” we responded incredulously. For those of you who have never tasted the high-alcohol Amarone, imagine a waiter recommending late harvest Zinfandel for your Dover Sole.

“Well, how about a Barolo?” he offered. “Or a Brunello?” The sommelier approached the table and our Roman waiter explained that we wanted to spend $200 on a wine.

“How about you leave the wine list and we’ll discover something on it we’ll love,” I said. We never saw the sommelier again.

Next the waiter wheeled over a glass display of some pretty amazing looking fish on ice—Branzino, red mullet, huge langoustines which the restaurant touted as the world’s finest, Sicilian lobster, octopus and more. Then he went into his schtick, which I heard repeated at least four more times as others were led into our alcove. He began to explain about the three tasting menus, but he heavily recommended the most expensive of the trio—one that had fed the winners of some TV chef competition held earlier in Las Vegas—the chef hadn’t really been a competitor on the show, he was one of the judges. Oh, and for $10 more, we could add those langoustines, which regularly sold for $35 on the regular menu.

He had me. Surprisingly, he had Dale, too, who I thought was simply going to order a little antipasti and a whole fish. But she went for the Top Chef menu, too, with the bonus langoustine.

As for the wines, we decided to order wines by the glass—white to start, a Friulano and a Falanghina, which looked alarmingly dark when it was poured from a mini-carafe at the table. I ordered a token red wine, Vietti’s Barbera d’Asti Tre Vigne, but when it came to the table it smelled and tasted suspiciously like a Dolcetto, which coincidentally was also offered by the glass, and was too bitter and tannic to accompany anything on the table. We weren’t eating red meat that night. A glass of Chianti Classico helped with some of the items in red sauce, but not much.

We actually began our meal with cocktails—a Hendrick’s martini for Dale and a Negroni for me. But the first three courses were delivered before we finished them. So much for a relaxed dinner. Another waiter brought the three little carafes of wine and dutifully explained what each was. He split each carafe with both of us, which was just the right thing to do.

Dale, noticing the second waiter’s accent, asked where he was from.

“Mexico,” he whispered.

We had some “silver fish,” tiny, deep-fried whole fish that looked like guppy-sized anchovies, followed by a bowl of steamed clams in a red broth (ah, I can try the red wine with this, I thought) and perhaps the best thing on the menu, tender morsels of octopus. A dark green-ish risotto was on the table with little bits of sweet shellfish which tasted very good (when does risotto taste bad?) and a strange dish that had giant lima beans, chopped green onions and something that looked like little slivers of pancetta that the waiter explained was a pressed egg, aged for months. Then the langoustine came out, impressively splayed, tender and creamy. How a Vouvray would have tasted at that moment, I asked myself wistfully. The Friulano would have to do.

When the pasta courses came out, Dale’s mood begin to darken. “I’m paying all this money and they’re serving me pasta with tomatoes and capers I can make at home?” she whispered. “I don’t want something I can make at home in a 3-star restaurant.” Her demeanor remained cloudy when the main course was brought out, a whole fish with a red sauce on top. “It’s fishy, and gummy,” Dale complained.

I admit, it wasn’t the greatest, nor the firmest fish I’d eaten, but I wasn’t as critical as Dale was at that moment. I’ve observed over the past twenty years that once you are on Dale’s bad list, you never get off. When it comes to remembering slights, Dale is a savant.

I was uncomfortably full when the waiter asked us if we wanted espresso or cappuccino or latte, before the desserts were presented. “We’ll see,” I said.

The desserts were overwhelming. A trio of shaved ices, a trio of sorbets and a trio of gelati were presented along with a flourless chocolate cake and a lemon cake with a top of hardened sugar and some very aromatic rosemary ice cream on top.

“I can smell the rosemary from here,” was Dale’s response, and it wasn’t a compliment. “I can’t wait to get out of here.” That may have been more fatigue than frustration, but you never know for sure with Dale.

Afterwards, feeling tipsy from the wine and the gin, we took another crazy taxi drive, this time back down Las Vegas Boulevard ‘til we found ourselves back at the Monte Carlo. Dale seated herself at what looked like a slot machine, but was more like a video game-version of a slot machine. No levers to pull, no coins rattling in the tray, just a button you push over and over until five minutes have been eaten up along with your $20 bill.

Well, $700 on the American Express card and what have we learned about big eating in Vegas?

I don’t know, except we have reservations at Mario Batali’s restaurant B & B tonight at the Venetian.

A Perfect Confluence

2011-09-05T11:16:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor
Last Saturday 147 people made their way to our Tasting Room to sample "All Things Sparkling", smashing the old record of 138 set a few years ago. Samantha Dugan, our bubbly diva, selected a wide array of fizzy beverages ranging from Eric Bordelet's spectacular pear cider Granit to Prosecco, a French Cremant, a couple of grower Champagnes and finishing off with a Bugey-Cerdon and a strawberry-infused sparkler from Patagonia.

What was the reason for the success?

Good bubbly wine is always a draw, especially for females, who outnumbered males in attendance by a 3 to 1 margin--which says more about the men in this town than it does the women--and we stock some of the finest available at The Wine Country. There is something special about those tiny bubbles that makes a lot of women happy. (I found out this little gem of information after my third divorce. Who says you can't teach a slow old dog new tricks?)

Perhaps another reason was that the bubbly tasting was scheduled on the first day of the three-day Labor Day weekend and newscasts were predicting more "Stay-cations" this year.

Perhaps it was the super-popular Grilled Cheese Truck parked outside during the same hours that brought in so many people. You don't need caviar to enjoy bubbly. A grilled cheese sandwich works just fine.

I think it was a perfect confluence of all three that created the magical vortex that was The Wine Country tasting room on Saturday.

How to Make Yourself Very Happy

2011-09-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor
Billions of dollars are spent by Americans each year to try to be happy. We diet, we subject ourselves to botox needles and collagen injections, we seek out psychotherapists, we lease fancy cars and charge our credit cards for luxury vacations (a few of these things work for me) all in an effort to capture our bliss with varying degrees of success.

This is what makes me happy:
A chilled bottle of Roland Schmitt Alsace Pinot Blanc.

And...

Carl Taylor’s Crab Cakes with Randy Sauce
1 live large Dungeness crab – 1 ¾ - 2 lbs
Large pot of boiling water
1 egg, lightly beaten
About 6 saltine crackers, crumbled
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1/4 tsp finely diced Jalapeno pepper or dash of Cayenne pepper
1 tsp Minced chervil or parsley
Bread crumbs
Peanut oil
Mayonnaise
Minced Chervil or tarragon
Minced shallot
Anchovy filet
Immerse crab in rapidly boiling water and cook for 15 minutes. Cool and pick from shell.

Combine crab, egg, crumbled crackers, mustard and chervil. Mix lightly, being careful not to break up the crab. Divide and form into 4 mid-sized or 6 small cakes. If the mixture is too wet add a bit more cracker crumbs or a bit of bread crumbs. Once formed, squeeze firmly so the mixture holds together. Coat lightly with bread crumbs and fry preheated pan until brown then carefully turn and brown the other side.

Randy Sauce
Mash anchovy into paste and mix mayonnaise, chervil and shallot.

Serve crab cakes with lemon and Randy Sauce

Pray for the Modern Bar

2011-08-21T14:02:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor
Since re-aquiring the responsibility for selecting The Wine Country's fine spirits a month ago, I've been approached by all types of suppliers--representatives of boutique distilleries all the way to those hawking the wares of corporate giants.

