Food, Wine and Travel ... With Recipes: TableConversation.com

Sydney's Star Chef Visits L.A.

Australia's celebrity chef Neil Perry was in town last week, for a couple of reasons.

One was to check a site for a restaurant in Beverly Hills, but that's a long way off.

The other was to cook for a lunch promoting Qantas Airways' new, lower fare from Los Angeles to Sydney and tourism in New South Wales. Perry had two reasons to do that. First, he's in charge of the food served on Qantas. Secondly, three of his four restaurants, including the flagship Rockpool, are in Sydney, so bringing more travelers there is good for business.

Lunch, at the home of the Australian consul general, went from appetizers (goat cheese tortellini) to three courses paired with Australian wines and bread provided by one of Perry's chef chums, Thomas Keller. 

The first course was a zucchini and Parmesan tart, a  round of rich pastry topped with thin circles of zucchini. An arrangement of "summer vegetables" on the plate made sense because it's summer in Australia now. There was also black olive oil, which Perry makes by blending salty black olives with olive oil. The wine was 2008 Brokenwood Semillon.

New Zealand John Dory may have come from the wrong country, but in Australian hands, it came off very well. Perry poached it in water from tomatoes hung to drain. Scattered around it were cut-up fingerling potatoes and tomato confit and on top was a cluster of chervil, tarragon and micro parsley.

The two wines were 2007 Robert Oatley Chardonnay from Mudgee, New South Wales, and Oatley's 2008 Sangiovese Rose.

Perry's food is driven by multiculturalism and heavily influenced by Asia. (The best Thai restaurants outside of Thailand are in Australia, he told lunch guests.) His Sydney restaurant Spice Temple is devoted to Chinese regional cuisines, and his cookbook "Rockpool" (New Holland Publishers, Australia) has a large section of Asian-inflected recipes.

But this lunch was Mediterranean. It ended with  strawberry mascarpone cake, a creamy strawberry mixture between two layers of dacquoise, and a luscious dessert wine, the 2006 De Bortoli Noble One, a botrytis Semillon from Riverina, New South Wales.

The Sydney Morning Herald's "Good Food Guide 2010" describes Perry as "the king of modern Sydney dining." Here are the addresses of his three restaurants in that city. 

Rockpool, 107-109 George St., The Rocks, Sydney, Australia. Tel: 9252 1888.
Rockpool Bar and Grill, 66 Hunter St., Sydney, Australia. Tel: 8078-1900.
Spice Temple, 10 Bligh St., Sydney, Australia. Tel: 8078-1888.

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An Odd Couple: Malbec, Tacos

I would only eat Mexican food in Argentina out of curiosity. Nevertheless, I ate it Sunday paired with Argentine wines. An odd coupling, but fun to try something different.

Really spicy salsas kill the taste of a good wine, I noticed, but tacos, burritos and quesadillas work as well as bread and cheese, as long as they are salsa-free.

The tasting was Silverlake Wine's first of 2010. Tastings take place there every month, and the place buzzes as people get to know each other. Most of those I met live in Silver Lake, and the wine shop is a handy place to meet.

But the tastings are serious, and so commentary on Argentina's wine industry accompanied the five tastes. What I like about the tastings is that wines are brought to you, so you don't have to line up at the counter. And each taste comes in a fresh glass.

Sunday's five wines started with a sparkler, an extra brut 2007 that blended Pinot Noir and Chardonnay. The name alone makes you want to buy it, that is, if you have a taste for the exotic. It is Siesta en el Tahuantinsuyu, and it's from Ernesto Catena.

Next came Tahuan Malbec Ernesto Catena Selection 2006, a deep, pink-toned red, dry and elegant with restrained fruit.

We tried a Malbec blend, Ca' de Calle Reserva 2008, composed of 75% Malbec, 20% Tempranillo and 5% Syrah. This too was from Ernesto Catena, whose wines dominated the tasting. 

The priciest wine poured ($29.50) was his Siesta en el Tahuantinsuyu Malbec 2005, another elegant, restrained wine.

