A Graceful Gathering: La Fenetre Wine Tasting with Chef Neal Fraser

La Fenêtre Wines was started by former sommelier Joshua Klapper, who had previously worked as Wine Director at David Myers' Sona and earned it the Wine Spectator Grand Award (we're all very sorry to see Sona shuttered). With Burgundy wines as his inspiration, Klapper strives to make food friendly wines that are affordable.

In celebration of their fifth vintage, La Fenêtre held a tasting of all their 2008 releases (and some more) at LearnAboutWine's Loft218.
We were greeted with a glass of the 2008 Santa Barbara County Rosé (their anniversary Rosé)
... while LearnAboutWine's Ian Blackburn plays DJ for the day.

The wines were accompanied by small bites prepared by Chef Neal Fraser of Grace and BLD Restaurant.

The first couple bites accompanied the rose and the white wines:
Chilean Shellfish Ceviche (left)

Crab Salad, lemon vinaigrette, mint:

We tasted a lot of wine (thank goodness for the spit bucket). Since I'm no wine connoisseur and your taste preferences may differ from mine, I'll direct you instead to their official tasting notes here. We started with four Chardonnays:

• 2008 À Côté, Santa Barbara County ($25). Crisp and clean, this was a very smooth wine with only a slight acidity at the end. It paired very well with the caviar blini as it brought the flavors together and balanced the caviar.

Salmon Tartare, chive blini, American caviar

• 2008 La Fenêtre, Los Alamos (Santa Barbara County). More acidic than the previous. I had this with the Bay Scallops, peas, aged goat cheese, risotto - a great dish and its creaminess cuts the acidity of the wine nicely.

• 2008 La Fenêtre, Sierra Madre (Santa Maria Valley). Sweeter than the Los Alamos.
• 2008 La Fenêtre, Bien Nacido (Santa Maria Valley)

We also had the chance to taste the 2004 Bien Nacido Chardonnay (his first vintage). This was easily my favorite Chardonnay of the night: smooth but with much more depth. The new releases should be heading this way too in a few years and it will be well worth the wait.

Moving on to the reds and the red meat dishes, we began with a tasting of the Pinot Noirs:

• 2008 À Côté, Central Coast ($25). Smooth and subtle, light fruit flavors.
  
• 2008 La Fenêtre, Los Alamos ($36)
• 2008 La Fenêtre, Sierra Madre ($49). This had more body than the previous two.
• 2008 La Fenêtre, Le Bon Climat ($54). My favorite of the pinot noirs. Smoother, less acidic than the others. The body is still pretty light, naturally, as it's a pinot.
  

Squab Crostini, liver mousse, rare breast, confit leg, crostini

Grilled NY Steak, farro, red wine gelee

The red wine gelee was a great complement.

• 2007 La Fenêtre, Alisos ($35). Heavier-bodied than the pinot noir, naturally. A bit tannic.
  
• 2008 La Fenêtre, Sierra Madre ($35). Lighter bodied and more tannic than the 2007 Alisos.
• 2006 Tête Brûlée, Mt Veeder ($60). This is the only wine he makes with a partner (and his only Napa wine).

We also got to taste the Timeless Palate Wines 2004 Syrah, another of Josh's first releases.
The syrah was smooth and surprisingly fruity when compared to the newer releases. It was the fruitiest of his wines yet.

You can now order La Fenêtre wines online and if you order by September 30, get 15% off with code: FALL2010LF.

Full Disclosure: I attended this event as a guest of Joshua Klapper of La Fenêtre Wines. FYI though I did end up buying two bottles of wine for myself so you can see that I liked it!

Giveaway: LA County Fair Tickets + Wine Tasting Vouchers!

As you may know, the Los Angeles County Fair kicks off this weekend!

Their PR contacted me to do a giveaway so I'm giving away a PAIR of tickets to the LA County Fair along with some wine tasting vouchers you can use to sample some of the winners of the LA International Wine & Spirits awards.

Besides the usual fair foods (like the bacon-wrapped oreos and deep-fried everything) the food trucks will also be coming to the Fair to keep you sated between the rodeo and circus shows.

Here's how you can enter:

1. Leave a comment below with your name and email address.
2. Get an extra entry by "liking" my Facebook page. If you already have, then you'd automatically get the extra entry.

Since the Fair will start this weekend and we want to get you the tickets as soon as possible, you have until midnight on Sunday, September 5 to enter. Good luck!