I spent much of my twenties observing up close and personal the decline of the bartender's craft at countless happy hours and from my perch on stage as a nightclub piano player. It was a time of peak barrom efficiency, where experienced mixologists were being replaced by college kids with pre-made Bloody Mary mixes. Shot glasses were replaced by pressurized hoses delivering the perfect 1.5 oz. shot at the push of a button. Pouring costs (PCs) were on restaurant manager's minds more than quality ingredients. It was the glorious era of chain restaurants, redwood hot tubs and birth control pills.

Today, of course, there is more excitement and creativity in the modern bar than there is anywhere else in all of the wine and spirits industry. Conscientious mixologists, like the ones at Rivera restaurant in downtown L.A. and Seal Beach's 320 Main, are creating their own infusions and researching classic cocktail recipes from The Golden Age and earlier in an effort to reclaim their art.

There is another side of the modern booze industry, and it is one that I find utterly predictable, mildly amusing and horrifying all at the same time. Much like the book Fast Food Nation profiled, chemicals have been developed (by the same scientists that brought you herbal shampoo scents) designed to trick the brain into thinking it is smelling and eating real food. Strawberry flavors without a scintilla of real strawberries in the milkshake. French fry enhancer to emulate fries cooked in lard. Drops to create the smells of grilled hamburger. Virtual food.

The latest rage in dance bars--not the mixologist's domain, but places where I.D.s are regularly checked--are sweet and flavored vodkas and rums. Not the garden variety Malibu coconut rum or Hangar One lime vodka, but product lines of booze that sound more like dessert bars than the bars of Fitzgerald and Hemingway. Naturally, I couldn't help thinking my brain was about to be assaulted by food scientists' greatest achievements.

Last week a supplier came to our tasting room to present several lines of new products. In fact, there were more than 25 bottles of hard stuff--and not so hard stuff--set up for me to try in an attempt to gain entry into our small, but select fine spirits section. What I was about to taste made me laugh out loud just reading the labels: Whipped Cream Vodka (with an aroma and flavor of Kool Whip), Cake Vodka (with an aroma and flavor of sweet yellow cake), Gummy Vodka (trying to resemble raspberry Gummy Bears), Cherry Lemonade Vodka, Orange whipped Vodka, Cherry Whipped Vodka--well, you get the picture. All the vodkas were 70 proof and sweet, as opposed to 80 proof and dry for classic vodka. One sales pitch: mix the Orange whipped Vodka with the Whipped Cream Vodka to create the flavor of a 50-50 bar.

Next were some more flavored products, among them a sweet Peach Tea Vodka which tasted of peach nectar and Tuaca but little tea, a Root Beer Liqueur that was designed to replicate root beer barrel candy and a mediocre Irish Cream Liqueur whose most redeeming feature was that it cost less than Bailey's.

I turned next to a couple of cheap, attractively bottled, utterly forgetable tequilas and a budget-minded single malt Scotch, which might find a place as a house Scotch for us--if only we had customers for such an ordinary product.

My taste buds were just about petered out when the supplier started sampling me on his hottest-selling products: sweetened, flavored low-alcohol rums. At only 21% alcohol (which was entirely masked by the thick syrupy, chemically altered flavors), the selections being hawked the most were Whipped Cream Rum, Coconut Rum and Cherry Cream Rum.

"Are these made for 19 year old girls?" I asked.

The supplier didn't directly acknowledge my question, but told me sales of his products were very brisk in beach communities and in inner-city liquor stores.

I hate to turn down a good thing, but my instincts are fighting me all the way on this.

Wine Appreciation 101

2011-08-18T11:01:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

These are all great looking people, and they all look pretty smart. So why are they holding their glasses by the bowl? Do they like looking at their wine through smudges? Do they like drinking their wine at body temperature?

Use the stem. That’s what it’s there for.

Marketing to the Stars

2011-08-14T13:17:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

Signal Hill, California--the home of The Wine Country--is a tiny municipality of 2.14 square miles surrounded on all sides by Long Beach, the civic hole in the metropolitan donut. We are located 35 miles away from Hollywood, yet the glitz, glamour, power and money of Tinseltown almost never makes its way down the Harbor and 405 freeways to shop in our store.

Being from Long Beach, I never intended to build my business by catering to the rich, anyway. Long Beach is a large city with a small-town ethos echoing its thrifty depression-era, Iowa-transplant forefathers. Wealth isn't flashed around as it is in the Westside of L.A. where the movie business creates fortunes overnight, or Newport Beach where the cream of west coast financiers shop.

No, our rich people earned it the old-fashioned way, by scrimping and saving. They still do, proudly serving two-buck Chuck at parties, boasting about the good deal they got.

The Wine Country was created for guys and gals on a salary who want a bit more from the money they spend on wine, people with a curiosity beyond the tips of their noses. They want their $15 wine to provide the thrills that usual wine outlets promise for $75. And it's up to our staff to seek out and discover wines that add a lot of value to people's lives without costing a lot of cash.

Our customers want adventure--they are the kinds of people excited about what lies just around the corner. They respect the classics and are not afraid of unfamiliar tastes. They are quick to recognize the flim-flam, and they resent being taken to the cleaners, as our $100 Cabernet sales have indicated. They are excited to try Samantha's latest discovery, a 2003 Hungarian $9 Furmint in its imperfect, but intriguing glory, "a 'geeky' wine," as Sam puts it.

You see no bottles of Dom or Cristal on our shelves. We want opulence in our wines, not in our credit card statements--that's why we offer champagnes from the great grower estate Camille Saves instead.

It's a tougher road to tread, convincing folks who have resisted rose wine for decades, that our rose wines will make their lives better. Why? Because we know what rose wines should do (refresh, restore, accompany grilled, garlicky summer foods, dazzle in the late afternoon light), rather than tick off the grape varieties in them and leave our customers to fend for themselves. That takes experience, wisdom and effort.

But choosing the road less traveled has its limitations.

For one, we don't have big-name endorsements that can help in our marketing. Liz Taylor regularly ordered wine from Wally's in Westwood. It would certainly help our business if people found out Brad Pitt and George Clooney shopped for their wines at The Wine Country. They don't, of course, but they would certainly enjoy themselves if they did. Perhaps they'd turn to us if they coudn't find an adequate selection of southern French roses or earthy Loire reds or luscious grower champagnes where they currently shop.

Napa legend Louis P. Martini and Volnay's Etienne de Montille have both been to our store, as has Rubert and Dominic Symington and Jim Clendenon. But wine personalities don't mean anything outside the wine world. No, our marketing department--namely me--says we need to brush up against real notables to attract the kind of attention Wally's got with Liz.

Actress Vicki Lawrence once shopped here, and Gwyneth Paltrow's personal assistant called us to deliver a bottle of champagne to the producer of Glee, which was filming at the Long Beach convention center. Former California Governor George Deukmejian shops in our store every few months--he lives three miles away in Belmont Shore. Long Beach mayor Bob Foster has shopped here, as does the Signal Hill city council. A grandson of Franklin Roosevelt has also been seen in our store. Perhaps the greatest public figure to shop at The Wine Country was radio legend Dr. Demento, although I haven't seen him in awhile. He likes our selection of craft beers.

Getting back to Brad and George, I want to pitch a couple ideas for your next blockbuster movie. You are super-agents routing out bad guys for a living, but killing them makes you morally conflicted. To ease your pain after each whack job, you walk into the air-conditioned comfort of The Wine Country to seek solace in our Piedmont and Pinot sections. Or how about a doctor picture? You are both big-hearted oncologists who have to deliver bad news from time to time. To ease your pain each time you lose a patient, you walk into the cool, soothing milieu of The Wine Country to seek solace in our Zinfandels and our Chablis.

Just make sure there are plenty of exterior shots of the building with our sign clearly in focus.

