Category Archives: Foodie

LONDON WINE SPOTS OFF THE BEATEN PATH

Foodie, London, wine, Wine Travel, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I’m spending ten days in London, a favorite city, and have been exploring some of the more unique small restaurants. I like to find places where the food is good and the wine list is, if not voluminous and filled with the usual suspects, is well-selected and has some surprises for a couple of Wine Explorers (LINK) like Dorianne and me.

This visit, we have found a few:

RABBIT, Chelsea (LINK): Rabbit is a farm-to-table operation with a sister restaurant, The Shed, in Notting Hill. It is run by the three Gladwin Brothers (LINK). They source most of their ingredients from Nutbourne Farm in West Sussex, including their wines. The menu at Rabbit is made up of small bites (Mouthfuls) and small plates (divided into Nutbourne Cures, Slow-Cooked, and Fast-Cooked). The menu varies by what is available and in-season. They do their version of a Sunday Roast on weekends. The food we had (a couple of Mouthfuls and three small plates) were all delicious, as well as very inventive. The service is friendly, professional, and helpful.

There are crafted cocktails, a few beers and ciders, and a medium-sized but well-chosen wine list featuring four wines from Nutbourne Vineyards (LINK).

One is a NV Nutbourne Sussex Reserve, a  white blend of Bacchus, Huxelrebe and Reichensteiner grapes. After tasting, we chose this wine to have with our dinner.

Another white is the 2015 Bacchus, (LINK to Bacchus varietal info), a very dry and crisp white wine is a good sense of terroir, and a slight chemical sense on the nose.

A 2014 Blush, a rosé wine made from Pinot Noir and Schönburger grapes.

And a 2013 Nutty Brut, a sparkling wine made with Pinot Noir, Chardonnay and some Reichensteiner grapes.

The rest of the wine list is mostly Old World and a smattering of New World, including two surprises from California, a 2013 Uvaggio Vermentino from Lodi and a 2013 Au Bon Climat, Santa Barbara County Pinot Noir from our friend Jim Clendennon. I’ve seen a few Au Bon Climat’s on London wine lists.

PACHAMAMA, Marleybone (LINK): This was our second visit to Pachamama, a Peruvian Restaurant with a twist. Again, small plates are the rule (there is a leg of lamb for two). What you get here is foodie-quality ingredients, preparation, and presentation – very inventive; not traditional Peruvian food.

The bar features great hand-crafted cocktails featuring Piscos (Peruvian liquor) – either Papa’s or Mama’s (about 6 of each). It’s a good idea to arrive early and have a drink at the bar and watch the bartenders in action.

The wine list (LINK) is small but nicely selected. There is only one Peruvian wine, a 2008 Picasso Tempranillo, which I have ordered for the table on both of our visits (after cocktails, of course). The wine is rich and fruit-forward, with a nice balance of minerality – very nicely crafted. The rest of the list is much like you see elsewhere in London, only with a greater emphasis on South America, mostly with the reds.

 

Andalucia is a good spot for pre-theater dinner – authentic, inexpensive, and good. There are lots of higher-end tapas places in the area, especially over toward SoHo, but if you want authentic, this is the place.

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London is a great city, and a wine-lover can find a full range of experiences. These are just a few of the many “off-the-beaten-path” experiences that this great city offers. I’d love to hear about your experiences here in the comments section.

Copyright 2017 – Jim Lockard

Photo Jun 24, 5 10 13 PM
Your Scribe – Getting With the London Look (LOL)

4 DAYS IN NEW YORK – WINE AND FOOD

Foodie, New York, Restaurant, wine, Wine Bar, Wine Review, Wine Travel, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dorianne and I went to visit our daughter, Grace, who attends CAP21 (LINK), a musical theater conservatory in Manhattan. During our four night stay, we sampled a few restaurants and had some wine experiences, including setting Grace up with a starter case of wine. The restaurants we chose were generally under the radar – not the high-end, but places that interested us and fit our budget. They were generally reasonably priced, actually a bargain, for New York City, but a couple would be considered expensive in other places. Wine was of course on our minds in making our selections. Here is a brief overview of our experiences.

We arrived on Saturday and went to see Grace’s end of the year performance at CAP 21 in the Village. I had made reservations for the three of us and her boyfriend, Kyle, at ŌTTŌ, Mario Batali’s Enoteca and Pizzeria (LINK) on 5th Avenue near Washington Square Park. It was a “meet the parents” dinner, so we wanted something special. While not really expensive, ŌTTŌ is a great experience and has the largest list of Italian Wines that I have ever seen – well over three hundred choices. The three of us arrived before Kyle and we had a glass of wine in the Enoteca in front. We were poured tastes of any by-the-glass wines we wanted before we chose by a very knowledgeable barman. The food was very good in this noisy bustling place. We were seated next to a group of 36 (at two long tables), so that may have affected the noise level. Our wine was a 2011 Soleado Nero d’Avila from Sicily; very tasty – spicy and full-bodied. The service was excellent. I would definitely return.