La Chiripada Winery (Dixon, New Mexico)

Seems like almost every state makes their own wine now, and New Mexico certainly is no exception. In fact, Albuquerque's Gruet Winery is pretty well known for their sparkling wines. Put a group of graduate students in Los Alamos for 2 weeks and we won't fail to take advantage of the weekends to go wine tasting.

A quick research on the smartphone brought us to La Chiripada.

La Chiripada is a quaint and modest winery in Dixon (50 miles north of Santa Fe) marked by a small adobe structure, where casual wine tastings are held. We walked in with hair still wet from the rafting trip that morning. You can do that in New Mexico, it's just that kind of lifestyle.

Surrounded by the beautiful landscape of New Mexico

La Chiripada was started in 1977 in the Rio Embudo Valley of NM and now produces a variety of red, white, and dessert wines. Many of the red varieties are local, including Canoncito and their most popular, Rio Embudo Red, a local Leon Millot French hybrid grape variety.

Most of the reds weren't "quite there yet" for me being perfectly drinkable and enjoyable but without enough depth. Keep in mind we tried young wines during the tasting, though I did enjoy the Reserve selection.

The whites fared better, on the other hand, with the crispness I tend to look for in my whites.
Since the tasting fee is waived when you buy a bottle, I took home a bottle of the Special Reserve Riesling.

La Chiripada Winery
Hwy 75 (3 miles East of the Hwy 68 and Hwy 75 junction)
Dixon, NM

Wine 101 Tasting Seminar, with a Four Course Meal Attached

Back in July I discovered Los Angeles' last remaining winery, San Antonio Winery in downtown LA. Since they now have a wine tasting seminar series, they invited me to check out the first one, Wine 101.

The tasting seminar involves a 4-course luncheon paired with eight different wines.


The seminar is led by Michael Papalia, their wine Store manager. He first went over the basic steps of wine tasting (the look, swirl, sniff, slurp, etc).
The afternoon started out with a plate of Puma goat cheese, orange and roasted eggplant salad (french vanilla glaze, basil oil and microgreens), paired with Champagne Duval-Leroy Brut, a nice champagne for $30 a bottle.
Nice contrast between the citrus and the creaminess of the eggplant and goat cheese. The cheese was not overwhelming either, but the eggplant was a little cold.

Michael Papalia discuss the different grape varieties out there - from the 24,000 names of varieties to the 5,000 truly distinct varieties, to just 150 grown in commer cial quantities. Out of all these, only 9 are considered classic varieties. Oh, the competition ...

The next course was broiled miso Alaskan black cod on potato and chive pancake with miso glaze.
This was a bit tough, a little overcooked, but it had nice flavors. I also liked the pancake quite a bit but the dish overall lacked texture.
This was "paired" with 3 different whites for our comparison. The first two were the Frog's Leap 2008 Sauvignon Blanc(Napa Valley) and San Simeon 2006 Chardonnay(Monterey), a good pick for a Wine 101 course since the attendees can distinguish between the crispness of the Sauvignon Blanc and the buttery Chardonnay.

The third wine was also informatively different with the Maddalena Vineyard 2008 Riesling, Monterey - this was a sweet, almost dessert-wine-like Riesling which I enjoyed in itself though not so much with the cod. I actually saved half of my glass and had it with my dessert later on (a better pairing, IMHO).

For our main entree: Roasted ancho pepper crusted rack of lamb (roasted wild mushroom risotto, pinot noir coriander sauce)
This was very good, the lamb was very tender if a bit fatty and very flavorful. A great dish, one unexpectedly good considering I was just at a wine tasting seminar at a winery. According to San Antonio Winery's owner, they bring in an outside chefs to prepare the food for these special tasting events and they intend to keep doing so for more improvement and to keep it interesting.

The lamb chop was paired with three reds.
The 2005 Maddalena Merlot is a pretty smooth wine for only $14 a bottle
The 2006 Luigi Bosca Malbec was a table favorite, though I think this wine would be better after aging a little longer. It does, however, pair nicely with the lamb chop.
San Antonio “Cask 520″, Paso Robles. This was a pretty good wine, and definitely one of San Antonio's best wines and a good buy at $28.

For dessert, we had some Island mango mousse with candied macadamia nuts and toasted coconut shavings
It was a simple dessert but I liked it a lot, especially with the nice aroma from the toasted coconuts and the texture of the candid macadamia.
The La Quinta Syrah Port that was paired with the dessert was a bit too syrupy and sweet for my taste and I thought the Riesling from earlier was a better pairing.