A Quick Thought About Cooking with Wine

2011-08-10T09:25:00.000-07:00

By Randy Kemner, Proprietor

There are two reasons to cook with wine. The first, most obvious one, is to add flavor to a dish. But the more subtle reason, and perhaps its most useful, is that the wine’s acidity will add brightness to what you’re cooking, the same way a squeeze of lemon or a splash of vinegar does.

There used to be products you could buy in the grocery store called “Cooking Wine.” Actually, these were wines unfit to drink—stale, oxidized, old and flat. Cooking with them added a little flavor and faux sophistication to your sautéed mushrooms, but were good for little else. People were loathe to use any part of their “drinking” wine in cooking, feeling it was a waste of good wine to do so.

Cooking shows have disabused us of that antiquated thinking, as quality ingredients have become essential to creating good food. A new mantra has been born: “Don’t put any wine in your food you wouldn’t drink.” The assumption here is that lousy wine will taint your precious ingredients. Many three-star chefs use luxurious and expensive wines like Muscat de Beaumes-de-Venise and Sauternes for their desserts and Cote d’Or reds for their sauce bourguignon, which packs a wow factor. But these extravagances come with a stiff price and aren't really necessary for most of what we eat.

So you needn’t spend your retirement money on your cooking wine to wow your guests, but a few guidelines are in order.

Determining what you want your wine to do. If it’s to make a wine sauce with obvious wine-y flavors, you’ll need fuller-bodied wines, perhaps red. If the purpose of your wine is to add brightness to your dish, a crisp white wine may be called for.

If you want a sherried flavor, opt for classic fortified wines like sherry, Marsala and Madeira. Use drier, cleaner versions for more subtle tastes, and older, oxidized versions for nutty complexity. Use sweet versions if you want some sweetness in your sauce, as some Veal Marsalas do.

Fortunately these wines aren’t as expensive as the vins de gardes we think we need to be drinking at a fancy meal, remembering the important rule in all these objectives is to avoid wines with oak in them. As your wine cooks down, the water and alcohol content will evaporate, pushing the wine’s tannins and oak flavors to the foreground. These have bitter characteristics that you probably don’t want in your food. Opt instead for either sweet or dry, but fruity wines like German Riesling and Loire Valley wines from Sancerre (both red and white) and Chinon/Bourgeuil--all which usually appear with no oak flavor and bright cool-climate acidity.

Don’t be afraid to experiment. It’ll be a great teacher to determine if a quarter cup is too much or not enough. Let your taste buds and your nose be your guides.

Why Italy's Piedmont Region is its Greatest

2011-08-04T08:51:00.000-07:00

by Ronnie Grant, The Wine Country's Director of Italian Wines

It's fine and dandy to throw out platitudes like Italy's best, but what do we mean by that?

First off, it's not just the wine, but the attitude one finds in the wine country of the region. It truly feels like family, almost like popping in on your cousins and they welcome you into their home with open arms. Or maybe your best friend knocks on your door one weekend just to hang out and next thing you know you're pulling corks and figuring out what's for dinner.

Last year I was at a dinner with a winemaker in Piedmont and it happened to be my birthday. Next thing I knew there was a dessert with candles and I'm being serenaded with Buon Compleanno (Happy Birthday)! How they found out is beyond me. Pure class.

Wine and Food

Any conversation about the wines from Piedmont must include cuisine. I describe it as elegant richness, but with simple preparation. Simply prepared meals are a hallmark of Italian cuisine and when that dish calls for elegant and classy wines, Piedmont is the region to look to first.

The first wine people think of from Piedmont is Barolo; me included. It's my favorite wine. There is more to Piedmontese wine, however than this magnificent red. Sure, there is Barbera and Dolcetto, which most Italian wine drinkers have heard of, but there are other regional varieties that are exciting to drink, too.

We just received in two such wines, one made from a white grape, Erbaluce, and the second made from Pelaverga, a red grape. They are wines for the adventurous, and for good cooks.

Tenute Sella 2010 Doranda, Coste della Sesia, Piedmont

Sella has been producing wine in Northern Piedmont since 1671. That is some history, if you ask me. Their Doranda vineyard produces an Erbaluce, yep that’s the grape, which is both elegant and rich on the nose. How else would you explain floral notes mixed with rich citrus fruit? Ok, maybe intoxicating. It’s a wine that screams for some mushroom risotto or even roasted trout.

$21.99 per bottle

Castello di Verduno 2009 Basadone, Verduno, Piedmont

I love it. That was my first thoughts both when smelling and tasting this wine. It's 100% Pelaverga, a grape some think is related to Nebbiolo (the grape that makes Barolo). I've also been told by a handful of people in Piedmont that it's the wine the vineyard workers drink when working the vineyards. For a red it's elegant and refreshing with some serious zip to it. Served slightly chilled I can see it being the perfect antidote to a warm summer afternoon. It does have wonderful "food" structure that it pretty much goes with most anything.

$23.99 per bottle

Other New Arrivals from Piedmont

Elio Perrone 2010 Sourgal, Moscato d'Asti, Piedmont

Easily one of the best Moscato d’Asti I’ve had. For those not aware, Moscato is the grape and Asti is the main town in the region where the vineyards are located. Stefano Perrone, the owner of the winery named after his father, is making a classic version with great balance and very delicate nature. Both citrusy and peachy flavors are present, but it’s the crispness the wine has which balances out the sweetness that I really love.

$17.99 per bottle

Elio Perrone 2010 Bigaro, Piedmont

$18.99 per bottle

Broglia 2010 La Meirana, Gavi, Piedmont

Gavi, long considered one of Italy's greatest whites, is made from 100% Cortese. The acidity of this wine - one of Cortese's hallmarks - paired with a full body marries well for this wine. Roast up some chicken or pan-sear some fish and you've got a perfect match. But my motto has always been to just "crack it open" and drink it. This deserves it!

$17.99 per bottle

Marco Porello 2010 Camestri, Roero Arneis, Piedmont

I tasted through a boat load of 2010 Italian white wine this past April and they’re good, really good. Arneis is an indigenous varietal to the Roero appellation in Piedmont and in the hands of young Marco Porello makes for a hard-to-define aroma of grass, herbs, tangerine, and wet stones; medium-weight in the mouth with good lively acidity and a long, very clean finish. I’ve been anticipating the arrival of this wine and now I get to take a bottle or two for myself.

$16.99 per bottle

Stefano Massone 2010 Masera, Gavi

Massone's Masera vineyard produces a Gavi that has an intense and enduring nose, but it's definitely the crispness and fruitiness on the palate that truly arouses the wine-lover in me. Like most of the Italian whites here in the store this unquestionably works best at the table; maybe fish, light soups, poultry, or even appetizers. Gavi is made from the Cortese varietal, and that is all Stefano Massone produces on his tiny estate-he produces around 4000 cases per year.

$16.99 per bottle

Anna Maria Abbona 2009 Sori dij But, Dolcetto di Dogliani, Piedmont

Producers in Dogliani take Dolcetto as seriously as Barolo producers take Nebbiolo. Dolcetto is planted in the best locations in Dogliani, which is not the case with Dolcetto where Barolo is made. This gives a certain amount of esteem to this grape when you think about it. Why wouldn't they plant Nebbiolo in Dogliani where they're planting Dolcetto? I've not figured out the answer to that question and, frankly, it doesn't matter. When a bottle of wine drinks as well as this does-and costs what it does-just go with the flow. It shows great color, reddish purple and violet-tinged, aromas of blueberries and tealeaf, and some tea tannins to go with the abundant fruit on the palate.

