LA Times: California's Late Grape Harvest of 2010

After an unusually cool summer - as the local weatherman put it - we had our entire summer in one day. Here's what's new with the grapes.

http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la-fo-wine-harvest-20100930,0,6612298.story

Today from The Cave

Trying to take pictures of lighting is like trying to play whack-a-mole, except faster and less successful. So here's a few shots of in-between the lighting. Why the big deal? LA gets lightning and thunder maybe once a rainy season, so this tropical delight is a nice bonus.

Today's temperature

Out there.







In here.

Upcoming wine dinner at Carlitos Gardel

Dear friends,

We are excited to announce our next wine dinner! On Monday, September 27, 2010, we will be introducing the wines of Urraca. From a single vineyard in the Agrelo district within Lujan de Cuyo in Mendoza, this producer is making singular wines crafted by long time enologist Walter Bressia. Our dear friend, and Director of Uraca Wines, Jean-Pierre Bieri, will be joining Max in discussing the wines.

The format for this event will be a four-course dinner, with the wines paired with each course. The line-up will be as follows:

First Course

Endive Salad with Shrimp

Chardonnay, Agrelo, Mendoza 2007

Chardonnay, Agrelo, Mendoza 2008

Second Course

Vegetable Ravioli

Cabernet Sauvignon, Agrelo, Mendoza 2008

Malbec, Agrelo, Mendoza 2008

Third Course

Lamb Chop

Primera Reserva, Agrelo, Mendoza 2005

Fourth Course

Mini Bife

Familia Langley Reserva, Agrelo, Mendoza 2005

Familia Langley Reserva, Agrelo, Mendoza 2007

The cost for this event is sixty-five dollars. It includes this menu (food and wine). It does not include tax and gratuity.

We will be pouring from 6pm to 11pm!

Reservations are required for this event. You can reserve by calling us at (323) 655-0891.

Please mention you are coming for the tasting when making your reservations.

We hope you join us as we dine, drink, and chat our way through Argentina!

Carlitos Gardel is located at:

7963 Melrose Avenue
Los Angeles, CA 90046
Phone: 323.655.0891
Fax: 323.655.1576

Get more information about Carlitos Gardel
Make a reservation at Carlitos Gardel

Park(ing) Day.

So, I mentioned on the Facebook page a bit back that The Cave would be participating in Park(ing) Day this year, and I did not lie. It was Friday.

Park(ing) Day is an annual global event where, guerrilla-style, you feed a parking meter, and during the time paid for convert that parking space into a park. The goal was to convert a space with what we had on hand already, not wanting to add to the heap of conspicuous consumption and keeping in mind the cops could oust us. We went simple: a bicycle, a picnic, a game of scrabble, and chalk.



Park(ing) Day
Glendale News Press

Three White Wines, see how they flow.

I'm declaring a (temporary) moratorium on generosity here at The Cave where it has, recently, runneth over and I've a bit of catching up to do.

I confess, when I first took this job I was scared to death of the customers, worried they'd be too snooty to put up with the likes of me, the indication here that I did indeed arrive with prejudices and pre-conceived notions about those who drink wine avidly. Wow, was I wrong, and unraveling those notions continues.

Generous, funny, inclusive, way smart, more than a little quirky... I get to witness these little slices of otherwise complete strangers for two or three minutes at a time. Very Intriguing.

(Except for that one guy...)

So after a lull the ol' Troglodytes Locker is suddenly full, and a return to wine is necessary. Maybe people are making room for shipping season, but really it's because they are just crazy-generous human beings. It always amazes. Since summer is winding down, I thought it might be good to tend to whites first.

Halter Ranch 2009 Cotes de Paso Blanc. Let's just start with Paso Robles in general. The earthquake in 2003 seemed to take the town out, or so it seemed based on what was coming out of there via the news. A casual observer, I never heard much about the place, it seemed all about Napa and Sonoma. Something about coming back from that destruction seems to have breathed new life into every aspect of the area, because it's like all about Paso Robles right now. Maybe because it's closer, maybe because opportunity is there, possibility. It's an interesting time for the region and it'll be curious to see how it lands. In the meantime...I found this tasting note on this wine (second one down), and I'm pretty much there with it; if I were going to a barbecue with a bunch of people I didn't know and wanted to bring something genial to "snack on" while the burgers were being burnt, this would be the wine. Nice wine, crisp, clean...beyond that, though....

Scholium Project Dulcissima Camilla 2007. Here's a good article from the NY Times on Abe Schoener and his wine. Considered a cult wine? I'm not wine savvy, so this one threw me; a little sweet and desserty, but not entirely. I couldn't figure out where it should go. After the third day, I still didn't know where it should go and decided I kind of liked that. It was lush and alive, and I liked that, too. It seemed to me it wanted to be served with a good spicy sausage. Onions, jalapeno. It would be amazing.


