Please The Palate |

Wine, Dinner and Now Brunch at Les Marchands Santa Barbara

Les Marchands Wine Bar & Merchant, located in the Funk Zone in downtown San Barbara, is a wonderful wine bar/retail shop that features local and international wine selections that each tell a story. It is a popular place for a glass or two of wine and a plate of cheese or small bites from afternoon to night. But now you can start earlier in the day with brunch as Les Marchands offers brunch beginning at 10am on Saturday and Sunday. A friend and I met for brunch at Les Marchands on a Sunday morning. We sat on the patio and ordered glasses of bubbles. It was Sunday brunch.

But we also ordered a flight of wine, which includes three two-ounce pours of white, red or progressive (sparkling, white and red). After all, Les Marchands is a wine bar. We selected the white flight and enjoyed tastes of Chateau de Chasseloir melon de bourgogne from the Loire Valley in France, Bruna pigato from Italy and Tyler chardonnay from Santa Barbara. Varying levels of acidity and minerality, these wines were lovely to sip along with our meal.

09 December, 2016

Wine Tasting Along The Expo Line

This story originally appeared in California Winery Advisor. The 14.7 mile stretch from Downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica can be the bane of existence for many Angelenos. While at the right time of day, it can take as little as twenty minutes to get across the city, it typically takes closer to an hour (or more). The 10 Freeway turns us all into inchworms who slowly crawl across the city.

In May 2016, the Expo Line opened. The Expo Line is Los Angeles’ long-awaited metro line running from Downtown LA to Santa Monica. From one end to the other, the metro will take forty-seven minutes to cross the city. Of course, it could be faster at times to take a car, but if you take the metro, you can sit back and relax, send emails and watch the traffic as you pass by. Or, you can hop off and on the metro as you visit wine bars along the Expo Line. No matter whether you start from Downtown or Santa Monica, there are wine bars within walking distance from six of the eighteen stops along the Expo Line. So grab your walking shoes and your Tap Card and start drinking! Los Angeles wine tasting by train, what could be less likely and more fun than this.

25 November, 2016

Spin The Bottle Wine Studio in Toluca Lake

Remember playing spin the bottle as a child and wondering who the bottle would land on? Perhaps it was the person you had a crush on. Perhaps it was not. As grown-ups now, I like the idea of Spin the Bottle Wine Studio in Toluca Lake. You may never know what bottles will be open on the day that you go, but at least you can pick the bottle of wine you want try. Or let them pick the bottle for you!

Spin The Bottle Wine Studio is owned by Doug LaGambina (partner/investor of Hollywood’s Wood & Vine) with partner Scott Kay (principal at Vine Street Partners and partner at Wood & Vine). It is a wine bar and retail shop that features a cultivated list of imported and domestic small production wines.

29 January, 2016