Dear Friends,
On Wednesday, August 3, we will be pouring the wines of Finca La Anita! Situated in the prime Lujan de Cuyo area in Mendoza, the winery is designes as a Chateau, where the vineyards surround the winery, and only Estate fruit is used to craft the wines. Joining us that evening will be Soledad Vargas, who has joined the team of Finca La Anita as winemaker in 2010, after having experienced harvests in both California and Australia.
The format will be a three-course dinner, with the wines paired with each course.
The line-up will be as follows:
First Course
Endive Salad with Shrimp
2010 Tonada Chardonnay-Torrontes
2009 Tocai Friulano
Second Course
Chorizo criollo
Hongo Relleno (stuffed mushroom)
2010 Tonada Malbec
Third Course
Mini Bife
2005 Petit Verdot
2007 Malbec
The cost for this event is fifty-five dollars. It includes this menu (food and wine). It does not include tax and gratuity.
We will start pouring at 6:30PM. Reservations are required for this event. You can reserve by calling us at (323) 655-0891. Please mention the tasting when making your reservation.
We look forward to seeing you on Wednesday!
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
Sunday, July 31, 2011
Saturday, July 30, 2011
shelf options
When you move into the Cave you are welcome to pimp out your locker however you choose as long as it doesn't compromise the integrity of the locker. How people choose to store their wine is as diverse as the wine they store. Most keep it stacked in boxes which helps keep things snug and protected during earthquake. Most have some kind of basic shelves in their locker, cut from a sheet of plywood and set in on a few 2x2's. Others prefer no shelves to maximize space.
A few people like to break their wine out of the boxes and store the open bottles. This way they can just come in and grab what they want without having to unload half a locker looking for it. This is where the shelving can get a little tricky.
TUBES. You may have noticed, in this recently posted photo of Gil, his very cool locker set-up, a combination of shelves and tubes. I think his are cardboard, but you can go cardboard or PVC pipe. They are double deep, so he can pull out the front bottle to get to the back. There is currently an 18-case locker available that has some of these tubes in a bonus space, allowing for 20 cases.
cardboard
PVC
Wood, some assembly required.
A gentleman recently moved and, sadly, cleared out his locker. He had an 18-case locker with these inside, double stacked, 17 notches tall and three across. A single 12x12 can go from $25 - $60, depending on where you get them.
Basic. Of course this is more my style - easy, simple, basic. Last weekend Janet came in with a
few friends and installed these shelves into their 24-case locker. They had come in and measured everything previously so all the wood was pre-cut and ready to go. They made a spacer so they wouldn't have to measure anything, very smart. The shelves were built to accommodate bottles stacked three high. Every shelf has a placard that designates its genus. There was, I hear tale, a bottle of white wine that didn't fit anywhere into the system and so had to be "eliminated."
I have since seen this in another, 12-case, locker. It looks good, and it's clean, easy, and efficient.
I don't have a photo of it, but I know Chris has shelves that are a good compromise - basic shelves on the bottom for boxes, a basic diamond box in the center, and narrower shelves on top for additional bottles.
A few people like to break their wine out of the boxes and store the open bottles. This way they can just come in and grab what they want without having to unload half a locker looking for it. This is where the shelving can get a little tricky.
TUBES. You may have noticed, in this recently posted photo of Gil, his very cool locker set-up, a combination of shelves and tubes. I think his are cardboard, but you can go cardboard or PVC pipe. They are double deep, so he can pull out the front bottle to get to the back. There is currently an 18-case locker available that has some of these tubes in a bonus space, allowing for 20 cases.
cardboard
PVC
Wood, some assembly required.
A gentleman recently moved and, sadly, cleared out his locker. He had an 18-case locker with these inside, double stacked, 17 notches tall and three across. A single 12x12 can go from $25 - $60, depending on where you get them.
Basic. Of course this is more my style - easy, simple, basic. Last weekend Janet came in with a
few friends and installed these shelves into their 24-case locker. They had come in and measured everything previously so all the wood was pre-cut and ready to go. They made a spacer so they wouldn't have to measure anything, very smart. The shelves were built to accommodate bottles stacked three high. Every shelf has a placard that designates its genus. There was, I hear tale, a bottle of white wine that didn't fit anywhere into the system and so had to be "eliminated."I have since seen this in another, 12-case, locker. It looks good, and it's clean, easy, and efficient.
I don't have a photo of it, but I know Chris has shelves that are a good compromise - basic shelves on the bottom for boxes, a basic diamond box in the center, and narrower shelves on top for additional bottles.
Friday, July 22, 2011
Thursday, July 21, 2011
Gil.
This is Gil. He built The Cave. (He had some help.) Gil is cool, old school. One of the better parts of being here is getting to see him once in a while when he comes in to raid his locker, like he's doing right now.Gil and his partners of the Broadway-Glendale Co. bought this hotel in 1975. One day a bunch of kids were sitting around trying to figure out what to do with this place, and this is what came of that. Avid wine drinkers, they opened The Cave in 1982.
Then they figured, well, we have a Cave now, let's go get some wine. So Gil went to the store and got a bottle of this stuff. (The price tag, a little blurry, reads $39.99.) Then he tucked it away in his locker for a few years. Gee, wonder what it's worth now, heh-heh.