Stony Hill Chardonnay, 2001. Sadly, this wine, a very nice wine, was forced to follow that act. This is a really good, flattering article on the vineyard and on this particular year from the LA Times, 2003.

I don't read anything about the wines beforehand thinking it might sway me into a direction I don't want to go, but because of this I might have to reconsider that. It was everything the article indicated, but the subtlety of it was out of focus after the boldness of the Scholium project. My bad.

Put a cork in it.

...the recycling container, that is. I noticed the local Whole Foods is collecting discarded wine corks for recycling. You can read all about why and how at Cork ReHarvest . org, or you can just drop them here at The Cave, I'll bring them in.

Plonk

(Guess who learned a new term today?)

Okay, seriously? The timing of this one is just plain creepy. Was I not, just last week, calling an end to Beer Book 1 and trumpeting a return to wine? Then it got a little busy and I hadn't yet taken on the task, and then this article shows up today in the Times like it was both reading my mind and getting the jump on my good intentions. But I swear, I thought all of this first.

Somewhere early summer I just felt too stupid and gave up on wine. More accurately, I got mad at wine. Completely reasonable, I know; I mean who hasn't, right? For a few reasons I got mad at wine and decided I was done with it.

1. Wine is way too complicated for my demeanor. I confess, I don't care about all the stuff. I mean I do, it's interesting and intriguing and all of it, I enjoy hearing or reading about any of it, but there's just way too much of it for me to get ahead of at this point in my career. I don't care about nothing, I just have minimal and limited brain capacity already dedicated to other interests. Some people are obsessed with wine while otherwise appreciating books, movies, art, sports; I happen to be obsessed with other things while otherwise appreciating movies, music, wine. Like that.

2. Let's just say 'troglodyte' is not the most prosperous endeavor on earth and leave it at that. I suspect there are a few other less than prosperous endeavors on earth, quite a few, in fact. Now, suppose I want to enjoy a passable glass of wine with dinner. Like the night I made curried heirloom cherry tomatoes with a ton of garlic and some thyme and a bit of the wine on crostini with fontina cheese. Cries a glass of wine, doesn't it? So on a tip I tried this one from Trader Joes, around $6. Must say: not horrible.

Truth is, though, most of the cheaper wine from TJ's is undrinkable. Swill! Worse to drink than drinking no wine at all. Does this mean a troglodyte of my means isn't allowed to enjoy a passable glass of wine? The resentment set in.

I started wondering about my french economic counterparts. You know, we're told over here that the french drink wine like we do water, more or less, so what is my french compadre having with dinner? What is the price-point and is it as awful as what I get here?

3. So I'm feeling a little ousted by, you know, "the man," casually catching up on Nick's blog over there at Bordeaux Undiscovered one quiet weekend, when I read this one about Bordeaux's plans to upgrade its image by replacing any 'basic' wine vines with higher end stuff. Like the 2009 extravaganza just wasn't enough, I guess. Must-have-more. So now I'm really feeling a little bit like, you know, here we go, the whole bourgeoisie and proletariat thing again. And then I decided to forget wine. I decided if wine was going to be that way about it I would just take all my toys and go home.

It was kind of funny.

It was the whole beer break that got me back into re-thinking wine. The beer was amazing, I mean really amazing tastes I'd never thought possible minus any pretense whatsoever. I was really enjoying the celebration of taste. It reinvigorated me, gave me hope, re-calibrated my mindset, that maybe it was my premise that was mistaken; maybe I was just imposing my own frustration onto the bigger picture.

Then this article showed up today in the Times, the word "plonk" along with it, and the affirmation that what I'd suspected all along was true, that it is indeed not an easy task to get a drinkable and also affordable bottle wine in California, but I'm beyond sweating it anymore. It's not about the wine anymore, it's the idea of flavor experience and that is something more varied now; sometimes it comes your way in wine, sometimes olive oil, sometimes beer. Sometimes curried tomatoes - they were amazing. Have I mentioned yet that I've been storing slices of watermelon wrapped in red basil in the fridge overnight, and the subtle infusion is just to die? Lessons learned along the way: priceless.

Vern, the Gnome.

It was pointed out to me - how did I not see it - that the picture of Vern and the resident gnome were eerily similar. Let's take a second look, shall we?

(Come on, that's kind of funny...)

Shipping.

The gentleman's wine finally arrived - customs, three or four states, kicked about and lost, three months it took to get from Germany to The Cave. Whoo, boy, those boxes have seen the sights, by the looks of it. Wonder how the wine fared, I hear it was in - Mississippi? Somewhere down there in the hot burning sun.

fyi.
http://www.abc.ca.gov/permits/importing.html