The Cave Wine Storage

Glendale XXX

2012-01-27T17:07:00.000-08:00

This is the Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood. Sid Grauman opened it in 1922 and it was home to Hollywood's first ever movie premiere, Robin Hood with Douglas Fairbanks.

This is the original facade of the Alexander Theatre, opened in Glendale 1924. It was inspired by The Egyptian and featured a similar courtyard-like area.

This is what it looked like from the street.

In 1939 the front was added to it as designed by the same architectural firm that did the Hotel Glendale, AKA, home of The Cave Wine Storage. In 1940 it acquired the 100-ft. tall column and its name was shortened to The Alex to fit the new neon marquis.

This is what it looks like now.

This is what it looked like most of this week. Was Glendale suddenly becoming awesome? No, just a film shoot, it turns out, for an upcoming Linda Lovelace biopic. Bummer.

Speaking of wine and porn, it turns out there is a connection that includes not Dionysus but Robert Parker. In 2006, adult movie actress Natalie Oliveros (screen name Savannah Samson) released her debut Italian wine, a 2004 Sogno Uno. (I'd link her wine's website right about now, but it's her lying across a bed of grapes naked, so I'll leave that one up to you.) Robert Parker rated this wine 90-91.

PS. if you click onto the photos posted, they will lead you to the very interesting websites where they were found.

follow-up: the green egg.

2012-01-25T16:24:00.000-08:00

Not at all green, I'm bummed to report, but the inside of the shell had the most beautiful soft, robin's egg blue tint to it.

(In case it's been a while.)

wine spelunking, part 1: anti-wine collecting for the 99%

2012-01-20T16:21:00.000-08:00

A few months ago during a not unusual bit insomnia, I was lying in bed having this all out revelation about wine storage: 'A 12-case locker for only $156 a year? That's amazing!' And it is - when you start thinking about the costs of everything else in a typical life - which I proceeded to do for the next hour.

Cable TV is like a hundred dollars a month. Internet, cell phone, car...a movie ticket. Dinner out. Twelve cases of wine, 144 bottles @ $156...and suddenly it dawned on me, probably around dawn, (heh-heh) that not collecting wine or storing wine was the anomaly.

Unless you don't like wine. But you do like wine, I'm pretty certain, you just don't like wine culture, you don't like the stuff: the snootiness, what seems like a prohibitive and necessary amount of knowledge, all the barriers. It's overwhelming, really, for many layers of reasons.

So here's what I'm going to do for you, for the marginalized and forgotten, the victims of wine snoots&snobs everywhere, for 99% mankind: sacrifice my good standing as a troglodyte and reclaim wine for the people!

I'm not rich and I don't make a ton of money. I know nothing about wine and I don't actually care about it too much. But because of the humbling-ly generous people here, I've been fortunate to taste some amazing fricking wine. When it's like that, it's not about buying and drinking a mere bottle of wine; it's about that moment and that experience of that taste. It carries the same elusive nature that a surfer gets with that one wave that forever holds his imagination, that sends him back into the water time after time, to feel that moment just once more, and then just once more again. And when this happens you remember the smell of the ocean, the sound of your board cutting through water, the angle of the sun, every detail defined by that moment.

Wine does this, or can.

So this is like that, about that, and why any true wine-o who stumbles onto this is going to cringe, I promise you, which makes this already a worthwhile endeavor.

Stay tuned.

the amazing good-plain-simple food weekend.

2012-01-18T18:06:00.000-08:00

I eat food. Also, I like food, and I like food that is good, plain, and simple. For months I was stuck on the ol' 'If you are on a deserted island and could have for eternity any three foods, what would they be?' The problem is I need four. I need tea - a good, hearty black Assam - and I need eggs. These are no-brainers.

It's the third-slash-fourth one I get stuck on. I need bread, but then I need butter. Bread without butter is good, bread with butter is great. I could skip the bread and go with the butter; butter with eggs is good, but without the bread the butter would be wildly underutilized. And I'd never stop thinking about the bread. I could maybe figure out a way to make bread, but what I did instead, finally, is dump the bread and the butter and go with oranges. Valencias.