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Grace and Kyle Holding Up Pretty Well at the Meet the Parents Dinner.

On Sunday, Dorianne was at a workshop at the Brooklyn Conservatory of Music, so after Grace’s Sunday performance, we took the subway over to Park Slope and met her at Cafe Dada (LINK), a funky wine bar with Hungarian ownership. We had dinner reservations later on a few blocks away. Cafe Dada features a number of wines, several from Hungary, so we had a 2014 Peter Benedek Cserszegi Fűszeres, a crisp and refreshing white, with some appetizers. Cserszegi Fűszeres is the varietal (LINK), which was dry with hints of fruit and minerality. It was a bit unusual, but very refreshing.

Then it was on to dinner at Rose Water (LINK), on Union Avenue nearby. Our party of 6 included some friends who live in Brooklyn. Rose Water is a tiny little place with a small kitchen just off the entryway. They offer a seasonal menu of locally sourced foods and everything was delicious. The wine list is one of those that is carefully chosen due to minimal storage space – but with a nice selection of wines that fit the menu well. We opted for a 2015 Bonny Doon Vin Gris de Cigare Rosé, since people were getting a variety of dishes. It was a perfect choice (and there were five other rosés on the list). If you are in or near Park Slope, make arrangements to eat at Rose Water.

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On Monday, we met Grace when classes ended and headed over to Union Square Wines and Spirits (LINK), from the top-ten list of New York Wine Shops in the Village Voice (LINK). As readers of this blog may know, we took Grace to France to taste wines when she graduated from high school. The idea was to educate her palate so that she was not tempted by the cheap, crappy stuff at college parties. It largely worked, and she gets wine as well as any 22-year-old I know. So a mixed case of mid-level wines was selected at this excellent wine shop, she opened an account, and the wine was delivered two days later. I will blog about the idea of a “starter case” and the contents of this one in a future post.

Monday’s dinner was just the three of us and we chose Maison Harlem (LINK), just a couple of blocks from Grace’s apartment. The Harlem food scene is really taking off, and this place is near the front of that procession. A funky, laid-back place with definite French accents (including the owners, Samuel Thiam and Romain Bonnans and some of the staff). The food is excellent and the vibe is very friendly. There is a bar in the front that gets very lively, and the dining room in the back with live music on this night – a very competent jazzy trio. The wine list is short but interesting. We had a wonderful meal. The owners were sitting at the next table, so it was a nice experience interacting with them (like one of them showing me his smart phone with my minutes-old Tweet about the place). They also own a wine shop across the street.

Except for one thing. Our server brought the wrong wine. I have been on a bit of a Cahors Malbec kick for a few weeks, and they had one on the menu. I ordered it, pointing to the listing as I did so. The wine was brought, but not shown to me, and when given a taste, it tasted very good and looked like a Cahors – dark and inky. But when the bottle was put on the table (I was not shown the label first), it had an all black label, which seemed strange. When I examined it, it was an Argentinian Malbec. By this time the server had gone and the wine tasted fine. When told about it later, he apologized and offered to change the wine, but we decided to keep the wine we were served. Otherwise a great experience; and I could have asked to see the label (but I should not have to).

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Mid-Century Decor with Wine Bottles at Amelie Wine Bar

Our final wine-related meal was Tuesday’s lunch. We went to the Amelie Wine Bar (LINK) on West 8th Street, literally a block from ŌTTŌ closing the circle as it were. This little gem of a place offers really tasty food and an eclectic wine list in a mid-Century modern decor. It is very lively at night, there were only a few people there at lunch. There are dozens of wines by the glass, mostly French, but many others as well. We all opted for French wines. The servers are knowledgeable (here, too, most have French accents), and the food was exceptional. I opted for the burger and it was the best I have had in years. There is also a San Francisco branch of Amelie Wine Bar.

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Bread, Wine, and Goat Cheese rolled in Pistachio Nuts 
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Dorianne and Grace happy at Amelie Wine Bar
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How Our Check Came at Amelie Wine Bar

We closed our visit with a Broadway Show – School of Rock on Tuesday evening, and jsut snacked before the theater. As always, New York is an amazing place with a dazzlingly large array of possibilities. We chose well, I think, and I know that we missed so much.

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C’est la Vie!

As always, your comments are welcomed. And, if you would follow this blog and share it with others, I would be most appreciative. You can also follow me on Twitter at @JimLockardWine.

Copyright 2016 – Jim Lockard

A WEEKEND IN EUGENE – AND FAREWELL TO OREGON

Foodie, Oregon, Restaurant, wine, Wine Bar, Wine Travel, , , , , , , , , , ,

Dorianne and I spent our final four days visiting Oregon in Eugene, home of the University of Oregon and located in the southern portion of the famed Willamette Valley, the major “wine country” of Oregon. Our stay was both business and pleasure, as I had some speaking engagements here, but we did find some time to enjoy a bit of the local wine scene.

