Loire Rosé On Wonderful L.A. Wine List

The wine list at Los Angeles restaurant Market Provisions is a good one. Not too fancy, not at all pedestrian and always loaded with choices that show the care with which they are made. I love the whites and rosés there, all of them as food-friendly as you could want, with savory, shimmering acidity.

The 2015 Rosé Chinon by Jean-Maurice Raffault is one of those wines, perfect for seafood, cheese or salad.  The Loire Valley Cabernet Franc grapes are grown in gravelly soil along the Vienne River, two-thirds pressed and one-third saignée for the pink wine. The Raffault family is into its 14th generation of making wine in Chinon.  Their rose cost $12 for a glass at the restaurant.

It carries a light pink color and a fruity, strawberry nose.  The cherry palate is not only tasty, but shows good acidity as well before a little melon on the finish.

It was great with the Moroccan olives, but my wife liked her Pinot Blanc so much with that app she didn't even sip the rosé.  She also really enjoyed her Uruguayan Albariño. That choice displayed a savory quality and an acidity I have never found with that grape. The rosé was just fine with my smoked scallops, too.

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Returned Wine

Restaurant Wine Tricks

It's A Lambrusco Day

A good wine list is a beautiful thing. Even if I don’t plan on having a glass of wine at a restaurant meal, I just hate it when I give a glance to the eatery’s vino offerings and feel completely uninspired.

Denise and I had a nice lunch recently at a restaurant we had been meaning to try for quite a while. La Buca Osteria L.A. is way east on Melrose and has a sign in front intimating that it might be time to stop looking at the sign as you drive by and stop in already. So we did.

We like to celebrate Fridays with a nice lunch together under, hopefully, perfect conditions. That’s not an unreasonable request in Southern California, where you can probably count the less-than-perfect-weather Fridays each year on one hand. It was a gorgeous spring day when we sat down at the table, covered with butcher paper decorated with an ink stamp of a motorcycle.

I like the way Denise fills me in on the details of our dining experience. She digs a lot deeper into the L.A. food scene than I do, and she always has an interesting tidbit or two culled from her personal research. It appears, she told me, that the original chef left the resto in a dispute over meatballs. A scene from “Big Night” immediately comes to mind. There are no meatballs on the menu now, and I guess that’s one way to work it out. “Chef Out In Meatball Beef.”

The wine list had some nice options for a beautiful day - a rosé,a Chenin Blanc… wait, what’s this? A Lambrusco? Perfect. I'm inspired.

The Barbolini Lambrusco is just that - a perfect Lambrusco. Italian journalist Curzio Malaparte wrote in Lambrusco and Freedom, "A good drinker of Lambrusco is not only a proud, warm and generous man, but he is above all free. Therefore what is it, if it isn't Lambrusco that gives the Parmesan people that bright, sincere and dominant air; that sparkle in their eyes, that loud voice and tough expression? It is the wine of freedom and of the free man."

The wine comes from the Emilia-Romagna region of northern Italy, perhaps better known for its cheese. This Lambrusco has beautiful purple bubbles, the result of a secondary fermentation, and it comes bottled like any other sparkling wine. Please don’t confuse an artisanal Lambrusco like this one with the jugs in the grocery store. They are nothing alike.

The Barbolini Lambrusco has a wonderful frizzante, or bubbly character, and it holds a chill extremely well. The earthy grape flavor has plenty of minerality and almost no tannic grip. It’s a great sipper, but it goes very well with food, especially cured meats. I had it with La Buca’s fabulous grilled octopus and it was even better with their rustic and incredible cacio e pepe pasta dish.

So perfect was this Lambrusco that we immediately went and bought another one to take home.


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Spanish Food, Spanish Wine In L.A.

The Spanish winery Azul y Garanza is a triumvirate of María Barrena, Dani Sánchez and Fernando Barrena, the former two concerned with growing and winemaking, the latter, María's brother, taking up the business end.  The bodega is located in the northern desert of Bardenas Reales, in Navarre. Clay soils and big temperature differences between day and night make it a good place to grow grapes, especially since the terrain makes the vines work for their water.

The trio condense their varied interests to four, which they say are the most important to them: Love, Music, Wine and Revolution.  Their love of the land leads to their organic approach in the vineyards.  The music pushes them through the day, whether it’s from their digital collection or the throat of a nightingale.  Their wines express their own selves, and the revolution is figurative. "Don’t be scared, we’re not going to take the Bastille," the website offers. It’s more a reference to concrete tanks and biodiversity. They say, "In a world of stainless steel and chemical products, this is a revolution."

