Wine with the Goddess on March 16th!

It's Wine 101 with the Goddess on March 16^th!

Does wine jargon confuse you? Do sommeliers intimidate you?

Does reading a wine list make you sweat?

The Goddess can help!

Goddess of Wine Denise Lowe will take the mystery out of enjoying wine!

Join her at her Introduction to Wine class and relax!

Luna Vine Wine Bar

3206 W. Magnolia Blvd., Burbank

March 16th at Noon!
...

You’ll learn:
* HOW to taste wine
* HOW to pair wines with food
* HOW to purchase and store wine
* HOW to lose the confusion and have fun! 

Click on the LocalWineEvents link in the upper right corner!

About the Goddess of Wine:
Denise is certified in wine education thru the Wine & Spirit Education Trust (WSET), the Wine Academy of Spain, LearnAboutWine, and is a Professional Member of the Society of Wine Educators. Her blog, Goddess of Wine, details her adventures in the wine world, accompanied by her faithful acolyte, husband John Dickey.

Join the Goddess for a fun and educational experience!

Only $25 per person!

For more information, email goddess@goddessofwine.com or call 818-903-6397.

Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure...

 

Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure Expands – Over Fifty SBC/SYV "Garagiste" Winemakers to Pour March 29th and 30th in Solvang

Tickets now on sale for two days of events and seminars featuring hard-to-find, high-quality, small-production winemakers from Santa Barbara County and Santa Ynez Valley; 50% are new festival discoveries; one in four pouring first vintage, 80% have no tasting room.

Paso Robles, CA – February 10, 2014 - Garagiste Events today announced that tickets are now on sale at http://californiagaragistes.com/buy-tickets/ for its expanded Santa Ynez Valley-based “Garagiste Festival: Southern Exposure,” which will feature fifty-six of Santa Ynez Valley’s and Santa Barbara County’s high-quality, limited-production commercial “garagiste**” winemakers. The second annual festival will take place on March 29^th and 30^th, and returns to the beautiful, Mission-style Veterans Memorial Hall in the heart of Solvang, California. Proceeds benefit Cal Poly Wine and Viticulture program.

Last year’s one-day event sold out and, in response to both consumer and winemaker demand, the non-profit event has expanded to two days.  Like all Garagiste Events festivals, each day will incorporate the festival’s signature tasting seminars, low-crowd experience, high-quality wines, first-time and ‘soon-to-break-out’ discoveries, personal winemaker interaction, diverse varietals (over 20) and renegade spirit. And, with almost fifty percent of the winemakers pouring at the event for the first time - thirteen pouring their first vintage, and over 75% lacking a tasting room - Southern Exposure offers a truly one-time-only opportunity for consumers to discover some of the hottest, yet-to-be-discovered wines, in one of the country’s most up and coming wine regions -- all in person and under one roof.

Wineaux of the Goddess - February Edition - Alsace

The Goddess of Wine and her merry band of Wineaux met, as always, on the second Wednesday of the month. Hostess with the Mostess, Xochitl Maiman, put together snacks and dinner designed to go with the wines of the month from the currently French region of Alsace. Tasters included Barbara Barrielle, Debra Bizek, Shawn Shai Halahmy, Rico Mandel, Michelle McCue. All the wines were purchased from K & L Wines in Hollywood.

Some background on Alsace: Almost all Alsatian wine is produced under one of the region's three AOC designations - Alsace, Alsace Grand Cru and Crémant d'Alsace. Unlike most other French wine regions, there is no Vin de pays designation for Alsace. This means that wines that do not qualify for AOC status have to be sold as simple Vin de table de France. This happens in some instances when producers wish to use other grape varieties in their wine, like Domaine Zind-Humbrecht which sells its cuvée Zind, a blend of 65% Chardonnay and 35% Auxerrois.

2nd Annual Sierra Pelona Valley Vintners Association Wine Festival

Discover a Heavenly Oasis Just Outside of Downtown

Los Angeles of Decadent Wine+Food+Music at the 2^nd Annual Sierra Pelona Valley Vintners 

Wine & Jazz Festival

Los Angeles County (March 27, 2014) - The Sierra Pelona Valley Vintners Association  2^nd Annual Vintners Festival & Jazz In the Vineyard Event on Saturday, April 26, from 11am-4pm, at Reyes Winery in Agua Dulce, just 45 minutes north of downtown Los Angeles, features an unparalleled mix of great locally-produced wine and food, paired with illustrious live jazz music performed in a breathtakingly beautiful vineyard setting. 

“You might say we’ve created a kind of ‘holy trinity’ for voluptuaries of decadent wine+food+music in a heavenly oasis right outside of Downtown Los Angeles,” says Cyndee Donato of Donato Family Vineyard and Antelope Valley Winery, a Winemaker and member of the Sierra Pelona Valley Vintners Association. “And, the beauty of it is, almost no one knows we’re here, so our guests get to be the first to discover this burgeoning, wine frontier.”

Wining in Lompoc...with LaMontagne...