We dined at Café 440, Marche, the Market Food Court, and at King’s Estate Winery and Vineyards. We did a wine tasting and saw a Flamenco show at The Oregon Wine Lab, and we drank a few bottles at our friend’s home where we stayed.

Eugene is a college town, and on that side of the 5 Freeway, there is a downtown and quite a few restaurants, most of the kind that college students can afford; on the other side of the freeway there are the chain stores and some additional restaurants (like Café 440).

Let’s hit the highlights.

King’s Estate (LINK) is the largest of the area wineries – it would be a large operation just about anywhere. With over 500 acres under cultivation here and sourcing from a number of other vineyards in Oregon, some of which they own, they are large producers – the largest US producer of Pinot Gris, their flagship wine.

The estate is crowned by a hill, atop which sits the winery/tasting room/restaurant complex, designed to look like a Tuscan estate. Vineyards surround the complex. We had lunch in the dining room, which surrounds the tasting room. There are also tables outside on a large stone patio overlooking some beautiful scenery. You can get tasting flights with your meal if you like. I had the Pinot Noir flight, as did Dorianne. Our good friend, Linda Finley had the Pinot Gris flight. Our favorite among the Pinot Noirs was the estate Pinot Noir blend, which was the least expensive of the three wines in the flight.

After a very good lunch, we moved over to the tasting room and met Nicholas, one of the three gentlemen on duty. King’s Estate makes some very good wines – especially their  Pinot Gris and Pinot Noirs, but their Chardonnay is also exceptional – very light and crisp, more of a Chablis style, and at a price point of only $18, a great value.

On Saturday evening, we were joined by our local host, Carole Angius, for an early dinner at Marche (LINK), rated the #1 restaurant in Eugene by TripAdvisor.com. We stuck to appetizers, but everything was beautifully prepared and delicious. The wine list is also excellent – we had a French Macon Chardonnay by the glass, as we were going to a wine tasting afterward. I highly recommend Marche.

Flamenco in Eugene? Why not? The Oregon Wine Lab (LINK), a local urban winery and wine bar, was featuring a Flamenco show – more of a demonstration by a visiting teacher from New York and some of his local students. That part of the evening was fun (LINK to previous postings about Flamenco).

The wines made at The Oregon Wine Lab carry the William Rose (LINK) label. We tasted several during the evening. Our favorite was the 2013 Oregon Pinot Noir ($28). The whites that we tried were all very high in acid. There is also a 2013 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir ($48) that we did not taste. I would say that the wines here are drinkable but not outstanding – but the place is fun and there was a large crown enjoying the dancing and consuming a lot of wine.

Café 440 (LINK) is a reliably good place to eat. I had a dinner and a lunch there. The service is good, the food is good, and there is a decent list of mostly local wines and craft beers (plus a full bar). Worth a visit.

There is a nice wine shop in the 5th Street Marketplace (LINK) with a great selection of Willamette Valley Pinot Noirs and other wines from Oregon and around the world. You can also taste wines and have a meal from the marketplace deli.

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Display at 5th Street Marketplace

So that wraps up our five week visit to Oregon. We had a wonderful time, some really good wine and food, and saw the beautiful scenery. From Ashland and the Rogue & Applegate Valleys; to Roseburg and the Umpqua Valley; to Portland and the northern Willamette Valley; to Eugene and the southern Willamette Valley, there is much to see and many great wines to drink. We shall return!

LUXURY WINE TOUR IN FRANCE – CÔTES DU RHÔNE & PROVENCE

Châteauneuf-du-Pape, Foodie, France, wine, Wine News, Wine Travel, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I am pleased to announce that a very special experience awaits you. Long before Peter Mayle’s “A Year in Provence” made it into the international best-sellers list, Provence, the south-eastern region of France, has held a special fascination for travelers from all over the world. Renowned for its beautiful weather, natural environment, and outstanding cultural heritage, this rich region offers us a lot to see and do! If you are a wine lover and are eager to experience some of the greatest wine regions in the world, we have a journey for you. One that envelops northern Provence and the southern Côtes du Rhône and some of the finest wines in France.

Seven nights in France, based in Villeneuve-les-Avignon on the banks of the Rhône River, exploring the hidden secrets of several wine regions that meet here – The Côtes du Rhône, Languedoc-Roussillon, and the Luberon.

This intimate, small group tour (only eight spots available) features lodging in fine hotels, meals in chateaus, visits to the legendary vineyards, and tastings of some of the great wines of France. All the while, you will learn more about wine in the vineyard and at the chateau. All tours will be in English, and there will be interactions with French people.

 Image 1 - Provence

I will be leading the tour, and I have traveled extensively in France. I will be joined by travel professional Steve Hooks of Journey Different, Inc. and local experts, you will get the inside story of some of the great wines of the Rhône Valley and Provence and have access to places not generally available to the traveling public. This small group experience, only eight people plus guides, will give you the opportunity to interact with the guides, the winemakers, and sommeliers. You and a few other wine lovers will share gourmet meals and luxury transportation.