But my favorite was a Malbec more like those I am accustomed to drinking in Buenos Aires, the sort of wine you might have in a cafe or a parrilla restaurant, or that Portenos would serve with  really good barbecue at home. It was Altocedro "Ano Cero" Malbec 2008.

Full of fruit and easy to drink but classy and well made, it was the least expensive wine of the tasting ($16.50). Ano Cero means the year zero, but this wine rates many more points than that.

Its place of origin was La Consulta in the Valle (Valley) de Uco, Mendoza. The winemaker was Karim Mussi Saffie, who blended 15 % Tempranillo with 75 % Malbec.  

The food rated high points too. It came from Taco Zone, which parked a van-drawn kitchen outside the wine shop. Malbec is everywhere in Argentina. But mobile tacos-- I have yet to see anything like that down there.

Silverlake Wine Company,  2395 Glendale Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90039. Tel: (323) 662-9024. 

Chiang Mai's Top Choices

Three days in Chiang Mai in northern Thailand weren't enough, but 30 days wouldn't have been enough either.

There's a lot to explore in a city with a long history and 300 temples, surrounded by some of the most luxuriant countryside imaginable.  

Chiang Mai is the take-off point for elephant camps, where you can watch shows and  enroll in mahout-training classes, and for shopping, because it's a center of such crafts as painted umbrellas, pale green Thai celadon, silks, silver and gems.

For food lovers, its greatest attraction may be the opportunity to taste on home ground northern dishes that have become top hits abroad, like the spicy green papaya salad som tam.

Usually som tam is raw, but the photo shows an interesting variation, fried som tam. (Check my previous post on Thailand's nationwide som tam competition and the winners who are making their prize versions in Los Angeles.)

Other specialties not to miss are kao soi, or soft and crunchy  noodles in coconut-flavored curry; hung lay curry, with its overtones of sweet spices; satay, local sausages and spicy dips such as nam prik noom, made with green chiles, and nam prik ong, which combines pork and tomatoes.  

You don't eat the dips with chips but with another regional specialty, steamed sticky rice. With one hand, you take a little rice from a straw container, form it into a ball and then scoop up a savory mouthful with it as gracefully as you can.

Unlike clogged, hectic Bangkok, Chiang Mai is smaller and manageable. You can actually get in a cab or tuk-tuk and go directly to your destination. My time there may have been limited, but every day was crammed with wonderful sights and tastes. Here are a dozen  highlights. 

1. Most Thai moment: Making merit by offering food to the monks who line up at Warorot market early in the morning. A vendor there sells packages made up for this purpose. The 60-cent meal includes a vegetable curry, rice, water and sweets. After placing this in a monk's bowl, you kneel and receive a chanted blessing.

2. Favorite dish: Hung lay curry. This Burmese influenced pork curry is a Chiang Mai specialty that requires powdered spices and a spice paste that are available only there. I have the spices, and I swear I will learn to make it.

3. Oddest dish: A plate of grilled German style sausages with mashed potatoes and sauerkarut at Palaad Tawanron, an open-air restaurant high on a jungly hill where you can watch the sunset over Chiang Mai.

The mashed potatoes are sweet, and the sauerkraut is more like stir-fried cabbage. The dish is worth ordering just for the novelty, but there's plenty of Thai food on the menu. 

Palad Tawanron, top of Suthep Road behind Chiang Mai University. Entrance via rear gate to Chiang Mai zoo. Tel: 053--216-039.

4. Best food buy: A big sack of fragrant tea composed of dried jasmine and chrysanthemum flowers, dried pandan leaves and tea leaves.

I found this at Warorot market, a fabulous place to shop for spices, curry pastes and other Thai cooking essentials. It was so interesting I could have spent the three days there. 

5. Best non-food buy: An original painting by Chiang Mai artist Punpetch. I loved his bold geometric design in strong primary colors.

Punpetch works at Maesa Elephant Camp. And, yes, he is an elephant. He and his colleagues bring their paints and brushes into the arena and produce art works in a variety of styles--flowers, landscapes, imaginative designs, elephant portraits.