$16.99 per bottle

Massolino 2009 Barbera d'Alba, Piedmont

For whatever reason many estates age their Barbera in oak barrels, though I actually know the reason; the oak will add a little tannin to the wine. We have some Barbera like that in the store, but frankly, I feel pure, un-adulterated Barbera definitely has its place. Sometimes I want a Barbera that has intriguing freshness, good body, and a long finish. It should have silky fruit and brilliant precision with oak staying out of the way. Massolino makes one exactly like this.

$23.99 per bottle

Produttori del Barbaresco 2006 Barbaresco, Piedmont

My first in depth exposure to this venerable producer was in Piedmont in 2009 and 2010. After tasting through their entire line-up I started to wonder why we weren't carrying any of their wines. You see Randy had carried them in the past, but stopped a few years ago. He felt they had slipped a little. Well I poured this wine at a Saturday tasting and Randy was floored with the quality of this wine, which is one of the best in Barbaresco. The best thing about this bottling is you can pull the cork now-without cellaring the wine for a number of years-and get immediate pleasure out of the wine.

$32.99 per bottle

Azelia 2006 Barolo, Piedmont

Once this gets opened it's a wine that will not last, not just on your table, but here at the store after word gets out what this is like. Year after year, Azelia produces wines that just perform. I always tell customers look for a producer that makes very good wine consistently. Azelia is one of those producers. 2006 was a tough vintage, but they pulled it off. This wine will need some decanting to open up, but once it does look for loads of cherry fruit that is supple, juicy, and concentrated.

$53.99 per bottle

Virtual Tasting

2011-07-25T06:12:00.000-07:00

By Randy Kemner, Proprietor
One of our customers was on a quest. In his hand was a copy of the Wine Spectator’s Top 100 Wines of the Year, and he wanted to acquire each bottle in the top 10 for his tasting group. All but a few wines had been sold out locally months before, so he was surfing the net hoping to find a loose bottle or two in the wilderness. He called wine shops in cities and towns all over the country, hoping that their locals hadn’t yet read their Wine Spectators and cleaned out the shelves of the anointed wines.

In some cases retailers had jacked up the prices on the golden list, hoping for some obsessed wine enthusiast just like him to walk in their door with a wad of cash and little sense.

But something revealing happened after the corks were pulled and the wines sampled. After tasting nine of the top ten (his group simply could not come up with the tenth) our customer came back into our store to load up on more sensible, useful and affordable wines—those costing less and tasting better.

“How many of the top 10 wines did you actually enjoy drinking?” I asked.

“About half,” he replied.

50-50? That’s about the same satisfaction people can expect when they purchase wine blindly from a good wine shop.
It sounds crazy, but there are more than just a few people spending fortunes to acquire wines they know nothing about. They just want to be able to own them. Retailers have volumes to tell of customers acquiring highly rated wine they don’t particularly like, and don’t intend to drink. One must assume it’s only for bragging rights. Never mind the taste, some say, just give me the highest scored wine. I’ll learn to like it.

Two Ways to Shop
There are two main ways for wine enthusiasts to shop for their favorite beverage. One is by doing what serious wine lovers do: study a little, get solid recommendations from people who know your tastes, select wines for the way you use them—with or without food—and purchase wine from a reputable dealer who has acquired and stored their wines properly. This, the most traditional method to shop for wine, is the truest way to discover wines with which you will have a personal connection. It is authentic, it is honest and it is yours.

The other way is to buy wines with high scores in wine magazines. High scores lend a sense of security, albeit a false one; some wine writer who doesn’t know you from Adam is doing the culling for you. Buying by the numbers is what our friend Carl Taylor calls virtual wine tasting.

Incredibly, this second way is the manner that has driven the fine wine trade, especially the international Bordeaux commodity market, during the past thirty years. Hundreds of millions of dollars of wines are bought, sold and resold each year with prices directly influenced by the score sheet of one fellow living in Maryland and a few folks writing for the Wine Spectator.

Buying wine by Spectator or by Parker score is an unreliable method for finding individual pleasure. People acquire great wine for all kinds of reasons, but foremost should be the pleasure one derives from consuming it.

That is, if you like actual wine more than the virtual kind.

As hard as it is to believe, wineries have changed the way they make wine in order to accommodate the reviewers, such is their power to influence sales. Many wines that once reflected the place from which they were grown and made by natural processes, are now being manipulated to conform to a singular, and increasingly aggressive ideal.

To some this may sound like a positive for the consumer. Why not “improve” your winemaking by adding a little concentrate, or spinning your overripe wine to remove some excess alcohol? The simple answer is, of course, these processes rob the wine of its natural and individual character. And it makes wine from different regions aspire to taste alike.

You might ask, doesn’t a “made” wine (as opposed to a “grown” wine) also reflect individual character, much the same way a chef manipulates ingredients to create a dish with character? The answer is a qualified maybe, but only if the ingredients are allowed to express themselves. Broccoli that is cooked too long loses its flavor, even though the dish might be slathered in a delicious hollandaise sauce.

With excessively ripe grapes and too many interventions in the winemaking process, the sense of place is lost. They still may be delicious, full-bodied wines, but they taste like the next one on the shelf, and the next, and the next. Where is the individuality? Where is the character? Where is the Cabernet-ness? Or the special Rutherford taste?

There is another systemic factor that conspires against the notion that a wine should taste like it comes from someplace specific. In California, “varietal character” is the ideal to which winegrowers aspire. Their purpose is to make a “perfect” Pinot Noir or a “perfect” Chardonnay. In France’s Chateauneuf-du-Pape region, by contrast, the goal is to make a perfect Chateauneuf-du-Pape, a wine that reflects the estate’s particular piece of land. European wine consumers are generally not concerned about how much Grenache is in the blend, nor that Grenache has anything at all to do with Chateauneuf-du-Pape.

The effect of all of this is one of purpose. The European must do what he can to reflect his terroir, and the New World winemaker will do what he can to make his best Pinot Noir, regardless of where the grapes were grown.

The latter approach is the direction of most contemporary big-time winemaking, not only in California, but in the entire world. With the exception of a few elite winemakers who jealously guard and honor their terroirs, most of the world’s big wine money is geared toward pleasing America’s most powerful wine writers in hopes of making it easier to market their wines.

He Wants a Mercedes, Too
A high Spectator or Parker score means a quick sellout at the retail level, and wine shops all over the world now exploit scores, or “numbers” to promote their wines, which increases the publications’ influence all the more. The ripple effect reaches all the way to the wineries they review. For a simple French vigneron, for example, a great Parker endorsement means more demand for the next vintage and higher pricing to slow the demand. Ultimately the former peasant trades in his beat-up Citroen two-seater for a brand new Mercedes. The vigneron in the next village, envious of his neighbor’s good fortune, begins to make wine in the same manner. He wants a Mercedes, too.

Such manipulation of winemaking is not designed to maximize the expression of one’s terroir, nor is it even intended to pursue the vintner’s vision of quality. It is solely to earn the golden anointing of the American wine press, bringing riches and worldwide fame to people who not long before worked the land for subsistence. On the surface, it’s a great story—the American dream gone international. There is, however, a price to pay for being successful in this manner.

The Hazards
Wine has its great estates, its great vineyards and thousands of years of history, and wine journalism can help bring both unfamiliar and new wines to the attention of the public. But overdependence on the scores of reviewers has its hazards.

Marçel Richaud, an uncompromising producer of top-quality Cairanne in the southern Rhône Valley, once summed up the inevitable outcome of pursuing critical acclaim in winemaking. "It's good that there are wine critics," he once thoughtfully explained, "but the problem is that today critics are beginning to converge on one international style, losing the individuality of terroirs and the natural expression of the wine."