But if it were four items, it'd be the bread and butter. Five items, and you can add the oranges, Valencias, and really after that, minus the occasional bag of potato chips that hopefully washes ashore, I'm pretty satisfied. As long as that bag is attached to a Guinness, and the island itself is a direct-route barrier to the natural tides of the distant Lay's/Guinness factories.

Yes, this is exactly what occupies my brain for hours.

Meet Gladys. I'm pretty sure that's her on the left, in a stare-down with Opal. Gladys is an Americauna Chicken.

Gladys eggs are green. Annabelle (whom you've already met) eggs are brown. These were brought to The Cave Sunday evening by Kristina. Aren't they just beautiful? The answer is yes.

The key to a perfect egg is to not cook it, but to coax it to a state of minimal done-ness. The amazing, great. simple food weekend began Sunday night with an O'-so-delicately boiled Annabelle egg. A little salt and pepper, a quick drizzle of really good olive oil, this was amazing.

Monday night. Founders Dirty Bastard Scotch Style Ale. Not sure about the name, not a big fan of the whole name your beer something dangerous and witty and rebellious, but Founders makes the world's greatest KBS. This was also really good. Really good.

O'-so-gently fried egg on toasted bread with garlic and arugula. Fricking a-m-a-z-i-n-g.

The world's greatest coffee. (Sorry, it just is.)

My first ever lentil soup. Yes, I've consumed lentils almost daily much of my life, but never made soup. And, it was (wait for it) AWESOME, mostly.

Around midnight the soup was getting dry-ish, and I remembered someone had left me half bottle of vermouth, and I had no idea what to do with it, I don't even know what vermouth is, so I ran down to get it and dumped it into the soup. So the soup is really good in a different and odd and slightly boozy-tasting sort of way.

(Look, steam from the soup.)

And finally, a faux-poached egg again with toast and garlic for dinner. Look at that beautiful yoke (and yes, I like a little egg with my pepper).

Two things. Please note - the eggs, the beer, and the vermouth were all via The Cave and all generosities therein. Also, seriously, how much more fortunate can one troglodyte be? Hardly at all, if you must know.

PS. I haven't yet cracked open a Gladys egg, the green ones. I hear they are hued appropriately. Stay tuned.

Dear Los Angeles Times wine reporters,

2012-01-15T16:00:00.000-08:00

Dear Los Angeles Times.

Hi. It's me, your local troglodyte. Which one, you ask? Probably the only one in LA - where there are no basements and certainly no wine storage facilities in basements, minus our humble and awesome The Cave. But I digress.

I was reading your newspaper today, and there were TWO (!) whole wine stories in one day, both about wine and China. On the front page, Pricey counterfeit labels proliferate as China wine market booms, and in the Travel section China: a domestic wine industry starts to take root. (Get it? Take root?)

My very savvy winos are on top of these things and in fact, dear LA Times, both these stories are such old news I hesitate mentioning them. This blog posted about counterfeit wine last March, based on info from CNN and, moreso, Nicks blog over there at Bordeaux Undiscovered. In fact Nick's current post is entitled Life sentence for Chinese smuggler of top flight Bordeaux wines. If you scroll back, Nick has kept us very up-to-date on China's influence on Bordeaux, including Chateau sales and China's own efforts in wine making.

(I'm also mentioning Nick because I'm about to blame him for something, but not yet - you'll have to stay tuned for that one.)

In fact, dear LA Times, we at The Cave are declaring the insanity and madness of Bordeaux in China officially peaked, and ready to even off a little, minimally. But we also like newspapers here, real ones, on actual paper, with pages that turn awkwardly, that the cat would be sitting on if I had one, and that stain your fingertips. So we will keep reading you until you expire entirely, and hope that won't be any time soon, because a world without Twinkies is bad enough.