The paintings go from the easels to a gallery. Buy one and you get the artist's photo.

Maesa Elephant Camp: Town office, 119/9 Tapae Road, Muang District, Chiang Mai. Tel: (66 53) 20 6247. 

6. Most beautiful lunch place: The terrace of Pongyang Angdoi resort, where you look out on hills thick with palms, bamboo and teak trees, orchids and frangipani. And a waterfall too.

Good dishes include fried salty pork strips, smoky tasting local mushrooms, wild boar with fresh green peppercorns, galangal and Thai eggplants and, for dessert, ice cream frozen in a tiny pineapple.

Pongyang Angdoi Resort, 49/3 Moo 2 Tambol Pongyang, Amphur Mea-Rim, Chiang Mai, Thailand.  Tel: (66 53) 879151-3.

7. Most beautiful cooking school: It's at the super posh Four Seasons Resort, a large open air classroom where you look out at the gardens as you stir-fry. 

If I had mega bucks--rooms cost hundreds of dollars a night--I would study there. I did get to watch chef instructor Pitak Srichan prepare one dish--a salad of white turmeric, young ginger, sawtooth herb, galangal and other exotics wrapped with grilled chicken in an egg net, then rolled and sliced like sushi. 

Four Seasons Resort, Mae Rim-Samoeng Old Road, Mae Rim, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Tel: (66  53) 298-181.

8. Best breakfast: Fresh green guava juice, dragon fruit chunks, green tea croissants and rice topped with spicy stir-fried morning glory vine and wood ears at the Shangri-La Hotel.

Shangri-La Hotel, 89/8 Chang Klan Road, Muang, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Tel: (66 53) 253-888.

9. Most touristy experience: What tango shows are to Buenos Aires, khantoke dinners are to northern Thailand. I can't imagine they get much better than that at Khum Khantoke.

This huge restaurant packs in hundreds of diners and puts on a grand show of regional dances. Meanwhile, you sample local dishes from blue and white Thai bowls that are constantly refilled.  I liked the hung lay curry here best of any I tasted.

Tradition is to sit on the floor, but your feet are in a well, so no discomfort. Afterwards you go into the gardens to watch tall balloons ignited, then sent aloft to float away like giant fireflies.

Khum Khantoke, 139 Moo 4, Nong Pakrung, A.Muang, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Tel: (66 53) 304-121.

10. Most startling drink:  Napa wine, not from Napa Valley in California but from  Mae Chan Winery in Chiang Rai. 

Current releases include Napa Mieng Shiraz-Black Beauty, Napa Mieng Shiraz Reserve, Shiraz Premium Vintage 2004 and Dornfelder Tempranillo 2008.

At the tasting I attended, the prices were high, around $40 a bottle. But you don't get Napa wine for nothing, certainly not in Thailand.

Mae Chan Winery, 23 Moo 9, Ban Pamieng, Tambon Patueng, Amphoe, Mae Chan, Chiang Rai, Thailand. Tel: 66 (0) 5391 8440.

11. Greatest regret: That I didn't have time to explore the foodstalls lining a busy street near a university. There must have been hundreds of them. I'm still hungry thinking about the wonderful food that I missed. 

12. Best Chiang Mai cookbook:  The only one I came across in Chiang Mai was written in Thai (I bought it anyway). But at Asia Books in Bangkok, I found "A Passion for Thai Cooking"  by Sompon and Elizabeth Nabnian of the Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School. Beautifully illustrated, it has recipes for all the top northern dishes.  

Chiang Mai Thai Cookery School, 47/2 Moon Muang Road, Opposite Tha Phae Gate, Chiang Mai, Thailand. Tel: (66 53) 206-388. 

From Pizza to Parrilla in Baja

What's a young guy who ran a pizzeria in Buenos Aires doing thousands of miles from home?

He's still cooking, not pizza, but Argentine grilled meats in Baja California wine country.

