B. Rodell

Rosso Wine Shop

Three Bottles, One Shop is a new series in which we take a peek into an L.A. wine shop and ask the owner to pick and describe three great bottles on offer. Have a shop you'd like to see featured? Email brodell@laweekly.com.

Rosso Wine Shop sits on a quiet strip of retail stores near the corner of Verdugo Road and Verdugo Boulevard in Glendale, right up the street from the Montrose shopping and dining area on Honolulu Avenue, a small-town-feeling main street that hearkens back to a time when our main shopping destinations included independent toy and book stores rather than big boxes. For the past seven years, Jeff Zimmitti has been at Rosso, preaching the gospel of country wines -- the small producer, everyday wines of Italy and France that he fell in love with while traveling in Europe during his past life as a musician in the early 1990s.

More »

Barbara Hansen

The red wines with labels: Cinsault and Mourvedre

Would you call this heaven or hell for a wine lover? Getting forty-three Cabernets to taste but not drink, 27 Viogniers to sample and spit out -- and so on, through some 3,200 entries in this year's Los Angeles International Wine Competition.

More than 70 judges willing to take on the challenge gathered last week in the gold-striped Vineyard Ballroom of the Sheraton Fairplex Hotel and Conference Center in Pomona. The behind-the-scenes action was as fierce as the judging, given the logistics of storing, transporting, labeling and pouring so much wine, then washing thousands of glasses a day.

No musings over the ethereal qualities of a wine, no discussions, no pleasantries -- just swirl, sniff, taste, spit and score. And get it all done in two days. But these were pros: winery owners, winemakers, sommeliers, wine educators, wine brokers and reps, some with decades of experience.

More »

Mohawk Bend

Hangar 24 IPA and North Coast Old 38

Breakfast in the Bend
The Echo Park beer pub is hosting a brunch to benefit Share Our Strength, with Golden Road brews at $4 and three $10 specials: chili-cheese baked omelettes, Bend breakfast burritos, and the namesake waffles with fresh berries. A dollar from each pint and $5 from each special sold will be donated to the nonprofit organization.
WHAT: Breakfast in the Bend
WHEN: Saturday, May 18, 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
WHERE: Mohawk Bend, 2141 W. Sunset Blvd., Echo Park; (213) 483-2337.

More »

B. Rodell

Bar and Garden in Culver City

Three Bottles, One Shop is a new series in which we take a peek into an L.A. wine shop and ask the owner to pick and describe three great bottles on offer. Have a shop you'd like to see featured? Email brodell@laweekly.com.

"We've always cared about what we eat," says Bar & Garden owner Lauren Johnson. "And while sourcing our food and trying to eat organic and local as much as possible, one day we were sitting there over a meal with wine and we looked at each other and said, 'What the hell are we drinking?'"

More »

flickr/simplyla

Vineyards in Yunnan, China

In less than two decades, wine has gone from sideshow to main attraction at dinner parties in China. According to a The Wall Street Journal article, "China as a Vast Wine Market," wine sales grew by 20% between 2011 and 2012 -- to about $41 billion.

Meanwhile, as highlighted by PRI's The World, a recent study on the impact of climate change on wine indicates that China is the "fastest growing wine-producing region in the world." The combination of increasing demand and a changing environment conducive to wine production makes China a region worth keeping an eye on in the years to come.

More »

acaben via flickr

Napa Valley vineyard

A new study out this week looks at the wine industry through the lens of climate change. The study, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, finds that many of the current wine producing regions in the world will be less suitable for wine production, and that at least some wine production will need to move to higher elevations.

So what does that mean for California? We spoke to Dr. Lee Hannah, who was lead researcher on the study, to find out more about what climate change means for the future of the California wine industry. He said that, as a scientist, he couldn't predict the business outcomes for the industry, but that there's no doubt things will have to change.

More »

flickr/maureen lunn

Sparkling wine at Schramsberg Vineyards

Slate: The William Koch lawsuit over counterfeit wine sparks a look at how a $10,000 bottle of wine is a show of "prestige, rarity and age" and not necessarily of quality.

NPR: New Jersey winemakers are seeking to formalize a geographical label of sorts -- Outer Coastal Plain -- to circumvent stereotypes of the state and its reputation in wine.

New York Times: Single-serving wine by Zipz will now be available at a baseball stadium near you.

Oregon Live: Oregon winemakers can now sell wine by the refillable growler after state lawmakers passed unanimously a bill that treats "wine the same way the state treats beer."

More »

Anne Fishbein

Lou Amdur at LOU

See also: L.A.'s Wine Bars Are Better Than Ever. Here Are Our Seven Favorites

Lou Amdur, may have sold his cozy, Laundromat-and-Thai massage parlor adjacent Hollywood strip mall wine bar, LOU, last March. But he still has that gift for being able to effortlessly hold forth on all things wine and food. Want proof? Recently, we got him on the phone to discuss appropriate Easter meal wine pairings. Along the way, he managed to squeeze in mini-lessons in what not to do with country hams, a definition for the Yiddish word gedempte, what a California Chardonnay could do to earn the descriptor of "slutty," as well as a tiny bit of news about Lou 2.0.

More »

Kathy A. McDonald

Wine list at Hinoki & the Bird

A restaurant is in many ways like a party: You need atmosphere, music, good food and choice of drink. At the recently opened Hinoki & the Bird in Century City, the party is in full swing: entrance jammed, bar, dining room and patios full, and the cocktails and wine flowing.

Begin with a cocktail from cocktail mastermind Sam Ross. The pitch-perfect, not-too-sweet daiquiri in a compact coupe is a good start. Second that with some bubbles from Louis Roederer to accompany the oysters -- a rotating list of small purveyors guarantees briny freshness -- and then delve into the wine list put together by wine consultant Mark Mendoza (Rivera downtown is his current gig).

A longtime colleague and collaborator of chef-owner David Myers and executive chef Kuniko Yagi at Sona ("I have big love for Kuniko, we worked side-by-side for seven years," says Mendoza), the sommelier has put together a selection of "wines from everywhere," he says. What's in the cellar? Turn the page.

More »

jgarbee

Syd Helping A Customer Between Wine Bottle Spills

If your wine-buying strategy at Big Box discount stores typically involves grabbing a case and getting out poste-haste, you might want to reconsider sticking around for a chat with Syd Birenbaum, the unexpected wine specialist at the Costco in Marina del Rey (known as the Culver City branch).

Need a really great reason to gear up for Costco? Birenbaum has a long history of working in the wine business, from importing/wholesale (restaurants, hotels) to retail wine shops and Napa tasting rooms (Ehlers among them). But there's no place quite like Costco to see the diversity of American wine buyers in action, from bulk buyers of $6 blends to enthusiasts looking for that special occasion Pinot. Birenbaum is exactly the sort of knowledgeable, no-nonsense guy you want to talk to about your dinner pairing expectations, without an ounce of price-point ego. This is Costco, after all.

Get more on the Costco wine buying experience, from a particularly memorable $18,000 sale to the one thing Birenbaum wants wine buyers to consider ("What I want to talk about for sure is [customer] headaches").

More »