PS. It is in that second article where you will find the Grape Wall of China blog referenced, now linked on our side bar. (Get it?)

Save the Twinkie!

2012-01-13T14:34:00.000-08:00

The shocking news of the week: Hostess has filed for bankruptcy protection, a looming farewell for the Ding Dong, the Ho Ho, and Wonder Bread, all items that could survive a nuclear catastrophe completely intact but are yummy nonetheless.

Also to possibly leave us: the iconic Twinkie. Or will it?

Never an off position on the genius switch, I smelled opportunity: I could buy all the Twinkies on earth, hold onto to them for a hundred years, and then sell them on e-bay for a million dollars a Twink.

Forget that I'll be a hundred and f-f-f---ummm - well over a hundred, and that there will be no e-bay, that a million dollars then will be what fifty cents is now, and that, despite popular myth, the shelf-life of a Twinkie is really only a few months...so they insist. It's otherwise foolproof.

A Twinkie has in it four different sugars - sugar, dextrose, corn syrup, and high-fructose corn syrup, all finely blended like a hot Zin, mixed-matched-tasted-balanced in the chemical labratories of Hostess for that perfect Twinkie je ne sais quoi. Sigh, It is a sad day indeed.

So today we toast the Twinkie! And probably all weekend and probably as long as those packages remain sealed. Come on in for a HoHo, a Ding Dong, so thoughtfully paired with Murphy's Stout, Remarkably unremarkable, it goes well with extinct snack foods.

Hot Knives

2012-01-12T16:34:00.000-08:00

From the Hot Knives blog-site:

"Hot Knives is Evan George and Alex Brown. We are former line cooks who believe in the purity of produce and the goodness of vegetables. We are cheese mongers, beer bloggers, farmers market fans and food journalists. We hate weak sauces."

From the recent LA Times article on them:

"DIY punk rockers, scrappy beer lovers and hard-core farmers market foodies."

I was looking for a sample recipe to post, but it was hard to settle on just one, they all look good.

(Belgian onion soup, click on image for recipe)

If you like simple, good food and you also like beer, or, often, simple good food made with beer, try these guys.

Happy New Year, from Mother Nature.

2012-01-01T15:41:00.000-08:00

Cheers, 2011.

2011-12-31T15:31:00.000-08:00

December 23, 2010 - 3 people came in to get wine.
December 23, 2011 - 10 people came in to get wine.

December 31, 2010 - 8 people came in to get wine.
December 31, 2011 - 1 person has been in to get wine.

While The Cave continues to defy patterns, there was much more Cave traffic from Thanksgiving through New Year this year, minus today (but the week has been busy). Ten people in one day? That's just crazy.

I continue to be fortunate to have not only the greatest job but to have here some of the most decent humans I've ever met.

Other 2011 highlights.

Favorite holiday story. This is Los Angeles but contrary to what you may suspect, only one in ten persons in LA works in "the business." Let's just say The Cave has its share of interesting and notable guests. One gentleman came in recently, he is not in often, we exchange the usual pleasantries. "I have to get some wine for a friend of mine," he starts. "The only time he talks to me is around the holidays because he wants wine. What a pain in the ass." Then he disappeared into the cellar. This was right before the holidays were in full swing, and I thought, this is going to be a great Christmas!

Runner Up: Christmas Eve Day, J. comes in swearing and puffing and sighing. "It took me almost half an hour to get from the (freeway) exit to here!" Which is indeed awful. I'd been out earlier that day, on my bicycle, and it was just really horrible, the people-in-cars, tired and desperate and maniacal and completely dangerous. The stores are impossible, there's no where to park, the streets are clogged. We both got going on this, a rapid-fire exchange on the horror, the horror. J. took a brief break to reconsider his holiday cheer, but in the end it was agreed: we really just wanted it to be over.