Angel Eduardo Garralda left Argentina seven years ago with his brother. Their first venture was a pizzeria in Ensenada. When the brother went home, Garralda moved on to his dream, grilling meats just like at home.

He's found the perfect place for a parrilla restaurant, a winery ranch that is as much like gaucho country as you can get outside the Pampas.

Each weekend, he grills away in a rustic open-air structure at La Casa Vieja winery. Visitors may be surprised to hear tango as they sample the wines. This is a clue that Garralda is on the premises.

The two enterprises complement each other perfectly. La Casa Vieja is one of the oldest properties in the Guadalupe Valley. Its grape vines are so old that no one knows when they were planted. The wines are historic, individualistic and just right to drink outdoors, with Garralda's food.

There's a red produced from Mission grapes, which may be a cross between European and indigenous grapes, says winemaker Thomas Toscano. Still in barrels, it will be released in April, 2010.

And there's a fragrant, dry, unfiltered Palomino, a white wine made in such small quantity that the latest batch is almost sold out. To show how casual this place is, the label is a handwritten strip of masking tape.

La Casa Vieja means the old house.  And that's what it is, an adobe house from the 1800s restored by Colleen and Humberto Toscano, Thomas Toscano's parents.

Sitting on the terrace, one looks out on olive trees and Las Brasas, the parrilla restaurant.  Garralda cooks steaks, ribs, Argentine style chorizo and other meats, brushing them with his own chimichurri, which he has bottled and sells.

But he hasn't forgotten pizza.  La Casa Vieja is constructing an outdoor adobe oven. When that's ready, Garralda will probably be the only pizza chef in Baja who sips mate while he works.   

Las Brasas is at La Casa Vieja Winery, Km 93.5 on Highway 3, the Ensenada-Tecate highway, near the town of San Antonio de Las Minas. Tel: (646) 113 6783. The restaurant is open Friday, Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to sundown.

La Casa Vieja Winery has a wine bar, sandwiches, cheeses and other food to accompany tasting, a shop selling local arts and crafts, homemade jams and jellies, olive oil and other products. Tel: (646) 155-3153. For more information, go to www.lacasavieja.baja.com.

    

Great Tastes in a Heat Wave

It's been too hot to eat, or to drink anything but ice cold water. Nevertheless, I made an exception for Monday's Club Culinaire Boutique Trade Show at the Sofitel Los Angeles.

This was the first such show put on by the club, whose members are chefs, sommeliers, restaurant owners, food purveyors and serious fans of French food and wine.

The hotel air conditioning alone was worth the trip. But the food was exceptional, and the wines were out of the ordinary.

It wasn't too hot to eat a slider of Angus beef that had been braised for five hours with red wine and herbs, or to nibble on soft slices of lardo, spread black truffle butter on bread that had just arrived from Germany, eat locally smoked salmon, try duck sausage with lingonberries and cream cheese, munch on fruit tarts and marvel at thin-crusted (really thin) pizzas imported from southern France.

The booths were manned by food and wine purveyors hoping to attract buyers, and what they showed was top of the line, like caviar, foie gras, lamb and veal, oysters from Santa Monica Seafood and jumbo shrimp from Contessa.

The California Olive Ranch set out tiny cups of its new Arbequina olive oil. Cheeses included burrata and fresh mozzarella, and there was plenty of bread to eat with them, thanks to La Brea Bakery's display.

Fresh produce included delicious tart-sweet pluots, grapes, New Zealand apples and vegetables that you would grab if you saw them at a farmers market.

The most over-the-top dessert was sweet red pepper mousse stuffed into tiny pastry cones. Yvan Valentin cappuccino truffles were irresistible, but that line only goes to  luxury hotels, not shops, darn it.

Thierry Cahez of Opera Patisseries Fines in San Diego walked around with trays of  brightly-colored macaroons in such flavors as passion fruit, raspberry and green tea.

Republica del Cacao offered tastes of artisanal chocolates from Ecuador, and Vinafer for Life, a Canadian enterprise,  showed brownies made with powdered wine, as in have a sip of Cabernet with your dessert, no glass required. 