You have the opportunity to join us for the wine experience of a lifetime!

THE TOUR

ACCOMODATIONS: You’ll be staying in a five star Relais & Châteaux property, the Hôtel du Prieuré in Villeneuve les Avignon, just a few minutes from the city of Avignon. Hidden in the heart of the village, its serene atmosphere and spirit invite you to relax and unwind. Le Prieuré presents an air of rare and simple charm, it is a haven of peace, a country hotel… in a picturesque town!

Hotel

Hôtel Le Prieuré

 

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DAY BY DAY PROGRAM:

SUNDAY (Oct 9): Arrival at Marseille or Lyon airport and transfer to Hôtel du Prieuré in Villeneuve les Avignon, a typical Provençal village across the Rhône River from Avignon, where you can easily stroll to many restaurants and bars. A special welcome dinner at our hotel in the evening.

MONDAY (Oct 10): Visit to Costières de Nîmes, Château Mourgues du Grès for a tour and wine tasting. Lunch will be at the winery. In the afternoon: a visit and tasting at Dalmeran winery’s (AOP Les Baux de Provence) in the Saint Rémy de Provence region. Dinner at Bistro’ du Moulin restaurant in Villeneuve lès Avignon.

TUESDAY (Oct 11): We visit Châteauneuf du Pape, its vineyards and the castle ruins; a guided visit of a chateau and tasting of its wines. Wine tasting and wine and food pairing in a very exclusive cellar, Les Cave Saint Charles, in the heart of the village. After lunch we head to Orange to visit Theatre Antique. See the exceptional evidence of Ancient Rome. On the UNESCO World Heritage list, it is the best preserved theatre in Europe. We will have dinner with wine at our hotel.

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WEDNESDAY (Oct 12): Discover the Gigondas appellation. Lunch in the village square under the sycamore trees then afternoon tasting in Vacqueyras. Dinner at Les Jardins de la Livrée in Villeneuve les Avignon.

THURSDAY (Oct 13): Those who desire it can stroll to the local market on Thursday morning, only 200 meters from the hotel – But we’ll need to leave by 10:00 am. We visit the appellations of Tavel and Lirac. Visit Tavel’s famed Château de Manissy for a tasting and BBQ in the park. In the afternoon, walk through the vineyards and taste in Lirac. Dinner at La Table de Sorgue, a restaurant renowned among winemakers, with excellent food and an amazing wine selection.

FRIDAY (Oct 14): Late morning (at 10.30) Visit Avignon with some possible time for shopping and lunch on the Popes Palace’s square. In the afternoon, head to Chêne Bleu, outstanding winery nestled in the Dentelles de Montmirail hills for a visit of the winery and tasting. Dinner at Chêne Bleu.

SATURDAY (Oct 15): Last but not least: a day in the Luberon. Morning tour of the typical perched villages of Gordes and Ménèrbes. Lunch in an authentic and exclusive setting next to the old mill in Goult: “Chez Giuseppina.” Slow down, relax and enjoy an excellent meal in the Luberon hills with local wines. A final surprise evening will close our tour.

SUNDAY (Oct 16): Transfer to the airport for departure.

“If food is the body of good living, wine is its soul.” ~ Clifton Fadiman

TOUR COSTS: Full Price is $7600/ LIMITED TIME ONLY $6990/person for double occupancy (based on payment by check; a surcharge applies if PayPal is used). Single occupancy rooms may be availab5 le for an additional charge. A deposit of $1000/person holds your space and price. The limited time price is just that, so get your deposit in!

Visit our special website – DeluxeWineTours.com – for information, to download the complete flyer, and to register. 

QUESTIONS? – Leave them in the comments section below and they will be answered. Leave an email address if you want to be contacted privately, or contact Jim at JimLockardTravels@yahoo.com.

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WEEKEND IN PORTLAND WITH WINE (AND FOOD)

Foodie, Oregon, Portland, Restaurant, wine, , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Dorianne and I spent Easter weekend in Portland, Oregon, staying downtown at the Westin Hotel. This post is an overview of the food and wine experiences of our weekend. I realize that we only experienced a sampling of what this great city has to offer.

Upon arrival at the Westin Hotel (LINK) on Friday, we were greeted with a wine tasting in the hotel lobby. ENSO (LINK), an Urban Winery featuring varietals and blends sourced from Oregon, California, and Washington. The tasting featured a white blend, a 2012 Counoise (unusual for these parts), and a red blend. All were very drinkable, especially the red blend which had low acidity and a very smooth viscosity. The Counoise was heavier and more viscous, with nice notes of red fruit and a hint of minerality.

After chatting with Kimberly Parks, the Enso Wine Club Coordinator and a number of other hotel guests about wine and travel, it was time to go upstairs and change for our dinner reservation at Jake’s Famous Crawfish (LINK), a member of the Landry’s Group. We walked the four block from our hotel in the crisp evening weather, passing the iconic Portland Food Trucks surrounding the park nearby (almost all closed at night).