I sampled the 2014 Azul y Garanza Viura in Los Angeles at Moruno, the brainchild of Mozza alums, David Rosoff and Chris Feldmeier, presents southern Spanish cuisine in the former Short Order space, and I wish them well there. I feel they may be a little pricey for the Farmers Market crowd, but I hope they succeed for purely a selfish reason. I want to go back and enjoy more meals there. The Esqueixada is a beautiful salt cod salad similar to ceviche, The fried Bhatura bread is crisp and spicy and the delicious chicken and cilantro sandwich also comes as a skewer. So does the lamb.

The Rueda wine is golden-green, smells fresh with a nice savory, vegetal side to the fruit, tastes of citrus and pear and has great acidity to make it a perfect match for a ceviche-type dish.  At 12.5% abv, it’s easy to drink and it is 100% Viura, a grape that gets a bad rap for being a little less than interesting. It’s usually teamed with Verdejo, but it stands alone here. The concrete tank fermentation gives a nice, full mouthfeel.  It was the only Spanish white on the list at Moruno, and it holds up its end well.  $8 by the glass.


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Greek Wine: Mylonas Savatiano

Mylonas Winery is in Attica, near Greece’s southeastern coast. Founded nearly a hundred years ago, they are still a small, family-owned winery. The soils of their vineyards are mostly sandy clay over limestone with some schist and some gravelly sites, as well.  The area is virtually surrounded by sea, with mild winters and cool summers. The Meltemi wind - persistent and dry from the north - and the sea breeze dominate their part of Greece in the summer, keeping temperatures moderate.

Their Savatiano 2013  was $10 by the glass at Terroni. The wine list recommended trying it to help out the Greek economy, but it’s more than a charity case. As a side note, if you want to learn more about different wine grapes, check the wine list in restaurants for anything you don’t recognize and order it. I've never been disappointed in the results.

I have a scant familiarity with Greek grapes, so I was eager to try the Savatiano. It is reportedly the most widely planted Greek variety and has been used in the traditional production of Retsina. They also blend it often with the Assyrtiko and Roditis grapes.

The nose sports fennel and seashore, with citrus notes. It smells a little like Vermentino. On the palate, minerals and lemon lead the way. The acidity is somewhat muted but there’s a great, lengthy finish.


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Lunching Los Angeles: Ludo's Petit Trois

Chef Ludo Lefebvre’s tiny Petit Trois restaurant - in a strip mall on Highland at Melrose - occupies the former space of a Thai takeout place. His next-door dinner spot, Trois Mec, is in a former Raffallo’s Pizza joint.  The signage from the earlier incarnations are still on top of the building, so trust the directions and just pull in.  Yes, an actual parking lot!  No reservations, no cash and no tip calculator needed - an 18% gratuity is added to the bill.

A recent Sunday lunch at Petit Trois found the wife and me living it up like the rent wasn’t due.  Ludo’s food is like no other I have had.  My croque monsieur sandwich of ham and Mornay sauce was a rich, gooey delight.  All others from my past - dry and handheld - just fell off the list.  The omelette for Denise was perfectly done, soft and creamy.  She commented, “If you can’t cook simply, you simply can’t cook” - citing Madame Mallory in “The Hundred-Foot Journey,” who asks potential chefs to make an omelette by which they are judged.  Judging by my wife’s reaction, I’d say Ludo passed the audition.

The wife splurged on a cocktail of bourbon, lime and rosemary while I deliberated over the wine list.  The waiter answered my “red or white” solicitation with a quick reply, “The Chinon.”

Chinon - a town in France’s Loire Valley - is unusual, in that the focus is on red wine there and not white.  Cabernet Franc is their grape of choice, and they work wonders with it.  The wines of Chinon can range from light and fruity to dark and tannic, all bearing the mark of minerals.  The Domaine Grosbois Chinon 2011 falls somewhere in between.

Loads of delightfully grapy cassis aromas mix with spices like cinnamon and nutmeg.  The palate also conveys a grapelike sense with the cherry and blackberry flavors.  Nice acidity and moderate tannins make for an easy sip.  The finish is rather lengthy and a slightly floral berry tartness is left behind.  I thought briefly that I might have preferred a white with the sandwich, but I certainly had no complaint about the Chinon.  It paired quite nicely with the ham and cheese.


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Wine And Food: Los Angeles Indian Restaurant Gets It Right

We have all dined in at least one restaurant - many more, I'm sure - in which the wine list left much to be desired.  A flimsy little sheet of paper bearing the names of a few wines you passed up at Ralph's on your way to dinner is nothing for a wine lover to get excited about.  And isn't it a shame that so often, that's what a wine list is?