The wines came from all over the globe. A Pinot Noir produced from the "Hindu clone" was from Oregon, not India. This clone is wise enough to adapt to any conditions and produce good wine, or so I was told at the Alloro Vineyards table.

The Hindu had done its work with Alloro's Pinot Noir Block 2006, an all-natural, unfined, unfiltered wine from the Willamette Valley.

Metzler Family Farms' splashy Z label made its wines stand out. Scarcity too. There are only 30 cases of the 2007 Tempranillo, which is due out October 1. "I only had one row [of grape vines]," Ron Metzler explained.

This San Joaquin Valley business goes back four generations but  started winemaking recently, releasing its first wines in 2006.

Canihan Family Cellars of Sonoma did better than Metzler with its 2006 Cabernet Franc, producing 100 cases. Half of those are already gone. If you can't get that, try for the 2006 Exuberance Syrah, an elegant, cool climate wine.

Always on the hunt for Malbec, I found treasure twice. Cuvelier Los Andes Grand Vin 2005, a blend of 62% Malbec, 20% Cabernet Sauvignon, 8% Syrah, 7% Merlot and 3% Petit Verdot merges two worlds. Made in Argentina, it reflects French skill in orchestrating a blend. The label is owned by Leoville Poyferre, a second growth Bordeaux producer. 

The second find was the Familia Marguery Malbec 2007, 100% Malbec and aged entirely in French oak, half of it new. That wine rated a star and a place on my shopping list for Buenos Aires.

Chile was represented too. Terra Andina, the first to blend Chile's signature varietal, Carmenere, with Carignan, presented its 2007 blend, composed of 60% Carmenere and 40% Carignan. The wine is young and bright, just fine. However, I preferred the  2006-2007 Carmenere Reserve, with its delightful notes of red currant.

Time to go, and I wanted one last drink for the road. This time, the lure was the most popular beverage of the day, Eternal Artesian Water from New Zealand. Wine is great, but in L.A.'s merciless heat wave, New Zealand came to the rescue.

The Club Culinaire of French Cuisine is a non profit that stages dinners, an annual French chefs picnic and other events and presented the trade show in collaboration with Gayot.  For information on membership, go to www.clubculinaire.us.

Winery Tastings, Good and Bad

You pay to taste at Baja California wineries, and that's the way it should be.

But you don't always get what you pay for.

Ripoff is a mean word, but that's what I would call paying $10 for skimpy tastes (see the photo) of three mediocre wines.

The culprit? Baja's oldest winery, Bodegas de Santo Tomas. Located in the heart of Ensenada, it's an easy walk for tourists taking a break from the shops. Otherwise, they'd have to drive to the Guadalupe Valley, where most of the wineries are located.

No question, the atmosphere is great. The long tasting bar, made of old French oak barrels, lines a cavernous room that also houses the winery restaurant and huge wooden tanks in which wines were once fermented.

The wines poured the day I went in were a thin, semisweet 2008 Colombard, a raw, harsh 2007 Tempranillo, and, the best of the lot, a tannic 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon, wines priced at $8 to $16 a bottle. 

The next day's tasting was just the opposite--four very good wines, including one from the top of the line, for $3.50. 

The place: Vinisterra, which is located in San Antonio de Las Minas, the first town as you head into the Guadalupe Valley.

Little more than a barrel storeroom when I went there in 2005, it's now a handsome brick winery with vaulted ceilings, a tasting room, fermentation room and separate barrel room, where the floor is inlaid with tiny lights.

The tasting started with Domino Tinto 2006, a blend of Grenache, Tempranillo, Cabernet Sauvignon and Mourvedre, aged in oak for 16 months. At $14, this was the modest end of the line, but not a modest wine. 

Next came two upper level wines, Macouzet Cabernet-Merlot 2005 and Macouzet Tempranillo 2005. They're named for Guillermo Rodriguez Macouzet, who is the winery founder and owner/partner.

The blend combines equal parts Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlot. Aged 17 months in oak, it is young and lean, with bright acidity and wonderful layers of flavor.

