Michael's

California-centric wine lists

There is no shortage of fine California wine, and no way to drink or even taste it all before its time. Los Angeles restaurateurs are at a distinct advantage with winemakers as close as Topanga Canyon and Malibu, and first-rate wineries and fruitful vineyards just up the highway in Santa Barbara and San Louis Obispo counties.

But that doesn't mean it's easy to find California wine that's inexpensive. "These days, few in the wine industry would look to California for what now constitutes 'value-priced' wines," explains Andrew Turner, general manager and sommelier of Michael's in Santa Monica, which since 1979 has been known for highlighting quality California wine producers.

For L.A. wine drinkers in restaurants, a decent California wine by the glass, from a smaller, perhaps boutique winery of a certain vintage, will cost, on average, $8 to $9 a glass. Expect to pay more for single-vineyard, estate-grown wines. Prices per bottle can vary, from $12 for Little Dom's house wine (a partnership with Palmina Winery) on Monday nights to well over $700 per bottle for a cult cabernet from Colgin Cellars at Michael's -- both a great value, although whether they are affordable depends on your budget. Here are some restaurants where California-made wine is spotlighted at a fair price.

More »

amazon

Not because Karen Page and Andrew Dornenburg co-authored it, though that would be reason enough. But because their latest book is good. Very good. And it's organized like their books Culinary Artistry and What to Drink with What You Eat -- classics for every thoughtful cookbook shelf. Like those books, The Food Lover's Guide To Wine is arranged logically and simply. It's also remarkably Twitter-friendly in its concise wine descriptions considering the couple first began writing in their signature reference-type style more than fifteen years ago.

In their latest book, you'll find plenty of meaty Cabernet commentaries, but also a history of American winemaking in timeline form that includes these pivotal moments:

Thomas Jefferson plants his first vineyards at Monticello (1774); Julia Child's first edition of Mastering the Art of French Cooking is published with wine recommendations for many recipes (1961), President Obama reportedly at one time had a 1,000-bottle wine cellar in his Chicago home (2008). You know, the fun stuff.

More »

Kathy A. McDonald

Italian wines pair well with Thanksgiving dinner too

Why not try an Italian wine with Thanksgiving dinner? Consider that most L.A. Thanksgiving dinners break away from the traditional heavier dishes of the East Coast and Midwest. It's highly doubtful that the cousins in Kansas are serving anything akin to Ammo's take home menu, featuring charcuterie plates as starters and charred rapini with garlic and chili as a side, so why shouldn't the wine selection be adventurous too?

Not that there's anything wrong with a lovely Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir served with turkey or tofurkey for that matter, but as Taylor Parsons, Osteria Mozza's wine director points out, "Italy makes great food wines at a mid-range price points that pair well with California's Mediterranean influenced dishes."

Here's how it can be done Italian wine-style. First up: the bubbly.

More »

www.yrousseauwines.com

Tofurky! Let's Toast! (Center: Yannick Rousseau, Y Rousseau Winemaker)

The problem with those incessant Thanksgiving food and wine pairing write-ups in every food publication this time of year? They all presume the food on your table will most certainly be Saveur magazine-worthy. Been there, drank that.

We wondered, what wine would we bring if a friend announced they are serving Tofurky (Surprise! Unless you happen to be a vegetarian, then congrats!) to go alongside their aunt's canned -- definitely not fresh -- green bean casserole? And yes, of course there will be boxed gravy on the side.

We asked several top winemakers to give us their pairing suggestions for that very meal, and they offered up a great list of bargains (and a few go-all-out Tofurky or regular turkey splurges, too). One caveat: They could not choose their own wines.

More »

A. Froug

3Twenty Wine Lounge

Though owner Edgar Poureshagh brings up that his newly opened 3Twenty Wine Lounge in Hollywood is family-owned and operated, it's easy to forget until you place a call at 1 a.m., expecting to leave a message inquiring about the cheese plate. Unbeknownst to you, the number on 3Twenty's Facebook page calls the cell phone he keeps on at all hours, and before you know it, you've woken up a groggy Poureshagh. He politely answers your questions before heading back to sleep.

And yet, since June 20th, 3Twenty has been operating some of the most advanced and diverse wine pouring systems in town, specializing in offering four or five mini tastes of a variety of small production and rare wines. For customers to pour themselves tastes of one of the 55 wines offered by the glass, they need only an electronic card, a sense of adventure and the inert noble gas argon. Here's how it works.