Jake’s is that quintessential downtown seafood house – lots of wood, excellent and experienced servers, a long menu of selections and a great wine list. We ordered a bottle of Ponzi Pinot Gris (LINK) (LINK to NOTES), one of the better known Willamette Valley (LINK) producers. We were not disappointed – light and crisp with balanced acidity, mushrooms on the nose, and pear and pepper on the palate. A very nice wine. It went well with our Kamiai oysters, with Dorianne’s halibut and with my horseradish encrusted steelhead. It was a wonderful meal in a great atmosphere – not really adventurous, but solid and everyone knew what they were doing.

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Lunch on Saturday at Bamboo Sushi SW (LINK), one of four in Portland, for some really excellent food accompanied by a Sapporo draft beer. The lunch specials here are really a great value. We spent the afternoon on a city tour with good friends David Alexander and Patience Muanza and her son, Josh. The tour included walking along 23rd Street in Nob Hill (LINK) and sampling some food (dessert!) and a flight of Willamette Pinot Noirs at Papa Hayden Café (LINK).

Dinner on Saturday was with good friends Laura Berman and Craig Benelli (LINK) at Luc Lac Vietnamese Kitchen (LINK), a very busy place with more of a Portland feel to it. Crowded – with a system where you wait in line, order, then wait for a table, and they bring you your food – and loud, it was a fun evening very different from our other dinners in town. The Pho was great. Luc Lac has wines by the glass or 1/2 bottle only (!); we discovered a very nice Rosé from Tavel (LINK), the only AOP in France that produces only rosé wines. As an added bonus, we ran into Dorianne’s nephew, Brian Nelson and his wife, Krista, from LA.

Sunday we went to the New Thought Center for Spiritual Living (LINK) in Lake Oswego for Easter service, where Rev. Dr. David Alexander presides over a large and vibrant spiritual community. Then off to lunch/brunch at St. Honoré Boulangerie (LINK) near the lake. Amazing baked goods – very French – and wonderful sandwiches accompanied by a French Pinot Gris made for a nice repast.

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The Patisserie Case at St. Honore Cafe in Lake Oswego

After a relaxing afternoon of napping and surfing the web in our hotel room it was time for what would become the highlight of our Portland visit, food and wine wise. Our dinner reservations at Veritable Quandry (LINK), was a very special experience indeed. A friend recommended it to us (we had already made reservations) and noted that her brother, Matt, works there.  Matt made us feel very welcome indeed, as did our excellent server, but it is Chef Annie Cuggino who is the star of this show. The food was simply excellent – no other word will do. A wine list that is appropriately heavily Oregon-centric but with a good number of other global wine regions represented, rounded out a marvelous dining experience.

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Pork Chop in Cider & Ale Sauce
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Trout in Cannelloni Bean Puree

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Located in a lovely garden-style building of brick and steel near the river on the edge of downtown, Veritable Quandry is a local gem and has been since 1971. The garden seating is closed now, but we were seated at a table next to a floor to ceiling window. The long bar is also inviting – you pass by it as you enter. I was tempted to order a cocktail, but that wine list was simply too inviting. We selected a 2007 Stone Mountain Vineyard Reserve Willamette Valley Pinot Noir (LINK) from a list of about three dozen Oregon Pinots. It was an amazing wine – smooth, peppery, light enough to accompany Dorianne’s trout and enough body to hold up to my pork chop in a cider and ale sauce. Then house made sorbets and an Inniskillin Ice Wine for dessert. A truly delicious meal in every respect.

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The sad news: Veritable Quandry is slated to close in the next several months – the city is taking the land for a new court house and the owner has decided not to relocate. So get here soon! Some photos of the meal experience are above.

As we depart Portland after this short visit, I know that we will return – there is too much left undone and some things we want to experience again!

 

ASHLAND, OREGON WINE SCENE – THREE GOOD RESTAURANTS

Foodie, Oregon, Restaurant, wine, Wine Travel, , , , , , ,

During our stay in Ashland, we discovered a very vibrant and creative dining scene. This is largely due to the presence of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival that runs much of the year and brings thousands of tourists and visitors to this otherwise small town. Regardless, there are a number of very good dining and wine venues in town. I already blogged about a visit to Liquid Assets Wine Bar (LINK), and here I will mention three others with excellent and creative cuisine, with varying levels of focus on wine.

First, and foremost, is The Peerless Restaurant and Bar (LINK), west of Main Street on Fourth in the Railroad District. A part of the boutique hotel, the restaurant and bar have been a fixture here for many years. This was truly a wonderful evening. Four of us went on a weeknight and enjoyed an amazing meal in a beautiful setting (we were inside but during the season, there is a lovely outdoor garden area) seated near the fireplace. The smallish bar is perfect for a libation and the wine list is one of the most extensive in town, with local, regional, and wines of the world available. The wine list changes regularly and there are selections from previous lists on display on a sideboard by the entrance (empty of course).