Favorite non-holiday story. Okay, so, basically: S. has an affinity for, well, many good wines, I'm sure, but there is one we've been talking about, a particular Italian wine of specific vintage. So, it's like up there with the holy grail. He's at a get-together, it's all wine drinkers, good cooks, good food, wines, a grill, like that. Someone has brought this particular wine to the proceedings, the very one S. covets, but only one bottle, and there are a lot of people, so everyone gets a little bit. A good taste. S.'s precious portion is at his place setting, in a glass, but before he gets to it he leaves the table to tend to some other thing. While he's gone, in the wandering conversations that happen at these things, another gentleman temporarily takes S's place to chat with someone. While there, he very casually and nonchalantly helps himself to S.'s precious, coveted glass of wine. S. returns, it is gone. Or the guy is holding the (empty) glass or something, but it's gone. I'm laughing my you know what off, and S. concludes with the fact that he said nothing. That is serious self control, but I'd have paid close to a lot to have seen the look on his face.

The wines I remembered.

The beer I still think about. (I don't like the blonde sours as a drinking beer, but I'm really intrugued by them as an idea and experience.) I tasted one even better than this, but I have no idea what it was.

Worst beer ever. (This isn't really fair, because the beer was infected and tasted like antiseptic. The worst beer ever, intact and tasting like it was supposed to taste, remains this stuff.) (Hated it!)

Best eggs: Annabelle's.

Favorite non-holiday madness. It's a tie. Having The Cave as part of the Glendale History ride is just an honor, plain and simple. A great building full of quirk and character, to be able to show it off is a privilege.

The other madness is when The People of Beer descend on the Cave for their beer trades, also, ultimately, a celebration of this place and its roots as a Social Room-With-A-Secret.

Since starting this post, five more people have come and gone. Yes, it's been quite a lively holiday season. Tomorrow we get to hibernate. Cheers.

Holiday Wine Emergency

2011-12-24T15:14:00.001-08:00

Today is the fifth day of Hanukkah. Tomorrow is Christmas and Monday begins Kwanzaa. If I can maneuver things to my favor, next year I could close for all of them, an almost three week vacation. As it stands, The Cave will be closed for only one day, Sunday. If you have a wine emergency, as always you can try the wine emergency hot-line @ 818-359-5182. Leave a message, though, because if I don't recognize the number chances are I won't pick up.

Your other wine-emergency option is the always open 7-11.

That Chateau Ste. Michelle Cab comes from Washington State's oldest winery. 178 revues on Cellar Tracker give it 88 points while getting 93 points from Wine and Spirits. Not horrible!
Look! You got your whites on ice, there are boxed Gallo things, Newman's Own...

...AND, it's 7-11, you can grab a cherry Slurpee and some Fritos while you're at it. And a lottery ticket. Marlboro Lights, the Lindsey Lohan issue of Playboy, a maple pancake sausage roller, 5-hour energy drink, a six-pack, a corn dog, and aspirin. All that (and more) under one roof. There's your Christmas, baby! Cheers!

PS.

It's beginning to look a lot like Crazy.

2011-12-21T14:46:00.000-08:00

It's only Wednesday and if you're celebrating Christmas Sunday it's only Wednesday. When I was invited to a last minute thing, I thought, I should probably go somewhere and get something, not show up empty handed. So I walked into a store earlier today and the line was so amazingly long I thought, I don't think he really needs anything, now that I think of it. This was the beginning, middle, and end of my shopping season.

Wednesday is also Monday, in Cave days, and typically sleepy. But in the mere forty five minutes I've been here, The Cave has been busier than pretty much all of 2011 combined. Like, Crazy Christmas busy. How exciting!

wine and beer around the web.

2011-12-18T16:43:00.000-08:00

...and one water

eating Port.

2011-12-14T15:31:00.001-08:00

The Cave is cold, and I am a thinned skinned troglodyte. But I have high hopes for a rugged future, and towards that end every day is a contest to see how long I can go minus the next layer of clothing. It's four o'clock and I'm already up to the hoody/hat combo. That's not good.