Such has been the wine press’ power that even experienced wine pros and collectors find it impossible to extricate Parker and the Spectator from their wine consciousness, even as many knowingly admit the limitations of buying wine this way. In all too many cases wine consumers have been burned buying expensive wines they didn’t like on these irrelevent recommendations.

Many wine merchants openly question the palates and predictions of the tastemakers, but they still post The Wine Advocate and Spectator scores on their shelves and continue to buy wines with his biggest numbers. It’s as if they were a bunch of battered wives telling the judge their husbands were really nice fellows when they weren’t on the sauce.

Nearly thirty years have passed since both publications hit the big time, and it is now possible to experience how accurate their aging predictions have been. Parker’s star-making 1982 Bordeaux favorites have had as many disappointments in the long haul as have been their triumphs. But the real test of Parker’s predictions will come in the next thirty years, as the lusher, fatter, fruitier, riper, more alcoholic wines created to please veteran critics' increasingly leaden palates are wines for the ages or simply wines made for the cash register.

Elegance and Grace

2011-07-17T08:19:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

Wine is an aspirational beverage. That is its blessing, and in some cases, its power.

I was relating that to the latest interviewee for a stock clerk position recently, giving further evidence of my inability to shut up when it comes to wine.

What I was thinking, as I was looking into the plaintive eyes of a sincere father in desperate need of work in this damned economy, was not selling some Grand Cru Burgundy to an investment banker, although Grand Cru Burgundies are certainly wines to aspire to. The image I was focusing on at that moment was someone like the unemployed scaffolding truck driver I was looking at, who after 20 years of loyal service lost his job when the construction industry collapsed.

Think of the simplest, cheapest meal everyday Americans cook on a weekday. Meatloaf, perhaps? Think of a this as a reward to a day's labor, a familiar dish served to the family the same way it has been served up countless times before, perhaps for generations. For all but the poorest of us, it is the epitome of banal.

Now imagine taking a $4 bottle of wine, say a Crane Lake Cabernet, uncorking it and pouring a small glass to accompany this plainest of plain meals. In one simple gesture, you have transformed that dish from something ordinary to something a bit more special, adding a touch of elegance and grace. This one act transforms "eating dinner" into "dining."

In a world of degrees, where a working man is helped by a $4 wine, is it any different for the guy who told me yesterday that the $200 Comte Lafon Meursault he brought to a wine tasting party stole the show?

The aspirational beverage. Wine's blessing and its power.

Zinfandel: How Did This Beast Become Known as a "Summer Wine?"

2011-07-10T16:32:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

It’s July and the sunny outdoors beckons. The sun is beating down mercilessly, your mouth is parched; you fire up the barbecue, cook some spare ribs and chicken with sweet barbecue sauce and wash 'em down with the spiciest, fullest-bodied, most potent red wine in the world.

Bottled water, soda pop, iced tea, lemonade, beer, Hawaiian punch, and, come to think of it, Planter’s punch, Margaritas, Mai-Tais, Cuba Libres, and buckets and buckets of ice-cold rosé all sound good to me when it’s hot outside. You know, thirst quenchers.

That’s why it has always been a mystery to me why wine writers, newspaper food sections and gourmet magazines always suggest red Zinfandel with barbecued ribs. IN THE SUMMER!

It’s not that Zin and ribs aren’t a wonderful combination. Well, let's say they used to be a wonderful combination, back when you could buy a Zin that didn't have the alcohol of Porto.

Our friend Jim Witt makes a goodly portion of his living selling big Paso Robles Zinfandels. I spoke to him about drinking Zinfandel when the sun is beating down.

“How did Zin ever get to be known as a summer wine?” I asked. “Drinking that high-alcohol stuff in the summer just makes me sweat more.”

“And then you pass out,” he responded.

We Southern Californians know that if we get dehydrated in the hot summer sun, we’d better re-hydrate soon or end up in the hospital, or someplace worse.

But there are whole armies of Zinfandel enthusiasts that would rather give up their children before giving up their beloved brawny red, no matter what the mercury says outside. They are Zinners.

Why not Zin in summer? For starters, alcohol begins to get volatile when wine heats up, smelling disjointed and tasting hot and weird. In recent years Zinfandel has become a particularly high-alcohol wine .

Moreover, if you are approaching inebriation, you shouldn’t get near a pool, hot tub, lake, ocean, bathtub or any other body of water. Sunstroke, heart attacks and drowning are the unfortunate results of too much alcohol in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Of course Zin-fanatics think all of these warnings are just pouring cold water on all their fun. The bigger the wine and the higher the alcohol, the more desirable it is. Fiercely independent and zigzagging to the beat of their own drums, they are the inheritors of a shot-and-a-beer, Wild West mindset.

Zin lovers know they are different than the rest of us. Many of them used to carry slide rules and pocket protecters. Zinners don’t go to movies. They go to wine tastings. They are the smart kids who never learned how to dance. They sometimes spend all night in chat rooms trying to find out if any Zin is bigger than the 16.4% monster they drank the night before.

In the past several years I've noticed more and more women pounding down Zinfandel. Where were they when I was dating?

Our friend Carl Taylor never met a Zinfandel he didn’t like, and he loves to drink Zin with his summer barbecue. It’s one of the few things that will actually get him to smile. He’s always trying to lure me into joining him in a big, black glass of the stuff, but I resist, thinking there’s a headache in that bottle, and it has my name on it.

Mad dogs, Englishmen and Zinfandel-lovers go out in the noonday sun. You see their kind on Melrose wearing heat-absorbing black in August.

Do you have the summer flu and need to break a sweat? Try a glass of Zinfandel instead of aspirin.

Zinners may be a different breed, but wine lovers everywhere should be grateful they’re around. If it weren’t for them, there wouldn’t be any old vines left in California. If it weren’t for Zin-heads, we’d all be drinking Merlot and Chardonnay.

So what’s their secret? How can they drink bottle after bottle and still remain fairly affable and reasonably coherent? How do they wash down chiles with warm red Zinfandel and still ask for seconds of spicy, barbecued spareribs? They are the supermen, and superwomen, of wine, and they are deserving of our respect, in spite of their unconventionality and the purple stains down the sides of their mouths.

Since Zinfandel lovers are oblivious to the weather, and because they endure when others falter, they have provided hope when all else fails.

Zinners just may have discovered the key to immortality.

"What's In It?"

2011-07-03T11:08:00.000-07:00

By Randy Kemner, Proprietor

When people are first exploring wine, the first thing they want to know is, “Will I like this wine?”

It’s a valid and quite logical concern. Wine costs money—sometimes a lot of money—and we’d like a reasonable assurance we’re going to be happy with our wine purchase when we get it home or in a restaurant when the waiter opens the bottle and pours us a glass.

Most wine shops will try to reassure you by answering, “Parker gave it a 93. Of course you’ll like it.”

Experience has taught us this is folly. Observe any public wine class or seminar and you will immediately learn that no two people experience wine the same way. That’s what makes it such a compelling a subject.

For those of us brought up on the New-World system of varietal-labeled wine, we first tried to learn what the different varieties—Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Sauvignon Blanc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chenin Blanc, Zinfandel—tasted like. Simply reading the label of a familiar varietal is supposed to give us a big clue.

The difficulty arises when we are confronted with blended wines or unfamiliar varietals. With blended wine it is helpful to know if a red wine is modeled after the Rhone model (Grenache, Syrah, Mourvedre, etc.), the Bordeaux model (Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, etc.) an Aix-en-Provence model (Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah) or a generic free-for-all where the winemaker blends what he has to make an original wine.

Sometimes it can be helpful to ask, “What’s in it?” to assess whether you’ll like a wine.