Owners can blame it on the distributor, blame it on the customers, blame it on the economy or blame it on the Stones.  The thing is, if you run a restaurant where adults are expected to dine - and you want to be taken seriously - you'd better bring something to the table besides the bill.

Given this blustery preamble, it may surprise you to learn that I will eventually get around to writing about a good experience here.  A Los Angeles Indian restaurant that Denise and I frequented - for its dependable food and convenient location - changed hands.  For several reasons, we thought this was probably a good thing.  

The wine list there was something I rarely bothered to scan.  It was completely unimaginative, appearing to be the result of the distributor's desire to push some cheap wine that was in large supply.  The restaurateur did not drink wine and had no feeling for wine or the way it complements food.

Under new ownership, as Cardamom, things are quite different.  British chef Manju Choudhury is responsible for the changes in the kitchen and the place has taken on the stylish look of a modern London restaurant.  The food has definitely stepped a notch or two, from "dependable" to inventive and delectable Indian-inspired cuisine.  The wine has made an even greater leap forward under the guidance of Stewart Prato of Southern Wine and Spirits.

What was, at the previous incarnation, a completely uninspired and misdirected wine list has been transformed in one that displays wines chosen specifically to compliment the spicy dishes.  Fresh, clean whites and reds that are not too heavy on oak are perfect choices for this type of food.  To nitpick, the  wine list is a little French-heavy.  Four of the five whites, the rosé and two of the three sparkling wines offered by-the-glass are from France.  (The lone non-Franco white is an Italian Pinot Grigio from Alto Adige.)  France accounts for four of the five reds, too, with Beaujolais making a welcome appearance alongside Burgundy, Bordeaux and the Rhône.  There is also an Argentine Malbec by the glass.

Breaking one of the cardinal rules of restaurant dining, Denise and I decided to go there on the first night they were open under the new regime - for our anniversary.  Expected missteps did not materialize, so we felt that Cardamom had earned a spot on our short list of favorites.

An amazing chutney tray is served with the papadum openers and the naan is more like Indian pizza than bread.  I like that thick, doughy naan, but Denise prefers the lighter, easily-tearable style.  The tandoori prawns were some of the best-tasting shrimp either of us had ever had, while the chef's curry is delicious - and very spicy.  

I chose the 2012 Marc Bredif Loire Vouvray to go with these dishes.  It was perfect with the shrimp, but a little too acidic for the curry - acidity and heat do not mesh well for my palate.  According to their website, the winery was “established in 1893 under the original name of Château les Roches.  In 1919 Marc Bredif took over from his uncle and renamed the property to mark the change of ownership."

The wine has a greenish tint in the glass.  Unfortunately, as is the case in many restaurants, it was improperly chilled.  The wine was ice cold and, as such, the aromas were difficult to sniff out.  The nose eventually offered minerals and flowers.  Denise claimed to get an aroma of cheese, Edam or Jarlsberg.

The wine's great acidity makes it a wonderful food wine, but just sipping it isn't too bad either. Minerals and citrus notes make for a refreshing mouthfeel.  It's a little too acidic for the spice of the chef's special curry but is perfect with the tandoori prawns.  

We mentioned on our way out of the restaurant that it was our anniversary.  The manager insisted that we sit down again and have a glass of bubbly to celebrate.  It was Barton & Guestier sparkling wine.  The Vin Mousseux de Qualité is made entirely from Chardonnay grapes which undergo a second fermentation in vats and three months of aging in vats while resting on the lees - the spent yeast cells - for added complexity and weight.  The wine offers fine bubbles, a fruity nose and peach on the palate.  

Before a week had passed we were back at a Cardamom again, this time with an occasion no more special than Thursday night.  The Sancerre fit the crab cutlet and the Shahee Jhinga lobster in cream sauce to a tee.

The Michel Girault La Siliciese Sancerre 2012 features a fresh lime nose that refreshes, and aromas of flowers that add a pretty side.  The palate shows a round mouthfeel, while citrus and herbs have a mingle on top of some really great acidity.  The long, green finish brings those herbs back into play. 


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Drink Pink: A (Very) Late Summer Rosé

Hopefully, by this point, we SoCal residents have survived another annual heatwave known as October - or Rocktober, if you are still getting your music from the radio.  As we ease into the season we laughingly refer to as “autumn,” I was reminded via social media that it’s time to start drinking pumpkin spice lattes and pretending that 65 degrees calls for a sweater.