So when Monty came out of the cellar earlier today gingerly cradling this broken bottle of Port, I thought - hey, great, let's try the Port. Monty was wearing shorts and was not cold and asked, but what about the glass? "It'll sink."

I really just wanted to try Port. I know it's a fortified dessert wine (not typically my preference) that also, for the last ten years, has seen steadily declining sales in an otherwise robust market. Wine has its fads, fashions, funks, and fancies, and right now Port wine is perceived as the grandpa of the barrel.

So I siphoned some off into a glass, dumped the rest, (picked the shards of glass out of the sink), waited a few minutes to be sure, and then gingerly sipped my first Port. Mmmm, tasty, this stuff. Sweet, a little boozy, a little fruity, and perfect for this time of year, this kind of weather. Cold, early nights, a fire in the fireplace, a small glass of port...not at all an unpleasant way to go.

Also, Monty, a person who no longer drinks alcohol, is selling his collection. Let me know if you're interested. All the other bottles are shard-free, I assure you.

Fifty more minutes and I get to turn the heater on. Where are my gloves?

eclipse

2011-12-10T18:43:00.001-08:00

If you're underprivileged or merely live not west of the Mighty Mississippi, your options for something eclipse are limited to these items.

Some of us, however, got the real thing last night (early this morning) between 4 and 6 a.m.

(That wine would have been pretty good, though, around 5 a.m...)

Toto, too.

2011-12-01T19:19:00.000-08:00

I just got a call from a gentleman who cellars here wondering if we have power here which in Cave language translates to AC. Where he lives there will be none until this weekend. As a matter of fact, Glendale (so far) has had no power outages, only a collective severe lack of sleep.

So far your wine is surviving all this soundly and unawares, but for the rest of us last night was like trying to sleep strapped to the undercarriage of a freight train during a hurricane that was in a tornado. All of it. At once.

I passed the night watching the movie The Swimmer with Burt Lancaster based on the short story The Swimmer by John Cheever. Very existential, dude.

Around 4 a.m. I did this.

Around 5 a.m. I tried sleep. The hotel was shaking so much I thought, if there's an earthquake right now no one will know.

At 11 a.m. the wind blew the building's fire alarm on...and woke me up.

Around noon I was passing the bougainvillea in the back and they'd been completely stripped! Even better, the ground was perfectly detritus-free.

I can't wait until tonight. Maybe I should get me a bit of this stuff, they seem to know the deal.

You wish you were here.

2011-11-27T18:54:00.000-08:00

People of Beer, part 2.

The trading table.

What I'm learning while sitting here: This is the bathroom (mens room, safe to say) at Main Street Casino in Las Vegas. That's an actual bit of the Berlin Wall back there, except unlike the link, there is no longer any signage telling you this. It's just you, your business, and a random wall. Ah, Vegas...

PS: Yikes!

Small Business Saturday

2011-11-25T15:09:00.000-08:00

Happy Black Friday. I guess.

I go to the mall sometimes. I got socks last year.

Tomorrow is Small Business Saturday, sponsored by big business American Express, but nonetheless.

Rosso Wine Shop, up Verdugo Road here in Glendale, recently posted a few nice references to various local businesses worth the trip. Click here for their list of local butchers, including Lindy & Grundy which is all local, pastured and organic meats. Rosso also posts about local Italian Delis including Mario's which is just across the street from The Cave.

A store called Rocket Fizz Soda Pop and Candy Shop recently opened on Brand. There's a photo on their website that announces Snooki from Jersey Shore shopping there, so it must be good. Nostalgic soda and candy aficionados already know about Galco's Soda Pop Stop in Highland Park, and if you don't here's proprietor John Nese telling you everything about it. This guy is kind of awesome, really into it. Go there.

Other wine stores in Glendale and about are posted over there on the side bar, including Topline.