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Peerless (from their website)

Service at The Peerless Restaurant and Bar is excellent – knowledgeable and professional. Our server recommended a local wine, a Jaxon Fortè (pictured) that was a great accompaniment to the variety of dishes that we had (steak, burger, fish, and vegetarian). If you are in Ashland for only one night – this is your stop.

The Hearsay (LINK) is a speakeasy-styled restaurant and bar located under the picturesque town Cabaret Theater on First Street, west of Main. The focus here is on fresh food, artisanal cocktails, and a very short, but well-selected wine list. We sat in the back room, where about a dozen tables on two levels surround a piano. The artwork in the room is speakeasy themed and well executed – think wood, reds, blues and yellows. The front bar is in a large room with tables that can accommodate 100 or more, but was quiet on the Monday evening that we visited.

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Hearsay Dining Room (from their website)

Our server, Thea, had recently returned from 6 years abroad teaching English in exotic locations like Thailand. Since returning, she had gained a good grasp on the local wine scene, and in helping us to select a red wine for the table, gave us tastes of several of the wines-by-the-bottle available – a first for me.

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We selected a Tempranillo, the most expensive on the list (only $47), and were pleased with how it paired with our food. The only downside of the evening was that the steak that two of us ordered was very tough – but Thea offered the whole table desserts on the house to make up for it. So the evening ended well, as the desserts were delicious, especially the house made goat cheese ice cream (really). I give Hearsay a B+, mostly because of the service, but the evening was very pleasant for all of us.

Finally, the Standing Stone Brewing Company (LINK), not a wine venue, but with a few nicely selected wines available. The craft beers are excellent and the menu is incredibly creative, with international accents (kimchee appears in several dishes, for example) and again an emphasis on fresh and locally-sourced ingredients. I ate at the Standing Stone three times, a solo lunch, a lunch with Dorianne, and a dinner with our local friends Walter and Linda, and every time, I was impressed at the quality of the experience.

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Standing Stone Brewing Company (from their website)

So Ashland is a very unique place – Shakespeare, hippies, nature, spirituality, excellent food, wineries and vineyards, everything from the funky to the sophisticated. We had a great three weeks visiting and I am sure that we will return. Next, we are heading up to the Umpqua Valley and Roseburg to try some wines there.

Copyright 2016 – Jim Lockard

THE BERKELEY WINE SCENE – A GLIMPSE

Berkeley, Foodie, Spanish Wines, Uncategorized, wine, Wine Review, Wine Travel, , , , , , , , , , , ,

I was in Berkeley, CA for a week on business and I did a bit of exploration of the wine scene here. This is not my first time here, and I have blogged about Berkeley before (LINK).

The big news here is the possible scandal associated with the Premier Cru Wine Store bankruptcy (LINK). You can read about that if you wish. Of course, the great Kermit Lynch is here with his legendary wine shop (LINK) – I visited there in May. There are a lot of very good restaurants here with wine lists of varying length, breath an depth.

The wine highlight of this trip was two visits to Vintage Berkeley (LINK) a wine shop on College Avenue in the Elmwood neighborhood (I was staying nearby). The owners of Vintage Berkeley also own Solano Cellars Wines.

The shop on College Avenue has a focus on wines of the world priced under $30. There is a “back room” with more pricey bottles. I saw a lot of wine labels that were new to me, and a few that I recognized. Most of the latter were in the back room.

There is usually a wine tasting going on, and on my first visit, the proprietors were offering a couple of French wines from the Rhône Valley. There were about eight customers tasting and shopping. I had a good conversation with several of the customers and the staff. I was told that there would be a winemaker tasting of Clos Saron wines on Saturday.

On Saturday evening, I returned and met Gideon Beinstock, the winemaker for Clos Saron, which is located in Yuba County, California, in the northern section of the Sierra Foothills AVA. The total production of Clos Saron is 800 cases, so don’t be looking for these at your local supermarket. They are currently re-planting some of their vines, so they are only bottling estate Pinot Noirs, three of them. The rest of their wines are sourced elsewhere. Here is the list from the tasting, which is most of the wines that they produce:

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I found the Cinsaults and the Carignans to be very interesting wines. The Cinsault vines were planted in 1885 and the Carignan vines in 1900. The blends that featured these wines were well-structured with relatively high acid and moderate tanins. They should age well and are interesting on a number of levels.

I was not a big fan of any of the Pinots, but to be fair, they are all young. Perhaps with a few years in the bottle, they will soften a bit. There was too much acidity for my taste, although each did have a distinctive nose and flavor range.