Back in September 2013, JD and I were happy to meet LaMontagne Winery owner and winemaker, Kimberly Smith. I wrote a short blurb about her delicious wines, and hoped that we would find ourselves tasting them again soon. We were able to make that happen during a short trip to the Central Coast in December. We headed into the Lompoc Wine Ghetto on a surprisingly warm December day, where Kimberly opened her tasting room exclusively for us!

The first thing you need to know about Kimberly is that she is driven to make things happen. When she wondered why she loved Pinot Noir so much, she went back to college to find out what it was about that grape that made her happy. The class changed her life. That was the night she met winemaker, teacher, writer, activist, and all-around Renaissance man, Wes Hagen of Clos Pepe Estate.

She knew right away that he was the guy who had the answers. She asked him to mentor her, and the next morning she was in the vineyard!

WORLD OF PINOT NOIR

The American Riviera hosting the World of Pinot Noir
Pinot-philes converge to taste and learn about wines from the world’s most important regions
www.worldofpinotnoir.com

Santa Barbara, Ca. - The 14th annual World of Pinot Noir, a 2-day event celebrating that alluring winegrape, will be held February 28-March 1, 2014 at the Bacara Resort and Spa in Santa Barbara California. The new venue is not only a luxurious feast for the senses, but also recognizes Santa Barbara County’s wine country as a place that introduced many to Pinot Noir, as 2014 will be the tenth anniversary of the iconic movie Sideways. “It's hard to believe it has been a decade since Sideways came out", muses Norm Yost of Flying Goat Cellars and this year's World of Pinot Noir President. "Having our event at the Bacara Resort and recognizing the effect of the movie is exciting! We look forward to welcoming those who join us each year, as well as newcomers to our 14th celebration of Pinot Noir."

Wineaux of the Goddess - January 2014 Meeting - Bubbles!

Yikes, it's February and I'm just writing up our first Wineaux of the Goddess of 2014! Well, January was quite a month. That's all I'm saying at the moment.

To start off the year, we all brought sparkling wine from all over the world. We tasted in the order of JD pulling the bottles out of the chiller and opening them.

Wine #1 - NV Deligeroy Cremant de Loire, France. Sparkling Cabernet Franc! Who knew? Pale salmon in color with a small, persistent mousse. Yeast and strawberries on the nose, bright green apple on the palate with a slightly bitter, not unpleasant finish. 12.5% alcohol. $14 from K&L.

Wine #2 - 2009 Schramsberg Blanc de Noirs, Calistoga, California. 87% Pinot Noir/13% Chardonnay. Clear, pale gold with small bubbles. Not much on the nose, but yeasty apple, a little oak, and an interesting sour cherry finish. We all liked it with the Delice Bourgogne Brie. I must have been enjoying myself - I didn't write the price or vendor. 13% alcohol.

Wining about Shai Cellars...

Shai surrounded by his wines

The Goddess of Wine and a friend were talking about Shawn Shai Halahmy the other day, and she asked, "Have you written an article about Shawn?" I thought for a moment, and then realized that even though I talk about and write about Shawn and his wonderful wines, it's mainly in the context of hanging out with friends, and no, I have not written an actual article about him. So here we are!

JD and I met Shawn through Ian Blackburn and LearnAboutWine. During the period when we were working with Ian and his team on a regular basis, we were present at many classes and events, and this inquisitive guy was there, asking lots of questions about making wine. We actually found him kind of annoying (!) because he was quite persistent and wanted specific answers to his questions. Things changed when we - kind of by accident - adopted him into our rapidly-expanding group of Wineaux during a wonderful event, the Union des Grand Crus de Bordeaux in January 2010. Suddenly, we couldn't get enough of him!

Wining at the end of the year...

The Goddess of Wine took off a couple of weeks from writing this month because this time of year always stops me in my tracks. Like pretty much everyone, I've been musing on the year that's passed; great moments, terrible losses, everything in between. This year we've lost some dear friends, and happily, made some new ones. We've seen some great theater and some dreadful. Attended some wonderful events, and some...not so much. Like all years, a mix.

This was the year I got my shoulder fixed after damaging it a second time. The first was saving a case a wine from falling at a LearnAboutWine event 5 or 6 years ago, rupturing my rotator cuff in two places; the second was this April, pulling my chair up to my desk and ripping my long-head biceps tendon. Six months post-surgery, I'm doing great, with full rotation and upper arm strength returned.

This year JD also had some relatively minor knee surgery after tearing his miniscus earlier in the year. I fear that this is just the precursor to a full knee replacement, but we'll see how his recovery continues.

Wineaux of the Goddess December Meeting - Jerez/Sherry!

After much discussion about how to finish up 2013 - the Year of Regions - the Goddess and Xochitl agreed to do a slightly different tasting: Sherry paired with tapas, one for each wine. Now Sherry isn't something that I run into a lot. In fact, I don't actually remember tasting any Sherry in my life except for the Sherries that were presented in the Spanish wine certification class I took back in 2010, so this was going to be a bit of a stretch. Between discovering just how complex and interesting all these different Sherries are, and Xochitl's perfect pairings, it turned out to be a remarkable and delicious evening.