One warm October evening found us stopping in at Le Petit Bistro on La Brea.  Minnesota was facing a weekend of snow, but we still had - as Randy Newman sings - “the Santa Ana winds blowin’ hot from the north.”  The heat of the day had passed, and the balmy dusk put me in mind of a rosé.  I had a decent one.

It was a réserve Saint-Esprit, a lovely pink little Côtes de Provence wine, the kind that offers nothing too extraordinary except its nose of summer strawberries, watermelons and slight herbs.  The palate is light and breezy and full of cherry and strawberry flavors.  A nice bright acidity carried the food well.  The pasta with shrimp, snow peas and capers in a light cognac sauce paired nicely.


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The Malbec Surprise

She is ordering a glass of wine?  Red wine?  My wife likes a little vino now and then, but hardly ever has a glass when we go to out dinner unless we are at an Italian restaurant where she can get her Vermentino on.  She loves to get her Vermentino on.

Feeling a little pressure lately to watch her health, she decided to go with a red wine, that healthful elixir shot full of the resveratrol that will surely keep us healthy - maybe even grant us eternal life, if we consume in moderation.

A Malbec, she orders.  An Argentine Malbec.  It's from Bodega Catena Zapata, and it is from the Vista Flores appellation in Tunuyán, of the Uco Valley, Mendoza, Argentina.  Based on the altitude of the Vista Flores area - around 3,100 to 3,200 feet - it would seem that the grapes were taken from the Catena family's La Pirámide vineyard.  However, they do like to blend different microclimates - from the different elevations of their various vineyards in the Andes mountains.

The Catena Vista Flores Malbec shows a beautiful ruby color and offers a lovely nose full of cherry and plum aromas. In the mouth, it's full of nice, peppery, red fruit with juicy acidity and firm tannins.  The 13.5% alcohol level is moderate and the wine is nicely balanced.


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Still Blazing Hot In L.A.: Italian Rosato Helps Out

A warm September Saturday evening, al fresco at Fabrocini’s Beverly Glen, one last rosé before the memory of summer slips away.  Aaah.

Wait a minute, who am I kidding?  It’s early September in Los Angeles.  The really hot weather hasn’t even gotten here yet.  October’s Santa Ana winds and brushfire hell still awaits.  Screw it.  I’ll have the rosé anyway.

Acquagiusta Rosato 2012 is made completely from Alicante grapes, harvested in the Levante Vineyard on the La Badiola estate right in the center of the Acquagiusta Farm in Maremma.  Alicante is also known as Garnacha Tintorea in Spain.  The farm is a 19th-century land management project initiated by the Grand Duke of Tuscany.  With a title like that, one might be expected to do a lot, but could also probably get away with doing very little.  I like to think this particular Grand Duke was a beehive of grand activity.  He was at least smart enough to name the farm after the underground spring located beneath his property.

The grapes of Levante Vineyard are described on the website as vigorous, rigorous and salubrious - descriptive in the peculiar way only a digitally translated text can be.  Alicante grapes are red through and through - not just in the skins - and this rosé is the result of an attempt to make a white wine with them.  They are gently and quickly pressed to minimize color extraction.

The effort to minimize the color leaves the wine a pale salmon tint.  The color may be minimized, but the smells are not.  Big strawberry and melon fruit aromas come forward, along with some of the green stems on which they grew.  There is a beautiful and refreshing acidity which joins the great fruit flavor - light and a bit tart, with a touch of watermelon candy.  The wine feels quite full in the mouth, owing to the vigorous, rigorous, salubrious nature of the Alicante grape.

It goes well with my penne and mushroom marinara.  So well, I’ll keep it mind for that late summer L.A. weather yet to come.


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Lebanese Wine With Lebanese Food

If you are one of those people who looks at a restaurant wine list in search of something different and special, you probably know the feeling of disappointment very well.  Big names, corporate wines and the same old grapes always seem to leap from the page. That’s not to mention the eateries which serve wines having no apparent connection to the food prepared there.

It was a great surprise to find Lebanese wines on the menu at Open Sesame, the simple and delicious Lebanese restaurant in Los Angeles on Beverly Boulevard.  There is also a location - the original - in Long Beach.  Ali Kobeissi, the restaurant’s founder, makes a commitment to authenticity in his food and beverage selection.  His food is amazing and his attention to the wine is greatly appreciated.

Open Sesame's beverage menu offers five Lebanese wines by two different wineries - by the glass and bottle - as well as a Lebanese beer.  I had a white blend by Ixsir, from the winery’s Altitudes line.  An explanation of the name appears on the winery’s website: “IXSIR derives from “Iksir”, the original Arabic word for “Elixir”, a word common to many languages, defining the purest form of all substances, a secret potion that grants eternal youth and love.”