Of course our favorite small business here at The Cave is...er...us. The Cave. Small, dark, and Cavey since 1982, it's the small that makes it. Intimate, homey, quirky - and our customers don't pepper spray each other. Pretty much sells itself.

what gets left behind

2011-11-17T16:00:00.000-08:00

People depart. They depart The Cave, they depart California, they depart the country and eventually they depart earth altogether, at least in the form they'd previously occupied it. And, by nature of departure, things get left behind.

This is more prevalent in the hotel than here in the Cave, and it is not unusual to encounter, while passing through the lobby up there, bits of an apartment left behind for the offering, but mostly humorous, random things.

The Cave's memories are much more interesting, indicative of the taste of those generating them, I like to think. Recently I came across this (sadly) empty bottle of 1989 Chateau Montrose St. Estephe. It was purchased for $27.99. Today the average price for it is $349.

This was also in there. Rusted caps, half-filled bottles. That Pepsi bottle from the 'forties, maybe? Think I could make a few bucks on the side selling that Corona to one of my beer guys? (Me neither...)

Glendale's Wine and Spirit

2011-11-13T15:24:00.000-08:00

Two local shout-outs today in Sunday's Glendale News Press:

1. In September I referenced a few local wine stories, and it seems the local winos are up to it again. Today's News Press covers the latest get-together at the old Stone Barn Vineyard up in Deukmejian Wilderness Park. The grape grown there is the Alicante Bouschet, heavily planted during Prohibition. The thick skin made it easier to ship minus rot, and its deep color allowed for undetectable dilution. Much like the grape, I also didn't know what a Deukmajian was. 35th Governor of California, it turns out. (I was in NY at the time, being mesmerized by the politics of California's 33rd Governor.)

2. Also in the News Press was an article about local bar, Neat. Here's the basic concept there:
"Neat bar is owned by Aiden Demarest who came up with the idea where customers can come in for a straight shot, usually served side by side with a chaser. Chasers are made by the bartender, which is made with fresh juices, house made syrups or artisanal sodas" which could actually be interesting and worth checking out.

dangerous beautiful things

2011-11-10T15:58:00.001-08:00

an unexpected moment of subject matter ennui

2011-11-04T15:25:00.000-07:00

I was catching up on my airplane shopping, because apparently we can't function too far from an actual mall, no, thank god for Sky Mall - where I saw this thing. It's a wine -aging accelerator. Here's part of the description:

"Enjoy the delicious flavor of 10 years of aging in just a few seconds

Aging accelerators help recapture the exquisite taste of nature and duplicate the smooth, mellow flavor generated by years of traditional slow aging."

I was like, "Really?"

So I started poking around the internet earlier, and it turns out there are a host of gadgets that promise to take your cheap, young floozy wine and in a matter of minutes and dollars turn it into something respectable and drinkable and probably French. This particular one uses magnets to realign the wine particles the way aging does.

There's a crystal wand, ultrasonic waves, and the Clef du Vin that can age your wine five years in five seconds.

Right about this time I thought, I'm not sure I care about all this enough to continue. It started feeling like I was putting a serious chunk of time into researching which is better, a Slanket or a Snuggie? 'Nuff said.

boxing day, sort of.

2011-11-03T17:14:00.000-07:00

I opened up today, looked at this, and thought, How does this happen?

Therefore The Commonwealth of The Cave declared today Boxing Day, officially moving the date of the event while simultaneously redefining it as something less lucrative for both shoppers and the needy (unless you're the guy with the pick-up truck who drives through the alley at two a.m. picking up cardboard to recycle, then today is going to be a pretty good day for you).

Boxes are interesting, I also declare, and one reason they are capable of overwhelming the space is because I tend to be seduced by their endlessly inventive architecture. Standard is the formed styrofoam insert that both secures and insulates, or the pulp cardboard inserts, reminiscent of the egg carton, but once in awhile you get a new one, like this box that I finally gave in on and collapsed down today. It was one of the sturdiest boxes I've seen. It's fascinating, the amount of design, time, concept, engineering and architecture that go into a mere box...like these designs used in various egg dropping contests.