Papalia of course explained the process of making port, in particular brandy fortified port. If you're a wine newbie you will definitely learn a lot from this seminar, from the difference in the process between white and red wines, why chardonnay tends to be more buttery, and much more. Did you know that an oak barrel is individually hand crafted and runs about $1000 and can only be used for 2, or at most 3 vintages? Of course, you can then use them to age distilled spirits after, but still now I can understand more why wines can be so expensive.


If you're interested in attending a tasting seminar at San Antonio Winery, here's their list of events.
Upcoming Events:
Wine 102: Exploring California's Grape Growing Regions. Sunday, Feb 21 (1-4 pm).
$55, 4 course luncheon included.
Understanding Bordeaux Varieties. Saturday, March 20 (1-4 pm)
$60, 4 course luncheon included.
"A Day in Tuscany": Italian Wine Tasting. Saturday June 12 (1-4 pm)
$60, 4 course luncheon included.

Boutique Wine Tastings:
Artisan Chocolates & California Reds. Saturday, March 6 (1-3 pm)
$24, light appetizers included
Wine & Cheese Pairing
Saturday, April 10 (1-3 pm)

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San Antonio Winery
737 Lamar Street
Los Angeles, CA 90031
(323) 223-1401
www.sanantoniowinery.com

Foodbuzz 24, 24, 24: A True Foodie's 21st Birthday!

Our no-longer-Teenage Glutster is all grown up now! But no way will we foodblogger friends let him spend his 21st birthday in a haze and hungover from kegs, Jagerbombs, and 2-buck-chucks.
No, we're going to celebrate in style!
Since Glutster had just achieved the legal age of drinking, he obviously had a lot to catch up on, so Street Gourmet LA arranged for a day of wine tasting and more in the beautiful Santa Ynez Valley.
Six wineries, to be exact. Like I said, he needed to catch up. With a bit of financial help from Foodbuzz' 24, 24, 24 program, we're off to wine and dine him!

Our caravan, spearheaded by Street Gourmet LA, consisted of e*starLA, FoodGPS, and the siblings from Cemitas y Clayudas Pal Cabron in Huntington Park.

Our first stop is Foxen Vineyard in Santa Maria.
Besides being featured in the movie 'Sideways', Foxen Vineyard is a well-established (since 1985) winery boasting solar powered winery and tasting room and 90+ point wines from Wine Enthusiast, Wine Spectator, and Robert Parker.

Our group is ready to go!

Foxen recently built a new tasting facility, but probably because the old one was featured in the movie Sideways, they kept both open. Foxen offers a tasting of five wines for $10 or a tasting of 3 wines at each location (6 total) for $12.

Here are the five wines we tasted:
2007 Chenin Blanc - Ernesto Wickenden Vineyard. A nice and light white.
2008 Chardonnay - Tinaquaic Vineyard. This is Foxen-owned vineyard.
2008 Pinot Noir - Santa Maria Valley
2007 Cuvee Jean Marie. A blend of Grenache, Syrah,and Mourvedre. This a fruity and flavorful wine,loved it.
2006 Syrah- Tinaquaid Vineyard. Much spicier than the previous red, has a fuller body but not as flavorful.

Foxen

7600 Foxen Canyon Road (new tasting facility)
Santa Maria, CA 93454
Phone: (805) 937-4251

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Next we went to Alma Rosa winery in Buelton, passing through the quaint Danish town of Solvang on the way. Alma Rosa has a beautiful setting and a lovely outdoor tasting area. I can really hang out here all day.

Alma Rosa offers a varietal flight of five wines for $10:
2008 Santa Barbara County Pinot Gris- light and crisp.
2007 Sta Rita Hills Pinot Blanc
2008 Santa Barbara County Chardonnay - sweeter and fruitier than the previous two whites.
2007 Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir - an interesting Pinot, it was smooth with a little hint of pleasant bitterness.
2006 La Encentada Sta. Rita Hills Pinot Noir

Chris Burroughs from the Alma Rosa tasting room made a cameo in the movie Sideways (because they decided he was just so cool), so Javier took a celeb shot with him.

Alma Rosa

7250 Santa Rosa Road
Buellton CA 93427

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I was actually looking forward to visiting Artiste winery because they have the art studio where you can get creative while you're wine tasting. Unfortunately they were in the process of moving their tasting room to Los Olivos, so we weren't able to visit them. In the spirit of 24, 24, 24, though, since I had included them in my proposal, we decided to hold our own "Artiste tasting."