The Tempranillo was fresh, fruity and so appealing that I bought it ($23).

The last taste was Pedregal, one of Vinisterra's top wines ($36). The grapes came from a rocky vineyard, and that determined the name (rock is piedra in Spanish).  

This smooth, elegant wine is 67% Syrah, and you can see some of Vinisterra's Syrah vines through the tasting room door. The rest of the blend is Mourvedre.

Along with the wines, we nibbled on cow's milk cheese from Ojos Negros and slices of chistorra, a slim, firm sausage made by an Argentine purveyor in Ensenada.

Agnes Cameleyre, who runs the tasting room, instructed us to pair the Tempranillo with delicious grainy, cinnamon-flavored Mexican chocolates.

Vinisterra is open only on weekends. The annual wine festival is in progress now, and the winery had staged a Oaxacan-themed party the night before we arrived. Agnes gave us leftover party favors--red carnations for the women and, for the men, wooden tubes from which Oaxacans drink mezcal.

Winemaker/partner Christoph Gartner dropped in, as did Rodriguez,  who says he plans to add more vineyards and, eventually, a restaurant.

The nearby town is worth a visit too. You can buy local products in the shops, and a couple of outdoor restaurants are good places to stop for lunch after a visit to Vinisterra.

Bodegas de Santo Tomas, Av. Miramar 666, Zona Centro, Ensenada.  Tel: (646) 178-3333. Open Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., Saturday from 3 to 5 p.m. Closed Sunday.

Vinisterra, Calle Sexta (6th Street) 984-3, Zona Centro, San Antonio de las Minas, on Highway 3, which  goes from Ensenada to Tecate. Tel: (646) 178-3350. Open Saturday, Sunday and holidays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.  For more information, go to http://www.vinisterra.com. 

 

Baja's Best Malbec Blend

I had a wonderful wine the other night. Too bad it's the only bottle I'll be able to get, unless I make the long drive back to Baja California wine country. That's the Valle de Guadalupe (Guadalupe Valley) outside the port city of Ensenada.

The wine was Emeve Malbec-Cabernet 2007, a blend of 50% Malbec and 50% Cabernet Sauvignon. My bottle was No. 298, hand-enumerated on the back label in gold ink.

I tried it out at Emeve's tasting room, but didn't really get a handle on it until I poured it at home with dinner (oven-fried chicken, linguine with pesto, Mexican squash with home-grown chard and tomatoes).

Aged 14 months in new French and American oak, the wine is young, fresh and elegant, with good acidity and tannins. It would go well with anything from cheese dishes to steak. The cuttings came from UC Davis.

Yet Emeve's winemaker, Ensenada-born Reynaldo Rodriguez, is cautious about Malbec. "We don't know if we will be able to develop the plant in Mexico," he says. That will take time and experimentation.

The blend was necessary because Emeve's Malbec "is too young to be its own varietal," Rodriguez explains. The Cabernet Sauvignon came from 10-year-old vines.

Rodriguez speaks more glowingly of the 2006 Emeve Bordeaux blend, Los Nietos, and the 2006 Cabernet Sauvignon. Both won gold medals in 2008 from the Universidad Autonoma de Baja California, which has a school of enology and gastronomy at its Ensenada campus. 

In the 2009 competition, which took place August 8, a gold medal went to the 2007 Los Nietos. It's a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.

Merlot and Cabernet "love the climate," Rodriguez  says. In the photo above, he shows Emeve's Cabernet Sauvignon vines.

The 2007 Emeve Cabernet Sauvignon was ranked among the best Cabernets produced in Mexico in an article in the July issue of "Buena Mesa" (The Good Table), a supplement of the Mexican newspaper Reforma. Judges found notes of ancho chile and mango with chile in the aroma, which makes it a truly Mexican wine.

Emeve is situated on 945 acres between El Porvenir and Francisco Zarco. The first vines were planted in 2004, and the first commercial release was the 2006 vintage. By 2010, case production will rise to about 3,000, Rodriguez estimates.