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Gideon Bienstock

I bought a nice bottle of Terra Sanctus Priorat Blend from Catalunya and went home. The wine was excellent – well balanced, just short of chewy, with a nice viscosity and dark fruit and notes of minerality. I know I only scratched the surface of the Berkeley wine scene on this trip – but I will return!2016-01-17 17.53.02

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The Tub at Vintage Berkeley Wine Shop

A DAY IN EDNA VALLEY AND A STOP AT KEN BROWN WINES

Foodie, Restaurant, Uncategorized, wine, Wine Review, Wine Travel, Winery Visit, , , , , , , , , ,

We went up to Pismo Beach to join two other wine-loving couples for a couple of nights R&R on January 1st (I know, we just got back from Paso Robles on the 30th, but NYE was stressful). We stayed at the Kon Tiki Inn in Pismo (LINK), one of the better kept secrets in the area – no online registrations, you have to call!!!

We had some great meals – dinners at Avila Gardens Restaurant (LINK) and Guiseppe’s Cusina Italiana (LINK); and great lunches at the Los Olivos Cafe (LINK) on the way up; at Novo (LINK) in San Luis Obispo; and one at the Spyglass Inn in Shell Beach (LINK). All worth a visit.

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But this is about the wine. And we did visit three, and only three wine tasting rooms on the trip. And the other couples brought some exceptional wines that we shared and took to dinner (a strategy: take your own bottle, but order a restaurant bottle first. It is likely that your bottle will then be served with no corkage fee – we did not aim for this, but that is what happened.).

Wine We Took to Avila Beach Inn
Wine We took to Guiseppe’s

The wineries, in order:

Baileyana/Zocker/Tangent/True Myth/Cadre (LINK): A tasting room outside of San Luis Obispo in the Edna Valley. All of the labels represented are made by a single producer and one winemaker. I am a fan of the Zocker label wines (and bought some) – a Grüner Veltliner, a Reisling, and a Late Harvest Grüner Veltliner. All are very true to the Austrian origins of these varietals. Light, crisp and refreshing – actually, great summer wines. The remainder of the 15 or so wines poured here are good, but not great. The tasting room and environs is very inviting, with boccie ball courts, picnic tables, etc., and there is a nice selection of wine-related gifts inside.

Talley Vineyards: An Edna Valley legend, Talley produces very good to excellent Burgundian-style wines. Their Pinot Noirs and Chardonnays, especially the single vineyard productions, are wonderful. And their prices have hardly risen over the past decade. There is also a second label, Bishop’s Peak, with some nice red wines. The tasting room is beautifully appointed and overlooks some of the vineyards to the west. Out front, a beautiful courtyard has tables and chairs around a lovely fountain that has been converted to a succulent garden due to California’s drought.

Mike, our tasting room host, has been there a long time. He was curiously unwilling or unable to answer some basic questions about the winery, such as was there a map of the vineyards, etc. It was busy, so I will give him the benefit of the doubt. We left with some single vineyard Chardonnay and Pinot Noir.

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Talley Tasting Room
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Talley Vineyards
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The Converted Fountain at Talley Vineyards

Ken Brown Wines (LINK): Dorianne and I stopped at Ken Brown Wines in Buellton on the way back down to Agoura Hills. Ken is one of the founders of the Santa Rita Hills AVA, and is responsible for the Zaca Mesa  and  Byron labels there. He decided to step back from large production and specialize in managing a few vineyards and producing some very fine wines in limited production. He produces six single vineyard Pinot Noirs, four Pinot blends from various vineyards, a fantastic single vineyard Chardonnay, a single vineyard Syrah, and several other wines, all in very small quantities – nothing over 240 cases per year.

I blogged about a visit here last year (LINK), but Dorianne wasn’t with me, hence the stop on this visit. Well, we might have stopped even if she had been along on the earlier visit.

We had another very enjoyable trip through parts of California’s Central Coast with friends, great wines, wonderful food, and all of the natural beauty that goes with this special part of the world.

As always, your comments are welcome.

Copyright 2016 – Jim Lockard

 

 

AN ITALIAN OASIS IN OAXACA

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Dorianne and I are spending a month in Oaxaca, Mexico. We knew coming in that this culinary capital, known for molè sauces, chocolate, and coffee was not wine country. The drinks here are mescal and cerveza. Indeed, we have had some wonderful meals, both in the city and out in the pueblos, where indigenous people make amazing foods.  But wine – not so much.

There is a large supermercado near our Colonial Reforma AirBnB.com house that has a wine section featuring a few South American and Mexican wines, plus a smattering of French, Italian, and Spanish bottles – all at the lower end of the spectrum.  The U.S. is represented here by Gallo. You don’t really find fine wines here, but some decent bottles are available if you know where to look. Better restaurants feature Mexican wines, but the local cuisine, driven by spicy molès, salsas, etc., does not pair well with wine for the most part. Beer (cerveza) is just fine for most cocina oaxaqueña meals.

And, I was, truth be told, growing a bit weary of the local cuisine after two weeks of nothing  but . . .