Sometimes.

At wine tastings all over the country, both professional and public, the question “What’s in it?” is one of those instinctive knee-jerk responses American wine lovers give when presented with an unknown wine. Unless the answer is in a familiar family of varieties—Chardonnay/Sauvignon Blanc/Chenin Blanc/Riesling/Syrah/ Zinfandel/Viognier/Gewurztraminer/Sangiovese/Petite Sirah/Pinot Noir/Pinot Gris or any of the five Bordeaux names—most of us can’t relate. Foreign wines have to fit the California template or they don’t compute for most of us.

Yet we ask the question anyway.

Here is the problem, and it occurs most often when we are dealing with wines outside the New World system, European wines in particular. Let’s explore the case of France’s Chablis where the “varietal” Chardonnay tastes and functions completely different than any domestic Chardonnay we’ve experienced. If you think you’re going to get something similar to Kendall Jackson when you learn Chablis is made of Chardonnay, you’ll be in for a big surprise, and probably a disappointment because it may mislead you into buying something you won’t like. The similarity between the two styles of Chardonnay is in name only. Believe me when I tell you learning and remembering what other bottles of Chablis smell and taste like will be far more valuable to you when you encounter one on a wine list than referencing the taste and character of Rombauer and Clos du Bois Chardonnays.

Pour yourself a glass of our July Wine of the Month, Domaine de Menard Cotes de Gascogne blanc ($8.99). The back label tells you it is a blend of Ugni Blanc and Colombard. Do you feel better kinowing that? Maybe, but nobody knows what Ugni Blanc tastes like, and if you reference your last experience with Colombard—say the California version in the 1980s, a fruity, slightly-sweet, soft, easy-to-swallow jug wine, you will be thrown for a loop when you sip the tangy-tart, lively, fresh-tasting white from Gascony. Menard’s version, and most white wines of the Cotes de Gascogne region, are closer to the smell, taste and character of Sancerre (the classic Loire Sauvignon Blanc) than they are to our fuzzy recollections of Taylor California Cellars’ once-popular jug wine. Relating Menard’s wine to Taylor’s Colombard will mislead you, even though part of the grape makeup inside is the same.

“What’s in it?” also fails to shed proper light on a wine when the varieties in the wine are unfamiliar. At The Wine Country we are regularly asked “what’s in it?” when encountering, say, a Spanish white wine. The answer—Maccabeo and Xarel-lo—are meaningless to all but a few, and even when we learn about them to satisfy our academic curiosity, knowing the answer doesn't address the fundamental issue—will I like this wine? Maccabeo and Xarel-lo. We see people’s eyes glaze over when they hear this answer. Finding a close New World varietal for comparison is problematic (it's kind of Sauvignon Blanc-y except for the herbs and grass), is the only help we can offer aside from insisting they take home a bottle, pull the cork and drink the damn thing.

Say you are handed a glass of (Spanish) white Rueda and you ask “What’s in it?” does the answer—Verdejo—mean anything to you? Your mind flashes through its search engine of white California varietals for something to compare it to. When your taste memory flashes “no matches found,” the answer, when you hear it, evaporates into the ether almost before the word has finished echoing in the room. At this point you are left with only your sensual response to the wine itself, without your protective preconceptions, just as it was when you were a beginner. At this point, pleasure and displeasure are the only things that really matter. We are back to “Will I like this wine?”

In the cases of Chablis, Cotes de Gascogne, Cotes du Rhone and Chianti, it’s most helpful to learn the tastes of each region—which the French call terroir—than to dicover what varietals are in the wine.

It’s much better to learn about European wine from a regional and cultural perspective that takes into account the food of the region, its climate and even its history. In the case of Côtes du Rhône, it is a distinctive red wine from the drier south of France where herbs de Provence grow wild and the food of the region is often grilled, roasted and stewed using these herbs. Knowing its precise percentages of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre are of little value when you are considering the wine for purchase or for dinner. The alcohol content may have a more direct bearing.

It’s a classic contrast between the objectives of New World wine producers and the traditions of Old World vintners. Varietal character defines American, Australian, New Zealand, South African, Chilean and Argentine wine. A popular Chardonnay producer once told me, “The hell with food. Just drink the damn thing.” He was letting me know that his wine was a complete entity by itself—and that was his vision for the wine. Another told me he didn’t care what people did with his wine—it was of no consideration when he made his wine—as long as they enjoyed it.

Varietal composition is so ingrained in our minds we have a hard time experiencing European wines without referencing familiar grape varieties. We are at a loss when terms like terroir or place-names like Sancerre and Gevrey-Chambertin are used to identify wines. Most Americans still don’t know that Chablis, Burgundy and Chianti are places, not varietals or styles of wine. But these classic wines are imbued with specific flavor characteristics related to their places of origin, and we need to know something about that origin to get the most out of them.

That makes it even more important to approach certain European wines different than you would a typical California or Australian varietal. The purpose of a good Côtes du Rhône is to look, smell and taste like a good Côtes du Rhône and to provide pleasure and a fruit accompaniment to a meal. It isn’t to express the ideal characteristics of Grenache, Syrah and Mourvedre in a blend.

In this case “What’s in it?” becomes a nearly irrelevant question. To the inexperienced, and even most of the experienced wine drinkers the answer won’t aid in understanding or anticipating a European wine at all. He or she has to drink it to find out. Sorry, there are no shortcuts. Happily, it isn't the worst thing you can do.

If one is experienced enough with Côtes du Rhône, the aroma and flavor will tell you what it is without looking at the back label to find out what varieties are in the blend. The rest is just academic.

Now relax and enjoy your wine.

Wine Appreciation 101

2011-06-19T12:04:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

I hadn't been feeling well this past week. I was on the cusp of having a cold, complete with a big dose of fatigue, sore throat, heavy chest--you know, all the precursors. I craved chicken soup and rest, yet I was scheduled to lead a beginning wine class at The Wine Country this past Friday night, as I do four or five times a year. Earlier in our store's history I used to teach just about all our seminars, but after relinquishing my buying duties to our better qualified specialists, more and more tastings are now led by experts in their fields, not a generalist like me.

I'm confidant every one of our wine specialists could teach newcomers how to hold a wine glass, the value of decanting wine, the proper temperature to store wine, the differences between the taste and smell of Chenin Blanc and Chardonnay and classic food-pairing suggestions. But I've held on to my Introduction to Wine class for another reason. And that is this:

I have a vision of how wine is, how it came to be and how it should be. It is not a universally held vision--far from it. But it sets The Wine Country apart from most other wine sources, especially those outlets who use wine publications to determine what wines to offer their customers rather than their own judgment.

You see, I think history and culture are important things to know, whether we are talking about getting along in the world or the subject of wine in particular. Wine wasn't created in a vacuum. At least, not originally.

It began 7,000 or more years ago when wild vinifera grapes were collected in the Caucusus foothills and people noticed that the sweet juice from those grapes changed into a less sweet beverage that could be stored in clay pots. They didn't know about yeast, fermentation and microbiology in those days; to them, wine was a glorious mystery that had a pleasant taste and mild mood-altering properties. It was wine's spiritual characteristic that found its way from the dinner table into the worship services of the religions which arose out of the grape-growing cultures of the Mediterranean.

The Greeks developed the science of viticulture, domesticating wine so everyone--not just the rich--could enjoy it, and the Romans took it to the edges of their empire. Interestingly, when the Romans tried to conquer lands inhospitable to the vine as they pushed north and east into Germany, they were beat back to the security of their vineyards, as the Huns did to the Romans in Koblenz where the Mosel River flows into the Rhine.