Thank you, Annabelle

2011-11-02T16:17:00.000-07:00

Like a proper troglodyte would, the farther from the underground the more jittery I get. Street level is daunting, bridges more so, tall buildings, and finally...the dreaded airplane at six miles above the plush, gravitationally sound, terra firma. Which is why when I was about to have to do that I thought a last supper was due. Just in case.

Over there is a picture of Annabelle. Her owner describes her this way: "She is a Red Star hen. She enjoys Swiss Chard, grass, chasing my dogs, and long walks around the yard. She lets me pick her up and carry her around when she's in a good mood."

I asked about Annabelle because my last supper featured one of Annabelle's eggs. Kristina, not a hen and also Annabelle's owner, very generously brought in for me a few of Annabelle's eggs only a few days prior, and if you're going for comfort food you can't really go wrong with pork chops and eggs. It was, of course, de-lish.

There is now a group in LA called the Los Angeles Urban Chicken Enthusiasts. We all need something to be enthusiastic about, like I'm very enthusiastic to be sub-terra again. Eric Asimov wrote about eggs and wine back in 2008. If you Google 'wine and eggs pairing' you get as many opinions as results, but brussel sprouts, potatoes and eggs would be really good.

Cease and Desist/Rasputin

2011-10-23T15:23:00.000-07:00

The label reads, "This stout used to be called 'Rasputin,' but the people who make 'Old Rasputin' in California thought you were too dumb to tell the two products apart and threatened to sue us for trademark infringement. Think about that when you're looking for a way to spend your hard-earned beer money."

So here's what I think about that: I am exactly too dumb to not think the two beers might be from the same brewer. I might know were I a beer geek, er, I mean beer collector, but alas, I'm only a troglodyte, and one who quite possibly is about to sound like my grandfather: you don't open a coffee shop with the word Starbucks in it and think they're going to feel pretty swell about that.
I am reading great things about this beer, which, incidentally, showed up conveniently near closing time last night with Izzy and Kristina. Izzy offered the beer, and Kristina brought me four eggs from her chickens, which is also awesome. So we ventured into this Russian Imperial Stout. Here are some tasting notes posted about it: raisins, licorice, cocoa, coffee, prunes, molasses, anise...all good things.

What I tasted was something between band-aids and just a general antiseptic-ness. At first I thought it tasted like lint, but no, it was definitely band-aids.

I happened to run into Mike The Beer Guy while in Whole Foods today, and told him I tasted this. He had the same experience with it, and in two different sizes. He said it got infected. Which I guess is good, because it can treat its own infection with itself.

...like a switch was just flipped.

2011-10-21T17:18:00.000-07:00

It's not like one guy brings in a box to get you warmed up, to ease you into it, and then another day or two passes and another box shows up, no: 10/20/11 shipping season just suddenly WAS. Is. The madness has begun, the madness that's better than, say, something like christmas. Lots of little boys and girls receiving their long awaited, highly anticipated toys, smiling from ear to ear.

An open apology to The Deanster.

2011-10-20T14:52:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. The Deanster.

It was very nice to see you. You should come to California more often, though I'm sure Indiana is also nice.

I appreciate your willingness to contribute to the impossible task of my wine education. Every shipment that arrives here for you, you tell me to drink it. Dean, I'm not going to drink your wine, it's your wine. You're not shipping it here for me to drink. I'm completely fine putting your deliveries into your locker for you, it takes, like, a whole minute. Whoo-boy, then I need a little nap and then I'm fresh as a daisy! But it's always a very generous offer.

Thank you for the bottles you left with me, though. I thought it would be nice to try the Stony Hill Gewurztraminer (it took me longer to type that than it did to put it in your locker) and the Stony Hill White Riesling together. Then I thought maybe I shouldn't do that alone.

I had a thing. Once in a while I leave The Cave and tend to the things, and this particular one gave me good opportunity to open both these bottles so I could compare them properly. I liked the Riesling a little better, but maybe because it was more accessible, more obvious and thus easier to like. The other one, (please don't make me type that again), was much dryer and aloof, but a second visit to it revealed hidden nuances that I think I later appreciated.

