Me: Some of the grapes were foot-stomped by little kids. He’s funny. And totally not into child labor. The name is in Italian since the main grape in the blend is nebbiolo (with syrah, mourvedre and a splash of roussanne and viognier bringing up the rear.) There’s some whole cluster and it spends 6 months in tank and 6 months in old puncheon.
Verdict? Delicious! It doesn’t necessarily taste like a nebbiolo, but I don’t care. Like most of Hank’s wines, the fruit is pure and there’s an undercurrent of spice and dried herbs. All of his wines remind me of something familiar and cozy but totally new at the same time. Buy his wines. They don’t cost an arm or a leg…or a big foot.
We’re not following the yellow brick road over here in Crush Land. It’s more like red stained concrete, if that makes any sense at all as I try desperately to pull a wine analogy out of my ass. But, we do have Mr. Oz with us in…Episode 26!
Mr. Oz being Oz Clarke, a veritable wine KING over in “Blighty”, as Christina says since she’s practically British by now. He’s in the hot seat for our Crush Quickfire and it’s not to be missed! We chat about an online random wine tasting note generator that will pleasantly waste 5 minutes of your day, decanters and aerators (and reveal what a Vinturi in action sounds like), complain about stupid stickers all over wine bottles and feature a region I’ve been to many times and where I took this photo of a 36 year old stunner.
Tune in! Tune out. Get some nebbiolo in your glass. My job here is done.
As you know, I’m guest somm’ing at LudoBites 8.0 for the next month. So, in addition to wearing my camo apron over at my usual gig, I’ll be wearing this 3 times a week:
It goes without saying, but my work attire tends to be more casual than your average sommelier.
Clothing: Ludo apron (long and with generous front pockets), Ludo 8.0 t-shirt and black Gap skinny jeans. Accessories: JP Brun Terres Dorées “L’Ancien” Beaujolais. Shoes? These TOMS and/or black Sam Edelman flats. BUT- in an ideal world with more shoes in my closet, I would would pair this LudoBites 8.0 ensemble with some Bensimon sneakers and try to look like these really cool French girls.
How about these? I totally chose them because the folks at Bensimon call that color wine. It’s meant to be. And these would work too.
Change of subject! Guess what I just bought on sale from ASOS?
A dress. With GRAPES ON IT. That’s right. It could end up being hideous, we’ll just have to wait and see.
Claire and I are back at it again! This time, I’m pairing wine to…wait for it…
NEIGHBORHOODS. Neighborhoods in this fair city of Los Angeles, of course. In each episode of this series, I’ll be visiting a friend that lives in a different nabe and they’ll show me around to all their favorite spots. Then we’ll get down with some sort of vino that I think perfectly fits with them and that neck of the woods. First up? West Hollywood, playa.
Um, how handsome is Timothy? I’ll just go ahead and answer for you- super handsome. And he’s so stylish it hurts. Like, enough already Tim.
Wine: NV Sommariva Prosecco. My dear spritz friend. It’s under $15 bucks and darn good. When I make an Aperol Spritz, it’s always with this wine.
Check out all our previous videos here or on our Vimeo channel. Wanna know what our next video is? Pairing wine to Venice Beach with Joy the Baker! Stay tuned.
The Crush is 25 episodes old and having a quarter life crisis. So, she’s gettin’ down with some daytime drinking. It’s the only way she knows how to cope. The interesting thing? The alcohol is in her soup. She’s creative like that. OK- I can’t talk about the show as a woman in the third [...]
I’d like to introduce you to The Chalkboard Mag. The ladies of Pressed Juicery, along with fabulous to the Nth degree editor Kate Mulling, just launched a new lifestyle site focusing on wellness and living right. The ladies asked me to contribute from time to time and I kicked things off with a Natural Wine [...]
This was my view for most of the night this past Friday. Lights, cameras and Bizarre Foods action! I was the sommelier for a one night dinner created by Andrew Zimmern. He was hopping around town shooting all over LA last week with the finale being a 5 course spread at Royal/T. All proceeds went [...]
It’s HELL ya’ll! And that devil is getting crunk. Danilo Thomain Enfer d’Arvier Such is the type of thing that constitutes a label love situation. Among other things. So, I thought I’d do a little round-up of all my favorite labels (and wines) over the past year or so. I want to look at pretty [...]
Here she is world! Episode 24! Yes. Sexual Chocolate, which is the name of an actual wine from California. We discuss that and other cheeky wine names and how wine TOTALLY sells when its label even remotely refers to sex (Menage a Trois) or “bad” words (Bitch, Fat Bastard). We’re not judging. Except we’re totally [...]
While we’re talking stylish wine ladies, here’s another! Talia Baiocchi is one of my favorite wine writers out there right now. She’s young, she’s funny, she’s way smarter than me, has great taste and a super fresh perspective on all this wine stuff. She is currently the wine columnist at Eater.com and contributes to a [...]
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