Street Gourmet LA brought 2 bottles of Artiste wines and accompanied by some amazing cemitas (courtesy of the Pal Cabron siblings), baklava, a wonderfully salty cheese from Chiapa, and Kiss My Bundt mini bundt cakes, we had a picnic lunch while taking in the lovely Santa Ynez air.

Many toasts and best wishes to our adult Glutster!

You can also see estarla there shuffling back and forth after eating some spicy Pal Cabron's housemade Chipotle! (More on the "Chipotle Shuffle" later ;P)

The labels of Artiste wines are hand chosen paintings representing the name of the wines. That afternoon we tasted Les Fleurs (a blend of about 5-6 whites) and Peaceful Alliance, both lovely wines. The Peaceful Alliance actually made a great pairing with the Chiapa cheese!

Artiste

Moving to Los Olivos, location still undisclosed.
Phone (805) 686-2626

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Moving on to another Sideways-featured winery with Blackjack in Solvang, we took down their tasting of 10 (yes, TEN) wines ($12), which included the Maximus Syrah as featured in Sideways during the four-screen montage about 30 minutes into the movie.

Besides labels of famous Bordeaux, the tasting room was also decorated with photos from the movie Sideways.

Our ten wines:
1. Chardonnay Blackjack Ranch Vineyard Reserve 2007 - crisp and not too oaky.
2. Chardonnay Wilkening Vineyard Reserve 2006 - in stark contrast to the previous, this chardonnay was very buttery.
3. Chardonnay "Black Cap Reserve" 2005 - unfiltered white wine.
4. Pinot Noir Alix de Vergy 2005 Special Selection Reserve - a lot of smoke in the nose, but I don't find the wine particularly smooth.
5. Allusion 205 (Cab Franc with an accent of Merlot)
6. Double-Down Syrah 2005/2006 - fruity and smooth, this was one of my favorite from this tasting.
7. Harmonie 2004 "Bordeaux-Blend"
8. Harmonie 2002 "Bordeaux-Blend" - this wine spent 2 years in the oak barrels and is quite a nice wine, full bodied and smooth. Another winner.
9. Merlot Billy Goat Hill 2005
10. Maximus Syrah 2005 - this is their "Sideways" wine and a good choice. Quite flavorful and had a big body.




Blackjack Ranch
2205 Alamo Pintado Road
Solvang, CA

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We proceeded to the charming town of Los Olivos and first stopped at the Scott Cellars tasting room. Hippie winemaker Peter Scott Fraser personally manned the tasting room along with wife Jennifer and his mother.
Choosing his own rows of grapes from nearby vineyards (with the exception of the Zinfandel, which was from Paso Robles), Scott knows the effects that different soils would have on the resulting wine. We got lucky that day since Scott Cellars was having a (free) tasting event. This proved to be one of the more solid all-around tastings of the day with consistently high quality wines.
My favorites are the following:

2006 Pinot Gris
2007 Pinot Gris - This 100% stainless steel white is creamier wine than the year previous. This was probably my favorite.
2007 Pinot Noir - a double gold-medal winner.

We also tried their first release of Sangiovese wine.

You may notice the leaf on Scott Cellars' wine labels. That is the leaf of the grape used in the wine. Each leaf has a different shape and that is how he distinguishes between them in the vineyard. A nice touch. If you buy enough of their wines, you can learn all the shapes too!




Scott Cellars

2933 San Marcos Avenue
#101
Los Olivos, CA 93441

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Our wine tasting day ended about 2 blocks away in Los Olivos at the Carhartt winery tasting room.
This tiny tasting room was already half full before we bombarded them with our group of nine. Winemaker and owner Mike Carhartt was pouring our wines while bantering with Street Gourmet LA.

Our $10 tasting consisted of:
2008 Sauvignon Blanc
2008 Chase The Blues Away Rose (named for their son Chase)
2008 Pinot Noir
2007 Sangiovese
2008 Lockshaw Vineyard, Paso Robles Zinfandel - sweet and fruity
2006 Merlot
2006 Syrah
2007 "Four Play" - a Bordeaux blend with 50% Merlot, 40% Cabernet Sauvignon, 7% Cab Franc, 3% Petite Verdot. A surprisingly spicy wine.