Then the next night I made this for dinner:
Pasilla peppers are at the farmer's market so I tried this and now I'm addicted to it. You put it on the burner and keep turning it until it is entirely black. This softens it and you can keep or shed the char, whatever your taste.

While that is going on, I heated up some jalapenos, garlic, tomatoes, (I was a little low on tomatoes...) and - wait for it - curry! I know, I can't help it, everything just tastes better with curry.

Add the quinoa and yellow split peas (both were pre-cooked) to heat.

Stuffed pasilla, yogurt, cucumber, lemon. Here's the mistake. This would have gone amazing with that wine. There are so many great layers of flavor and heat on that plate and the wine was a perfect match, and The Deanster knew this because he knows I eat like this, and he called it perfectly. But I blew an otherwise perfect meal by squandering Sage Deanster's completely generous gift on the wrong event. The whole time I was eating it (and it was really good) all I could think was how good that wine would have been with it, most likely the Riesling. The dry of the you-know-what might have been too much against the spice and heat.

So, Good Dean, my public apology to you. You were right on the mark on this one and in equal and opposite reaction I entirely was not. Good wine though, thank you.

P.S. Max came in last night. He showed me a picture of what he recently had for dinner. (click on to enlarge.) Sort of like what I had but different. My dinner looked less surprised to be there.

Firestone (Abacus) Barrel-Aged Barley Wine, 2011

2011-10-13T20:22:00.000-07:00

The Firestone Walker Brewing Company is currently referring to this as merely Barley Wine, having dropped the Abacus for reasons my beer geeks would know, but I do not. This doesn't change what I tasted, though, and there are a whole lot of things going on in this stuff. Barley wine, aging, boozy things, something coconut with a lingering maple finish.

It was 108 degrees today in Los Angeles, but I'm thinking in more reasonable environs, like anywhere but here and for a number of reasons (not just the weather), there may be things like crisper temperatures, some turning of the leaves, the promise of what's next, and this is a great one for that. My gracious thanks to the dashing, young Vahe for this one; even with the oven running it was entirely intriguing and interesting and a new one on me.

Trader Joe's, circa 1969

2011-10-12T19:47:00.000-07:00

It's very lively here at The Cave these days; Hong Kong has everyone is a tizzy, a frenzy, or at least in a selling state of mind, and why not take advantage of an unreasonable market that actually benefits everyone participating versus the usual unreasonable market that benefits only the selected few. Maybe that's just Wall Street, but I digress.

Gil, this Gil, the one who built The Cave, has been in a few times to participate in this French Fad. But also in The Cave are the forgotten bottles, the unspokens, mysterious and secret, long stashed away in various nooks and crannies. So Gil took some of those with him as well.

It turns out Hong Kong has very specific and pristine tastes, so later in his very long day Gil returned with a few rejects. Buried in these was this bottle, no label but for its price tag. You can click on it to enlarge, but the price tag is from Trader Joe's, and the date on it is 8-7-69. In 1969 this bottle cost $4.50 + tax. Considering Charles Shaw costs $1.99 in 2011, that's actually very pricey for Trader Joe's, in fact if you go to the government's adjust-for-inflation calculator, today this bottle would cost you $30.80. Yikes!

So Gil said, well, let's open it, and we did. I of course know nothing about wine so I figured it would be an awful bit of vinegar. Or worse. It poured blood red, rusty and cloudy. It tasted great! A dessert wine, it held up well.

That picture that looks like a petrified, er, turd? That's the cork. It smells amazing, like a pouch of damp tobacco, and you can taste this in the wine - a little boozy still, sweet, tobacco, really interesting.

After Gil left I was cataloging the returns thinking, Those crazy Chinese, they're missing out. This is the fun of wine, moments like this where you take the chance, roll the dice, try something odd, when it's all about the discovery and sometimes are unexpectedly, pleasantly surprised.