Next year will  see the release of an Emeve Tempranillo. "It's my favorite fruit," says Rodriguez, who also makes wine under his own label, Quinta Monasterio. This is not surprising, because he has a master's degree in viticulture and enology from the University of La Rioja in Spain, and La Rioja is known for Tempranillo. 

The owner of Emeve is Mario Villarreal, and what must be his sumptuous home can be seen from the relatively modest tasting room. His daughter, Laura (in the photo at right), is the manager.

Another daughter, Maribel, is chef/owner of L'abricot, a French restaurant and patisserie in Tijuana, where Emeve wines are served. The photo at the top shows the Malbec-Cabernet at L'abricot.

To reach Vinicola Emeve, take the Highway 3 turnoff just north of Ensenada and head toward the Guadalupe Valley. Look for signs that indicate the road to San Jose de la Zorra. Emeve is between the wineries Adobe Guadalupe and Baron Balche. For more information, go to www.vinicolaemeve.com.

Wine country maps are available through the Ensenada Convention and Visitors Bureau, which has an office at Blvd. Costero 540, Ensenada.

The address of L'abricot is Antonio Caso 1910, Zona Rio, Tijuana. Tel: (664) 634-0721.

San Antonio Goes Down Under

"Gidday, Mates!"  said the sign overhead as people trooped into the big dining room at San Antonio Winery in downtown Los Angeles.

They were there to drink wines from Australia and New Zealand and to taste the sort of food that one gets Down Under.

The lunch was part of a series of summer festivals that will continue at the winery well past summer into October.

The seven wines poured ranged from Maori-produced Kono Sauvignon Blanc 2008 from Marlborough on New Zealand's South Island to a sweet sparkling Australian Shiraz. 

My favorite was a white blend that gave off the luscious tropical scent of mangoes. It was D'Arenberg "Hermit Crab" Viognier Marsanne 2008 from McLaren Vale, near South Australia's capital, Adelaide.  A blend of 72% Viognier with 28% Marsanne, it had a pleasing touch of sweetness, perfect for summer. 

The mangoes on the menu didn't accompany this wine. An appetizer of shrimp off the barbie with spicy mango pickle came with the lively. dry, crisp Kono wine. 

The D'Arenberg blend and "Symbols" Semillon-Sauvignon Blanc 2006/07 from Ferngrove in Western Australia accompanied pan-seared barramundi. The fish was smothered with tomatoes and surrounded by green onion basmati rice.

D'Arenberg's the "Laughing Magpie" Shiraz Viognier 2007 was up to pairing with stronger stuff, a hearty New Zealand lamb chop served with stewed eggplant and roasted sweet potatoes.

"Laughing Magpie" had an odd dusty aroma, but it was lean and elegant, an excellent complement to the lamb. The other choice was Penley "Phoenix" Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, an earthy, woody, deep purple wine from the Coonawara region of South Australia.

Ferngrove's "Dragon" Shiraz 2005, fruity and not too dry, was poured with the cheese course, notable because the Australian Cheddar looked as if it had been mottled with red wine.

The finale was all Australian--Hardy Sparkling Shiraz from South Australia and Australia's signature lamington cake, a square of plain cake coated with chocolate, topped with shredded coconut, bitter chocolate sauce and raspberry coulis.

Rather than merely spending the afternoon eating and drinking, attendees participated in a class on Down Under wines, their geography and taste characteristics presented during the lunch by Master Sommelier Elizabeth Schweitzer.

Then they went to the winery tasting room. where they could try out more wines and purchase those they had been introduced to at the lunch.   

The next summer festival will be a "Boutique Beer Tasting and Food Pairing" Aug. 9 at 2  p.m., followed by Taste of the Americas" September 20 at noon and "Taste of Italy" October 25 at 2 p.m. The price of each is $50.