Photo from beirut.com

The wine is made from 40% Muscat, 30% Viognier, 15% Sauvignon Blanc and 15% Semillon grapes, all grown in the vineyards that stretch up and down the length of the nation at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea.  The winery on the outskirts of Batroun - in the northern part of Lebanon, close to the sea - is an award-winning piece of architecture named by CNN as one of the greenest buildings in the world.

There is a golden straw tint to the wine and a nose of vanilla sweetness, citrus peel and minerals.  The wine feels fairly full in the mouth, with a savory start and tons of minerality.  A bit of sweetness comes through on the finish, which was much more noticeable to my wife than to me.  It paired very well with my lamb pita sandwich.  The simultaneous earthiness and sweetness of the lamb - due to the sumac spice? - married very pleasingly with the slightly sweet minerals in the wine.


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Italian Wine With Italian Food

Everybody loves a good wine value, and I find great values over and over again in the wines of Italy.  The Italian restaurants of Los Angeles - there are so many great ones - are particularly adept at finding wines that offer a lot of quality for the money.

When you drink wine in a restaurant, especially by the glass, there simply is no way to think of it as a deal.  So today’s wine - at $9 a glass on the wine list at Da Pasquale in Beverly Hills - may not look like such a great deal at first glance, but it sure does taste like one.  And, considering that you can find this jaw-dropper for under ten bucks a bottle, the value is definitely there.

The 2011 La Maialina Chianti - named “Little Pig” to honor a centuries-old Tuscan pig breed - is crafted by respected Tuscan winemaker Attilio Pagli, who now also creates wine in Argentina’s Mendoza region.  This wine offers a great expression of the Sangiovese grape and yet another good reason to pair Italian wine with Italian food.  The grape's acidity makes for a perfect meal accompaniment.

The wine has a medium ruby tint and beautiful aromas of cherries and roses, hot from the sun, dominate the nose.  Tobacco notes come forward after it has been in the glass a while.  On the palate, there is more great cherry expression, also turning darker with time.  Great tannins, nice acidity and a medium-full mouthfeel make for a wine that’s easy to drink and pairs well with food.  It was particularly nice with my lasagna Napolitana.


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Thirsty For Wine From Hungary

In the U.S., it’s probably a safe bet that the name Tokaji doesn’t register a very high recognition factor - even with wine aficionados.  The Tokaji region of Hungary is best known for the sweet dessert wines produced using grapes which have been blessed with botrytis - the noble rot which causes the grapes to be ultra ripe and super sweet.  So beloved is this type of wine, it is name-checked in Hungary’s national anthem.  I do not speak the language, but I am told the name is pronounced "TOE-coy."

The area does produce dry wines, too.  I recently had the opportunity to order one by-the-glass at Manhattan Beach restaurant Post.  The South Bay hotspot is in a repurposed post office building a couple of blocks from the beach.  I don’t often ooh and aah over restaurant food, but I did join my table mates in a round of high praise for each small sharing plate that was brought to us.  It’s very popular, but I was told they hold 40% of their tables for walk-in traffic.  We were able to sit right away at about 6:00 on a Saturday evening.

From the wine list I was attracted by a Hungarian wine made from Furmint grapes, the premier grape of the Tokaji region.  Furmint grapes have very thick skins initially, but as the growing season progresses, the skins become thinner.  This allows the sun to evaporate the moisture in the grape, making for more concentrated sugars.  A second skin then grows to protect the grape from botrytis, although the noble rot will eventually make its mark on the grape.  For dessert wines, the grapes may be harvested as late as December or January.

The dry 2011 Furmint I had was produced by Royal Tokaji, and is a 100% varietal wine made from estate grapes.  The winery’s first vintage for this type was in 2003, so it's still a newborn by European wine standards.  The wine costs $10.50 by the glass at Post.

The wine is a pale straw color with a bit of a greenish tint, very fresh looking.  On the nose, fresh pears and herbal scents are backed up by a strong sense of minerality.  The palate shows a beautifully refreshing acidity and a very fresh collection of fruit flavors, notably pear, apricot and citrus.  The wine finishes with a lemon-grapefruit zing and leaves a slightly nutty sensation, much like a Roussanne does.  I paired the wine with diver scallops, Hoisin sauce green beans, grilled Brussels sprouts and an amazing bacon and cheese biscuit  with no problem at all.  It was perfect for each dish.


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