T2015-11-27 18.56.15hat is why we were so happy to discover Ristorante Italiano Epicuro (no website, LINK to FB page), an oasis of fine Italian dining with a small, but welcome list of Italian wines – a regular list and an artisanal list with a total of about 30 wines. Stepping in off of Calle Guerro into number 319 one is transported, if not to Italy, to a sophisticated setting that could  be in any major city. The decor consists of light green walls, very high ceilings, with a portion that has a retractable roof for this climate, scenes of things Italian on the walls, and nicely appointed tables. There are not a lot of restaurants in Oaxaca that are not oaxaqueña, so there are really few guidelines for how to handle the mix of cultures in terms of food and decor. Ristorante Italiano Epicuro goes purely Italian on the food and a more general upscale look on the decor.

Our good friends Richard Clark and Mary Stec were in town visiting for a few days. They used to own a gourmet chocolate business and sourced their chocolate and molès from Oaxaca. It was their last night with us in Oaxaca, so we went for dinner early – before 7:00 pm, so the place was nearly empty.

Our waiter, Juan Carlos, a veteran of the high-end Los Angeles restaurant scene (Valentino and others), greeted us warmly and masterfully guided us through the evening. Chef Valter Epifania is from Genoa, and knows his way around the kitchen. He came to our table near the end of the meal. We also met Eder, the owner, who came to Mexico from Italy six years ago and opened the restaurant a year later.

We ordered two bottles of wine from the smaller “artisanal wine list.” All were under 600 pesos, or about $35 U.S. at the current exchange rate of 16.8 pesos to the dollar. The most expensive bottle on either list was an Italian Cabernet Sauvignon on the main wine list for 820 pesos, or about $48 U.S.

Our first bottle was a 2010 Il Gargaiolo Chianti, 85% Sangiovese & 15% Merlot. It was very dry and tight at first, but it opened up after a while. I would say that the Merlot added a richness to the Sangiovese. A decent, but not a great wine.

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Next we opted for a 2013 Francesco Cirelli Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, and organic wine. Aged in stainless steel, the wine had a sense of terroir and a decent balance of dark fruit, with leather and chocolate overtones. Dorianne was the only one of us who preferred the Chianti to this wine.

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The menu is purely Italian, with first courses, pastas, and secondi (not the terms on the menu). A complimentary eggplant appetizer (deliciously rich) is provided. We also received a sampling of their ice cream dessert after not ordering dessert. When Dorianne could not eat that due to allergies, a pear poached in red wine was substituted by the chef for her. Very nice!

We shared a pulpo carpaccio appetizer that was delicious and reminiscent of the pulpo in Spain. The octopus for this dish was sourced in the Gulf of Mexico we were told.

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Pulpo Carpaccio – Delicious!

Then, Dorianne opted for a seafood pasta for her main dish. Mary and I ordered the rib-eye steak made with Ecuadorian beef; Richard had the special of the evening – rack of lamb.

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Ecuadorian Beef Rib-Eye Steak
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Seafood Pasta
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Pear Poached in Red Wine

All of the main courses were excellently prepared and delicious. We remarked that this quality of Italian dining in the US would command a much greater price. The bill, with tip, was just over 2440 pesos, or under $150 U.S. for four of us, including two bottles of wine!

Richard and Mary have left, leaving Dorianne and I to return to this Italian Oasis a few times in our two remaining weeks in Oaxaca.

 

 

 

LUXURY WINE TOURS TO FRANCE – BORDEAUX – PARIS – CHAMPAGNE

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A very special experience awaits you. If you are a wine lover and are eager to experience some of the greatest wine regions in the world, we have a journey for you. Seven nights in France, with time on the left and right banks of the Gironde River to explore the tastes of Bordeaux wines, followed by time in Paris, the City of Light, and a day in the Champagne Region to savor the famous wines of that historic area. This intimate, small group tour features lodging in fine hotels, meals in châteaus, visits to the legendary vineyards, and tastings of some of the great wines of the world.

Journey to French Wine Country 3

In Paris, we will pair wine and food at specially selected restaurants, have a literary walking tour with a local author, and even have some free time to explore on your own or just relax and sit in a sidewalk cafè. All the while, you will learn more about wine in the vineyard and at the château. All tours will be in English, but there will be interactions with French people.

Bordeaux Treasures

Led by American wine blogger Jim Lockard (JimLockardOnWine.com), who has traveled extensively in France and who will be joined by local experts, you will get the inside story of some of the great wines of Bordeaux and Champagne and have access to places not generally available to the traveling public. This small group experience will give you the opportunity to interact with the guides and the winemakers and sommeliers. You will be joined by a few other wine lovers and share gourmet meals and luxury transportation.

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“The Bordeaux/Paris/Champagne Tour is unlike anything offered in the travel industry today. I looked for the trip I wanted to take and could not find it – so I created it, in partnership with travel expert Steve Hooks of Journey Different.” ~ Jim Lockard

Now you have the opportunity to join them for the wine experience of a lifetime.

For more information and to register visit  DeluxeWineTours.com (LINK)