Please The Palate Pick of the Week: 49 Boxes at Black Rabbit Rose in Hollywood

Written by Allison Levine on April 13, 2019

Lifestyle

Storytelling, mysteries, puzzles, art and magic. If this intrigues you, then you will understand why 49 Boxes at the Black Rabbit Rose in Hollywood is the Please The Palate pick of the week. 49 Boxes is running from April 14 through May 26 in Los Angeles and I had the privilege to attend a media preview for a fully magical evening.

Taking up residence in Black Rabbit Rose in Hollywood, we entered the vintage-adorned bar. Large tables of eight filled the room and on each table were a number of wooden boxes of all shapes and sizes.

At the front of the room is a display of artifacts, as well as a large box with 19 padlocks. We took our seats at the tables, forming groups that we would be working with to solve the mysteries. Read More +

Margot Culver City Shines with a Rooftop Bar, Cocktails and More

Written by Allison Levine on April 11, 2019

Lifestyle Food Cocktails Wine

Living on the west side of Los Angeles, I find myself regularly heading downtown and even further east to try new restaurants. But the west side is also worthy of exploration and one of those places is Margot, a rooftop restaurant located at The Platform project in Culver City.

A friend invited me to dinner and selected Margot. I had not heard of it and had only been to The Platform once before. With all of the construction in the area, it had not been on my radar. But, now it is and I have already been a few times. Read More +

The Garagiste Wine Festival Returns to Sonoma to Showcase 40 Micro-Production Winemakers

Written by Allison Levine on April 9, 2019

Lifestyle Wine

If you like to find the unknown winery, the small production winery or just meet new winemakers, then the Garagiste Festival is for you. Throughout the year, Garagiste Festival takes place in Paso Robles, Solvang, Los Angeles and now Sonoma. For the second time, Garagiste Festival returns to Sonoma on April 13th and I wrote about what you might and why you might want to go in my recent column in the Napa Valley Register which you can read here.

Everyone knows the riddle: “How do you make a small fortune in the wine industry? Start with a large one.”

The dream to own a winery and make wine can seem like a fantasy. Land costs in Napa and Sonoma are prohibitive when a vineyard in Napa will cost anywhere from $120,000 to more than $370,000 per acre and a vineyard in Sonoma can cost $70,000 to more than $150,000 per acre.

Even if you do not own a vineyard, buying quality fruit in Napa and Sonoma can be costly. In 2016, Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon averaged $6,829 per ton and Sonoma Pinot Noir averaged $3,678 per ton. But, despite these costs, there are small winemakers out there who are striving to make the best wines possible, even without a venture capitalist behind them.