The Christian church planted vines to make wine for its sacraments and as a moneymaking enterprise to support itself and build monestaries, pay tributes to Rome and finance other church activities. By the first millenium AD, the Benedictine and Cistercian monks of Burgundy raised viticulture to new heights, keeeping records of which varieties grew best and which vineyards made the finest wines. The concept of terroir--the taste of the place--existed not only in noting wine's distinction between villages, but between individual vineyards. The vineyard Meursault-Charmes, for example, was given that name because the wines grown there were more charming than the wines from neighboring vineyards.

The role of culture, cuisine and geography in the creation of wine is not just academic--it has practical applications that are relevent to us today. It explains whether wine is an accessory to life or an essential part of life. It also explains its relevence to the foods on our tables, if indeed it is relevent.

All vintners plant vines they think will thrive in the soils, sun exposure and temperatures of a region--cooler climates for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay, warmer for Cabernet Sauvignon and Sauvignon Blanc, for example. But American wine is its own thing. The table is an afterthought. We have no history of wine and food growing up together. That's why you'll see people routinely drinking their favorite wines with anything, everything and nothing. It explains drinking Syrah with raw oysters, Cabernet with chocolate. It also explains why so many of us love highly alcoholic, heavily oaked, massively flavored wines.

If wine here is at all culturally linked, it is because the consumption habits of American wine drinkers are more linked to our cocktail traditions than they are adressing how the fruit and acidity in wine affects the flavor and pitch of what we are eating. Judging by the narrowness of most restaurant wine lists, wine is either a flavorful cocktail of choice or just something pleasant with which to wash down one's food.

The European vintner also must work with grape varieties that thrive in his soils and climate, but there is another important historical and cultural overlay he must consider: the wine's appropriateness for the food of the region. (What grows together, goes together.)

Since the dominant cooking fat of the Mediterranean is olive oil, their grapes must not only be selected because they thrive in that climate; their wine has to taste good with foods cooked with olive oil and native herbs. Simarly, in the cool north where it rains a lot and grass grows freely, the main cooking fat is butter. The grapes are selected for their adaptability not only for cool weather, but for foods cooked in butter sauces. That explains why Grenache is grown in the south of France and Chenin Blanc is grown in the north.

Another, yet related point I try to get across to my Wine 101 classes is in the fundamental differences between the objectives of the traditional European vintner and the modern American one. It is basically the contrast between a terroir-based approach and the focus on varietal expression, and what that means to the stylistic outcome of their winemaking.

The Burgundian vintner grew up drinking grandpa's wines from the same inherited vineyard plot of grandpa's ancestors. He knows how this wine is supposed to taste in good years and difficult ones at each stage of development, and he is trying to capture that taste with each year's harvest. I observed how this works first hand nearly a decade ago at an unforgettable dinner at the De Montille estate in Volnay.

Etienne de Montille produced a magnum of 1978 Pommard-Pezzeroles which he decanted and poured for his guests at the table which included his sister Alix, his mother, Beaune imports owner Michael Sullivan, northern California retailer Gerald Weisl, Chez Panisse wine manager Jonathan Waters, genius winemaker Dominique Lafon and me. Sniffing the glass and finally sipping the treasured wine, I realized I was drinking one of the finest wines of my life. Then I looked across the table at Etienne and he had a troubled look on his face.

Etienne sniffed, wrinkled his brow and sniffed some more. He spoke to Dominique in French and I could tell something wasn't right. They had an animated discussion back and forth, sniffing, sipping and talking. I asked Michael to interperet what I was seeing and hearing.

"Etienne is telling Dominique something is wrong with the wine," Michael said.

"What's he talking about? This wine tastes great!" I exclaimed. "Tell him I said so." Etienne was not dissuaded. He was in pain. The wine wasn't right.

He left the table, ran down to the cellar, brought up a 750ml bottle of the same wine, uncorked it, poured himself a glass, sniffed it, sipped it and sat back in his chair with a sigh of relief. This, I gathered, was how the 1978 Pezerolles was supposed to smell and taste like. He passed the bottle around the table and we each poured a bit in a new glass next to the glass from the magnum. Indeed, both wines were different wines, and both were delicious. But one wasn't right for Etienne. The Pinot Noir grown in the Pezerolles vineyard needed to have a specific taste, and the vintner wasn't satisfied until he acheived it.

That's the best example of a terroir-based approach I know.

To contrast, a California vintner may choose the Russian River Valley, the Willamette Valley, the Anderson Valley or Santa Barbara County to grow his Pinot Noir because he thinks those are the places the Pinot grape best expresses itself. He is less concerned, if at all, with the taste of the place; he wants to capture Pinot Noir at its best. Though the vision of what makes a "perfect" Pinot Noir is different for each winemaker, each is on a quest for perfection in that context. Perhaps that is one reason California wines are bigger, fatter, fruitier, sweeter, darker and more intensely obvious than their Burgundian counterparts.

The differing concepts of terroir expression and varietal expression are very hard for wine newbies to wrap their heads around, but it is essential in understanding Burgundy and Russian River Pinot Noir, Chianti and Sangiovese, Cabernet and Bordeaux. I love it when people's eyes light up in my Wine 101 class when they get this.

That's why, in spite of feeling woozie as I began my class Friday night, I felt on top of the world by 10 o'clock. That, and the fact that the 14 wines we sampled that night all tasted sensational!

What Should Paso Grow?

2011-06-12T12:09:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

Paso Robles, California, looks like much of the inland of the Central Coast. There are verdant hills separating the town from the cool and moist ocean breezes of Cambria. The town itself is situated next to a mostly dry creek bed once the hills flatten out. To the east of town are farmlands, ranches and of course, vineyards in glens, dales and eventually the dry rolling hills to the east.

There are scenic vistas all around, and beauty of every sort for every beholder--from near desert scapes to the typical Central Coast oak patches to the foresty, mossy hills closer to the ocean. From a vineyard perspective, the arid eastside (of California highway 101) is generally viewed as the ugly stepsister, while the cooler westside is where the most celebrated winemaking is going on. The highly regarded James Berry vineyard along with the Glenrose and Viking vineyards are on the westside. That is where you find Saxum, Denner, Booker, Tablas Creek, L'Aventure, Adelaida, Halter Ranch and Justin wineries.

We have many Long Beach friends who love to weekend in Paso--a four-hour drive north along Highway 101--some going monthly, staying in their favorite motels or bed and breakfasts, some even renting houses for a more relaxed getaway. And relaxed is the operative word for visitors to the Paso Robles growing region.

Many of our customers are much more familiar with the little winding roads and small family-owned wineries secretely tucked away in canyons and hilltops than I am because I'm fused to the store all the time. They come to me with dining tips and wine tips and where-to-stay tips. It's a place that makes people happy.

The wines of Paso Robles make visitors happy, too, although they are strong wines for the most part. (I use the word "strong" the same way Hugh Johnson uses it, meaning potent, high in alcohol.) If you've ever visited Paso in the summer you know that it's like visiting Barstow or Victorville; the heat is oppressive, and grape sugars rise quickly. The danger, as I see it, is that grapes are so sweet it isn't uncommon to find wines with alcohol levels in the 15s and in some cases, 16s.

Of course, to get wines this ripe to resemble fine wine, the vintner has to add acid to his wine to provide the illusion of life in the wine. Varietal distinctions are blurred--a Cabernet tastes like a Syrah, which tastes like a Zinfandel. But they all taste like they come from Paso, a localized version of terroir.

Wine this ripe and potent are fun to drink for some--they are sweet, soft, fleshy wines that ooze with a special spicy character. While they tend to dominate at the table, they are O.K. to drink with barbecued meats and other full-flavored dishes, a kind of grape gravy that lays over the whole thing.