More »

Eugene Ahn

Soy and Coca-Cola Marinated Flank Steak at Forage in Silver Lake

If you've ever wondered if Korean households have dining tables with built in bbq holes, like the ones at Korean bbq restaurants, the answer is "no". The historical antecedent for modern restaurant tables are traditional Korean kitchens with round stoves (agungi) that were fueled by wood or large cylindrical charcoal briquets. If you clicked on the link, you probably figured out why Korean bbq pans are dome shaped, rather than square or rectangular.

Or, perhaps, you've never wondered about any of this. Humor us anyway, we wrote three articles for Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia and critiqued a scholarly paper on nationalism and Korean airline food. We live for moments like this. However, we completely understand that you're probably more interested in Chef Jason Kim's soy and Coca-Cola flank steak marinade for Forage in Silver Lake. Turn the page for his recipe.

More »

Susan Park

Foie Gras Fat Fingerling Potato Chips

If you imagine that Test Kitchen has a full pantry of ingredients from all over the world, including luxury products like foie gras, you would be correct. We happen to have half a case of IQF frozen foie gras in our freezer. We use them to make pâtés and terrines. However, we realize that most home cooks, or even chefs, don't have extravagantly stocked freezers, so we suggest substituting rendered duck fat or even schmaltz, instead of foie gras for fingerling potato chips. On the other hand, if you happen to have some horse fat...

More »

K. Robbins

Peter Birmingham with a bottle of MacVin du Jura

Dessert wines, the awkward, misunderstood stepsister of their cooler, vastly more popular, dryer brethren, are often overlooked by restaurateurs and sommeliers, who balk at trying to push bottles that in the year 2000 made up less than 2% of all U.S. wine consumption (down from 70% in 1950.)

But Peter Birmingham, a 2011 James Beard semifinalist for his wine service at Hatfield's, is not cowed by the challenge of making the sweet wines seem sweet to his restaurant's well-heeled diners. In fact, Birmingham, the restaurant's general manager and beverage director, estimates that 70% of prix fixe or tasting menu diners go for a quaff of postprandial sweet (or fortified) stuff.

"Peter's really a poet," says Karen Hatfield, the restaurant's pastry chef/proprietor, who works with Birmingham as he develops the after dinner pairings, which unlike those for the restaurant's savory dishes, are listed on the menu. "He's always drawing upon not only classic pairing kind of analogies, but all this life experience and memory and nostalgia and all that goes into these pairings."

When he visits your table, Birmingham offers pairing advice that is strangely poetic, but decidedly apt. He might compare the mouth-feel of your forthcoming glass of vino to licking the back of a slippery, wet dolphin (come on, it kind of sounds nice) or a sweet auslese to a trip down Mr. Toad's Wild Ride. These funny, unexpected metaphors make a menu of otherwise esoteric bottles more accessible and appealing. To read more about how he does it, turn the page.

More »

Lisa Mattson

Chianti, Italy's Castello de Volpaia is one of 130 wineries pouring at Viva Vino LA

There's much more to Italian wine than Pinot Grigio. The number one U.S. import is only one of the 3,000 kinds of grape varieties that grow on the Italian peninsula. Learn about the many others this week at a new wine event christened Viva Vino LA. Modeled after New York's Italian Wine Week, there's an opportunity to taste all through Italy and discover native varietals from Sicily's Caleo to Friuli's traditional Refosco. More than 130 wineries are participating in events that range from in-store tastings to industry-orientated seminars. Viva Vino LA's biggest night is Wednesday May 18th at the Skirball Cultural Center, where at a grand tasting, upwards of 200 wines will be poured. (Tickets are $60 per person at the door. Order online and it's $40 per person with the promo code VVLACIAO).

More »

B. Hansen

the Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition

What kind of a wine contest requires judges not to pay too much attention to what they are tasting?

It was the 17th annual Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition, where wines were rated only for how they played up the briny, creamy, succulent components of freshly shucked oysters.

The judges (I was one; Jonathan Gold was another) were urged to chew each oyster thoughtfully, then quickly taste one of the wines. There were 20 white wines (no sparklers) served in flights of five to make sure that all remained as cold as the oysters.

"A dry, crisp, clean finish is the ideal," instructed competition founder Jon Rowley. "This isn't about the wine, It's about the next oyster. Is this wine going to exalt the next oyster, or it is it going to get in the way?"

More »