Hart Family Winery

Over the weekend my car club had a planned tour through Temecula and southern Riverside county to the mountain community of Idyllwild.

The first stop on the tour was Hart Family Winery; Joe Hart is a long time Alfisti. Joe is a pioneer winemaker in the Temecula, planting his first vines in the early 1970's. The winery is the first winery that you encounter when entering the Temecula Wine Country. We have stopped at Hart many times in the past and always enjoyed the intimate atmosphere of the winery and tasting room.

This year Joe was kind enough to give the club a private tour and tasting of his latest and greatest bottlings. Most impressive was his Grenache Rose. I have not been a fan of Grenache in the past as it was a bit too floral for my nose, but the Rose was just delightful. Served slightly chilled, it did have some floral notes, but not over powering and the hint of acidity kept the palate clean. Nice fruit but not sweet tasting at all.

The Sauvignon Blanc was also a great warm weather wine with crisp clean characteristics, but the bouquet retained the tropical fruit notes of Sauvignon Blanc.

The last stand out was called Three and is an homage to the Rhone blends of Grenache, Mourvedre and Syrah. Blended nicely with no one grape overpowering the others.

Bottle Shock

The second event of our date was seeing the movie, Bottle Shock. The movie is about the fabled Judgment in Paris of 1977 when British wine merchant Steven Spurrier arranged a blind tasting of California wines and French wines. Based on the book by George Tabor, who was the only journalist in attendance at this historical event. Because I'm such a wine geek, I wanted to see this Hollywood treatment. I very much enjoyed the scenes filmed in Napa and seeing the places that we have been to. Still, it was a "hollywood" movie and focused on the familial relationships of the Barrett's who owned the Chateau Montelena winery and Steven Spurrier's efforts to discover new ways to promote his wine shop in Paris.

I think that more could have been made of the character of Gustavo Brambila, the winemaker at Chateau Montelena at the time, but that was only a back story.

Amaya at the Grand Del Mar

Jenn and I went to Amaya for lunch yesterday as the first event of our date. I picked it based on it's proximity to Addison. The architecture is very much Italianate and reminded us of the La Costa resort. We were greeted by the "hostess" and offered the breakfast buffet before she even checked our reservation (made through Opentable.com). After touring the rather ordinary looking buffet offerings, we opted for the lunch menu and were seated in a corner table just off the entrance. On the opposite corner of the room was a sales agent for the condos being offered on the Grand Del Mar property. She was giving the hard pitch and it was very hard to concentrate on the menu. Not that there was much to contemplate. It was a limited lunch menu offering some salads, one soup, a burger and some entrees -- a steak salad, a "Cobb" salad, a halibut dish, two salmon offerings and a gnocchi dish. The sales pitch was so distracting that we asked to be moved to another room. "No problem". When we were able to order, Jenn decided on the oven dried tomato goat cheese tart and the gnocchi. I went for the yellow pepper soup and the cobb salad.

The soup was actually quite nice. It had a little dungess crab and chive oil enhancing the subtle flavor of the pureed yellow peper. My salad came tossed with some of their organic roasted chicken, but lacked the chunks of bleu cheese that one generally expects in a Cobb. Jenn's gnocchi came with slices of summer truffles adding a nice earthiness.

The highlight of the meal was the dessert. We selected the "Le Grand", which was a delightful layered chocolate peanumt butter torte with a dollop of banana ice cream.

Vino Bellisima

Last night I opened a truly great bottle of California Cabernet Sauvignon from our "library collection" and surprise(!), it wasn't from Napa or Sonoma. It was from Le Cuvier in Paso Robles. The specific bottling was their 2001 XLB Cabernet Sauvignon San Luis Obisbo. It's not often lately that I've really wanted to finish a bottle of wine, no matter what it was, but this one was different. I just kept pouring glass after glass, before dinner, during the grilling of the rib eye, with dinner and finally afterward with the little chocolate strawberry tartlets Jennifer made for dessert. The wine was full of the the ripe dark fruit and hints of leather and tropical fruit.

Studio Diner - San Diego's Premier Late Night Dining

Just got back from dinner at Stu Segall's Studio Diner. This is a bit of the east coast here on the Left Coast. Went with my wife, her mom and her sister. Their first time; Jenn and my second. Mom had the Mac and Cheese (extraordinary flavor) made with penne pasta instead of elbow mac. Sister had the full belly Ipswich clams; Jenn, Samson's Steak Sandwich and I busted loose with the lobster roll (made with fresh Maine lobster). Everything was outstanding! We were all picking off each other's plates and arguing about who had made the best choice. All in all it was extra special. We are already looking forward to going back again soon. Check out the menu from the link above.