Apparently, when 5 pm comes, Mike turns off the regular music and puts on his rock-n-roll. Maybe it was the cozy-ness of the tasting room or maybe it was how casual Mike was interacting with everyone there, but half of our group definitely started bopping to the music.

Carhartt Vineyard Tasting Room

2990A Grand Avenue
Los Olivos, CA 93441

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To soak up all the wine we tasted, we were off to eat some amazing Brazilian food in ... Oxnard!
This may come as a surprise to you (it certainly did to me), but what's possibly the best and most exciting Brazilian restaurant in this part of the country is Moqueca Restaurant in Oxnard. I've been really excited about this place. It turned out the place was fancier than I had expected, located right next to the water near the Marine landing.

Moqueca, a traditional Brazilian seafood stew, is a rare find in this country.
There are two variants of Moqueca in Brazil: Moqueca Capixaba from Espírito Santo state in the Southeast, and Moqueca Baiana from Bahia state in the Northeast.
Moqueca Restaurant serves capixaba cuisine. Capixaba moqueca is a seafood stew where the seafood has been marinated in lime and garlic, and then cooked in a clay pot with tomatoes, cilantro, onion, olive oil (one of the main differences between this and the Bahian variant is the use of dende oil in Bahia), and urucum - a red, prickly Brazilian fruit that really gives the moqueca a rich flavor.

At Moqueca Restaurant, they still use the traditional Brazilian clay pots made with mangrove tree sap, making the meal even more special.

With many of us fallen and backing out of dinner, we needed the chef's help in order to go throught the entire Moqueca offering since each moqueca serves two. The chef, Tatiana, agreed to combine some items in the moqueca for us, so that we'll manage to eat lobster tail, shrimp, mahi mahi, angel shark, and plaintain (banana de terra)! All of those for five of us.

Hungry after wine tasting, we devoured the bread with the delicious eggplant spread and adding the malagueta peppers (or the oil, if you're weaksauce like me).

We started out with some Bolinha de bacalhau ($12) - cod fish meat, potatoes, and parsley fried cakes with homemade light yogurt cakes.
These crispy 'cod balls' were just perfect to start our meal. Light yet flavorful with a rich and creamy dip. There were six pieces so we let Glutster have the last piece, but we all secretly wanted to eat them ourselves.

Next up is the pinnacle of our meal: Moquecas.
Moqueca de Lagosta Com Camarao ($72) - lobster tail and shrimp moqueca, serves two.
The first bite of the shrimp was pure bliss. That plump, fresh shrimp in the amazingly flavorful tomato-based broth. So much spice and flavors going on in this dish. Moqueca is a must try dish!

The other moqueca was of mahi-mahi fillet and angel shark cubes.
Even though the base of the broth is the same, the different seafood that's been cooking in it really imparts a special flavor to each. The shrimp and lobster one was a tad sweeter. The mahi mahi and shark cubes were moist and tender with the shark cubes being a bit meatier.
Both of these are perfect with the fragrant rice they served.

And to complete all the moqueca offerings, a side of the banana de terra (plantains):

We also got the Bobo de Camarao ($32) - serves two. The bobo is originally Bahian but since it has been a popular Brazilian dish, it is now usually found in most Brazilian restaurants.
Jumbo shrimps similarly cooked in claypot but the "broth" is wildly different. The bobo is thickened not just with coconut milk but also yucca, giving it that thick, almost slimey consistency. The bobo is also another must-get Brazilian dish. The spices and the creamy consistency makes it the perfect winter night dish.

After our extremely satisfying meal, it's time for desserts. No, we can't go without dessert!

We shared three different Brazilian desserts:
Pudim de caramelo (caramel flan)
Brazilian flan is particularly dense and rich because of the condensed milk they use. Probably too rich for one person to finish, but works just fine when split between five of us.

Quindim (coconut/egg yolk custard).
This was my first time having this interesting dessert. The coconut taste really came through, and the "custard" had a firm texture.

Mousse de Maracuja (passionfruit mousse)

This was my favorite dessert of the night. It's light and fluffy with a great passionfruit flavor.

This was one of the best meals I've had recently and the perfect way for us to end our day. It was amazing to find a Brazilian restaurant with this regional specialty of this caliber in Oxnard. It's even worth it to make a separate 1 hour trip to dine here.


Moqueca Restaurant
3550 Harbor Boulevard
Oxnard, CA 93035
(805) 204-0970
www.moquecarestaurant.com