Which is why Gil owns The Cave and I just work here.
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
The tragedy, the comedy, the beauty of Hell.
Sometimes The Hotel could be subtitled, "Abandon hope, all ye who enter here." (as always, click on images to enlarge.)
The ambivalent mourning birds finally made a decision and bade us a final farewell. When the apartment above their home-fickle-home became available, I got a chance to peek into their abandoned abode and saw, sadly, what they opted to leave behind.
Remember Saturday?
Today is Wednesday.
Of course at The Cave we endeavor to cultivate the high road, it is precisely for the reasons of the other circles of hell that this equal and opposite reaction is necessary, and this week's equal and opposite reaction comes to us in the form of Jasmine Silver Needle White Tea. Not just any Jasmine Silver Needle White Tea, no, but one unbelievably amazing Jasmine Silver Needle White Tea, courtesy of Andy who Caves here.
What I like about The Cave, other than everything, is getting to understand the diversity of tastes-and-tastes, meaning people's tastes in wine (which covers the gamut), and the tastes of their individual palates. It's been the experience of other people's palates that has helped me understand my own, and I'm so deeply grateful for that.
With Andy (who has gone a generously long way in trying to rescue me from my troglodyte ways) there are always a lot of layers in his preferences that both overlap and stand alone. Also, there's always an evolution within the moment. The tea, for instance: You can taste the tea and taste the Jasmine, but how these develop and play against each other changes within the lifespan of the cup. It's really cool. It's also really cool how he can find that similar trait through so many different venues. It's also really cool that that experience exists out there in the world, that something as pretty and simple as a cup of tea is so much more; at the occasional gates of hell we must sometimes suffer how important the simple civilization becomes.
(Despite the title, there wasn't too much comedy in that afterall, but here's one to make up for it.)
The ambivalent mourning birds finally made a decision and bade us a final farewell. When the apartment above their home-fickle-home became available, I got a chance to peek into their abandoned abode and saw, sadly, what they opted to leave behind.
Remember Saturday?
Today is Wednesday.
Of course at The Cave we endeavor to cultivate the high road, it is precisely for the reasons of the other circles of hell that this equal and opposite reaction is necessary, and this week's equal and opposite reaction comes to us in the form of Jasmine Silver Needle White Tea. Not just any Jasmine Silver Needle White Tea, no, but one unbelievably amazing Jasmine Silver Needle White Tea, courtesy of Andy who Caves here.
What I like about The Cave, other than everything, is getting to understand the diversity of tastes-and-tastes, meaning people's tastes in wine (which covers the gamut), and the tastes of their individual palates. It's been the experience of other people's palates that has helped me understand my own, and I'm so deeply grateful for that.
With Andy (who has gone a generously long way in trying to rescue me from my troglodyte ways) there are always a lot of layers in his preferences that both overlap and stand alone. Also, there's always an evolution within the moment. The tea, for instance: You can taste the tea and taste the Jasmine, but how these develop and play against each other changes within the lifespan of the cup. It's really cool. It's also really cool how he can find that similar trait through so many different venues. It's also really cool that that experience exists out there in the world, that something as pretty and simple as a cup of tea is so much more; at the occasional gates of hell we must sometimes suffer how important the simple civilization becomes.(Despite the title, there wasn't too much comedy in that afterall, but here's one to make up for it.)
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Why no one will be coming to The Cave today.
Karmageddon? From what I hear it is a non-event and LA is moving along rather smoothly. Glendale, not so much. Brand Boulevard is already closed down from Broadway to the 134 for Cruise night and the cars are already choking our tiny little side streets. (Ah, bicycles!)More local than that, however, I saw there were fence guys behind the building trying to wrest the hotel's bougainvillea from its hold on the rear gate. It seems the vines attached to and were were pulling the gate over. Well, the gate guys got it! Then they left. The people already parked down here can't get out. Nor can
anyone get in...to the Cave.Of course there is plenty of parking above and I'm more than happy to bring a hand cart up to you or otherwise help you carry stuff to-and-fro.
Minus that, it looks kind of cool.
Friday, July 15, 2011
Saturday is Glendale Cruise Night.
You don't have to be a car enthusiast to appreciate Cruise Night. The vehicles are simply beautiful to look at; that they're cars is entirely secondary.
However, you may notice that as beautiful as the cars are, there is a bit of an equal and opposite reaction in regards to the, er, wardrobe aesthetic ... specifically shirts. Hawaiian shirts. Lots and lots of mostly awful Hawaiian shirts, or some equally horrible facsimile therein.
So to blend in with the crowd we hit the thrift store for the appropriate outfits. Scott posted this photo on his Tropico Station facebook page, the offerings at Goodwill on Brand and California, all viable contenders.I held out, though, and hit the Goodwill on Colorado near the 2 overpass and scored an entire awesome outfit. Sadly, I suspect there will be no future photos of this available. (Aw...I hate when this happens.)
Note: stick around for the Cruise Night exodus. When it's a wrap, all the cars exit in parade fashion. It's kind of cool.
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