For more information, contact San Antonio Winery, 737 Lamar Street, Los Angeles, CA 90031. Tel: (323) 223-1401. SANO WINERY and MADDALENA RESTAURANTSAN ANTONIO WINERY and MADDALENA RESTAURANT
737 Lamar Street, Los Angeles, CA 90031
323.223.1401 • 323.221.7261 fax
Special Events/Catering 323.223.1401 ext 8715 323-223-3728 fax
OPEN

East LA- Napa Draws a Crowd

Union Station in downtown Los Angeles  was jammed the other night, but no one was going anywhere. Why leave, when you could feast on more delicious food and wine than it was possible to get to in three hours?

When the time was up, the crowd didn't care. This party was too good to end. Its theme was unique--East LA Meets Napa. 

Booths that served tempting Mexican dishes and Latino-made wines filled the station patio. The music was loud and lively. The evening was warm. And the whole thing went toward a good cause--non-profit AltaMed Health Services, which provides health care to people who otherwise might go without. The event sponsor was East Los Angeles Doctors Hospital.

The Mexican food ranged from classic and traditional to innovative and modern.

Tila's Kitchen dished up spicy chile verde with strips of nopales. Birrieria Chalio brought its famous lamb birria. La Casita Mexicana served Jalisco-style mole, and Teresitas Restaurant set out costillas de puerco en chile negro, or pork short ribs in spicy black chile sauce. A Wednesday special at the restaurant, the ribs disappeared so quickly that few got to taste them.

La Parrilla, which will celebrate its 31st anniversary in August, went all out with quesadillas made from tortillas pressed on the spot and finely chopped ceviche of octopus, fish and shrimp. Rice and beans too.

Guelaguetza offered banana leaf-wrapped tamales filled with chicken in Oaxacan black mole and generous samples of cheeses that had come straight from Oaxaca.

Tamal in hand, one could move to an adjacent table to taste Metle 2012 mezcal from Tlacolula, Oaxaca, and tequila from Arenal, Jalisco.

On the innovative side, Casa de Moles "La Tia" presented its new fruity nut mole with a choice of chicken or pork. Rivera restaurant served shrimp in green sauce on freshly made tortillas embedded with flowers. And D's Delights offered chocolates with such non-traditional fillings as horchata.

Women from the Homegirl Cafe worked as fast as they could to replenish disappearing rows of tofu-topped tostadas and a spring mix salad with strips of mango, jicama and apple sprinkled with sweet jamaica-tequila dressing.

Nearby, La Monarca Bakery put out huge containers of empanadas, some filled with ground beef, others with chorizo.

The wines were as Mexican as the food.  You could sip a Mi Sueno Chardonnay, a Sotelo Zinfandel, a Renteria Pinot Noir, a Salva Tierra Cabernet Sauvignon,  a cab from Marita's Vineyard, owned by the Montes family, or one from Sequoia Grove Winery, whose winemaker is Mike Trujillo.

Winery reps spoke proudly about onetime grape pickers who rose to become vineyard managers, winemakers and winery owners.

When it was all over. there was still more--goodie bags stuffed with food samples to guarantee that no one went hungry on the way home. 

A Prize-Winning Pinot Gris

It may seem odd to walk into a tasting of French wines searching for something to drink with spicy food.

But that is what I cook most of the time, so I was looking for a wine that would not just go with the food but stand out on its own.   

And I found it, a glorious Alsatian Pinot Gris, the 2006 Grand Cru Zinnkoepfle from Albert Hertz. (That's Hertz holding the bottle in the photo).

The wine is slightly sweet, with an intriguing honeyed herbal edge. It can age for years, said Hertz, explaining that Zinnkoepfle  is a vineyard area with soil that imparts a special flavor to wines produced from grapes that grow there.

After hand-harvesting, the Pinot Gris was fermented and aged in oak foudres. These are large oval barrels typical of Alsace. The shape reduces air contact, Hertz said, and makes it possible to squeeze more barrels into a cellar.

Hertz was in the United States to look for an importer. It shouldn't be too hard to find one for this wine, because in May it won a gold medal in the 2009 Pinot Gris du Monde competition in Strasbourg.

The price would range from $20 to $25, not bad for a wine this interesting.