For me at my advanced age, these wines are too much of everything and end up hurting me. The overripeness reminds me more of rotted fruit than fine wine, and after spending an evening drinking these high-alcohol wines, my next day is always unpleasant in the head and in the stomach. But that's me. For others, they are just what wine should be: rich and satisfying.

The Wine Country hosted a Paso Robles red wine tasting yesterday. Bennett Traub, our domestic wine expert, put together a representative lineup that included Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Syrah, a couple of Rhone-style blends, a couple Zinfandels and a rare Italian grape variety called Aglianico. We started with a bonus wine I'd discovered during the week--a white blend of the Rhone varieties Roussanne and Grenache Blanc from Minassian-Young called simply White. The $15 wine pleased some, and left others cold. White Rhones are rare and challenging wines in the Rhone Valley. I wondered why there was so much being planted in Paso.

Paso was Zin country in the old days. Old Italian farmers made horrible jug wines out of dry-farmed Zinfandel in the hot climate. When pioneers like Estrella, HMR and Eberle began planting their vineyards there in the 1970s, we saw all the usual French varieties--Cabernet, Chardonnay, Merlot, Syrah, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc along with Riesling and Gewurztraminer. That was a common thing wineries all over California did in those days.

Then an enterprising wine pro named Matt Garrison, who had recently fallen in love with an obscure Rhone variety called Viognier, started an organization called The Viognier Guild, which he headquartered in Paso Robles. His group later morphed into the Hospice du Rhone, which encouraged the planting and appreciation of all Rhone varieties, culminating in a large three-day festival each year. It seemed like the whole region went Rhone crazy--Grenache, Mourvedre, Syrah, Counoise, Roussanne, Marsanne, Viognier, Grenache Blanc and even more obscure Rhone grapes were being planted all over Paso--eastside and westside.

Soon it seemed like every winery had a Viognier and/or a Roussanne-Marsanne blend to offer. People visiting their tasting rooms swooned at the flowery and exotic aromatics and joined wineries' wine clubs to get on an allocation list. As for the reds, there were any number of variations on the G-S-M template suggested by Chateauneuf-du-Pape producers in the real Rhone Valley.

Outside of a very few successes (Saxum winery being the critic's superstar), Rhone-variety wines--both red and white--have had a hard time finding audiences outside of their wineries' loyal tasting room patrons. The rush to find varietals that weren't dominated by Napa Valley (Cabernet Sauvignon) and Sonoma County (Pinot Noir and Chardonnay) resulted into a mad dash into the Rhone world. But sales of authentic (meaning French) Rhone wines have been diminishing in recent years (due to increased alcohol content, I'm convinced) and New-World versions are being met with the same ennui in wine shops and restaurants all over the country.

Just as poor Temecula has yet to find its identifiable wine (I think it could be Mediterranean-style rose, but who'd get excited over that?), Paso Robles' newest wines are becoming less and less distinctive and table ready. I think it's natural to ask whether the decision to put so much of its energy into Rhone varieties was a good one.

Indeed, as I tasted through yesterday's wines, there was a sameness to most of them, with alcohols increasingly aggressive as the varieties turned from Rhone to Zinfandel.

But there was one wine that stood out because of its unforced ease on the palate. At 14.5% alcohol, it wasn't a shy wine, but it seemed better suited to its climate than the Rhone blends, the Cabs, the Merlot and the White. It was none other than the Aglianico, the flavorful red grape of southern Italy's arid Campania region, the grape of the bold Taurasi. A few years ago, Aglianico was predicted to be Italy's Next Big Thing, behind Sangiovese. This silky version was from Giornata Wines and it got me thinking perhaps this is the grape Paso Vintners should take a closer look at instead of unwelcome Rhones.

There remains a question I seem to be alone in asking each time I am confronted with a new wine: what am I going to do with this wine when I get it home?

In other words, is there a special place for Paso Aglianico on my table, sharing it with friends, enjoying it as anything other than a curiosity? If the answer for enough people is "yes," then we may have the answer to Paso Robles' eventual destiny.

A Party Indoors for the Outdoors

2011-06-05T14:35:00.000-07:00

by Randy Kemner, Proprietor

We had a great day yesterday.

On a personal level, I had a great day yesterday.

You see, it was the day The Wine Country hosted our annual ROSE FEST, a much-anticipated wine tasting of the finest dry roses available as summer is about to begin. The tasting is not a usual one--these are not usual wines. They are the kinds of wines you rarely see in restaurants, grocery stores, chain stores or other wine shops, for that matter. They are the kinds of wines for your backyard, your terrace, the park and the beach (if the authorities allow it). They are the wines of sunlight, of Southern California and Provence. They are better suited for the outdoor grill than the oven. They are the wines to celebrate regular life, wines that wine critics never seem to drink, but should.

Each year Dale makes home-made aioli, that garlicky mayonnaise you slather on your grilled vegetables, rotisserie chicken and lamb, grilled fish and potatoes. To feed the 118 lucky people who crowded into our tasting room, she made four batches, mashing the garlic, adding the egg yolks and drizzling in the extra-virgin cold-pressed Italian olive oil into her mortar as she tirelessly beat the whole thing with her pestle until it thickened into peaks.

While she was doing that, two boneless legs of lamb were slowly turning on the rotisserie outside and the small pearl potatoes, brushed with olive oil and dotted with fresh rosemary, were roasting in the oven. After slicing the lamb into bite-size portions, she brought the whole thing over to the store in time for the wine tasting.

The roses were largely from France where rose is as ubiquitous in summer as mega-brand lager beer is here. The best domaines know how to do rose right. They must be balanced and flavorful, but in the end, they must be refreshing. Judging by the comments of our lucky attendees and our rose sales at the end of the day, these wines were all of that and more.

Our guests skewered pieces of lamb and potatoes and dipped them into the rich aioli, savoring the taste of Provence while washing the whole thing down with crisp, refreshing rose wine from the region. There were sounds of contentment and happiness as aromas of wine and garlic filled the air.

There were also some surprises this day. Our two sellouts were not from the south of France, but from cooler northern regions: a Pinot Noir rose from the great German estate Von Buhl and a Loire Gamay rose new to the store from Coteaux D'Ancenis These are refreshing wines of a different sort than their Mediterranean cousins, more suited to poached salmon than aioli and rosemary. But that is the fun of rose--there is something for every taste, which makes them much more sophisticated and varied than many of our wine-loving friends and neighbors know.

The overall best sellers, however were perrenial favorites, the L'Hortus Coteaux de Languedoc and Canorgue Luberon roses, both from Beaune Imports. Close behind were the outstanding Domaine de Dragon Cotes de Provence rose, a standard-bearer for the genre, and the Domaine d'Eole Coteaux Aix-en-Provence, a newcomer that bewitched our audience. The Ojai rose from California had its supporters, too, who were attracted to its generous fruit and comparative size. Perhaps the most elegant rose of the afternoon was the magnificent Vacheron Sancerre rose, a rare, beautiful, minerally, silky Pinot Noir which had many admirers.

I didn't get into the tasting room yesterday, except to reinforce the tasting table with shopping cartloads of more rose and to bring out more food when the appetizer table needed replenishment. Other than that I was busy slicing cardboard cases open and putting up more wines as our rose mountain eroded to a rose foothill while sales thundered.

As I took a breather, downing a bottle of pure Jana water, I remembered back when I hosted our first rose tasting at The Wine Country 15 years ago. Just 13 people showed up to sample wines I knew were right for Southern California. If only more people would live with them awhile, I thought at the time, they would love these wines.

That's why I had a great day yesterday.