The Scene: Palate Food + Wine, LA’s top dining room. The Event: A tasting of Camille Giroud Burgundies featuring 2006 and older vintages to 1974. The Outcome: Renewal of faith. Rebirth of cool.
This was the last shot to rekindle an old love affair with Burgundy that had gone sour with the 1996 vintage. The complaints were too familiar as logged in previous tBoW posts: unreliable and finicky wines, marginal and spotty producers, over-hyped vintages, and way too expensive. Don’t forget the failure of domestic winemakers to produce outstanding Pinot Noir with consistency. Why even bother trying to find decent Burgundy when there is so much great vintage Beaujolais available? (more…)

Palate Food & Wine is the one restaurant in Los Angeles where I do not bring my own bottle of wine. Every once in awhile something is so obvious it is stupid. Taking wine to most restaurants is, truthfully, a defensive move. There are very few restaurants that offer interesting wines at reasonable prices. Most restauranteurs consider their wine list an opportunity to extort 300% markups for whatever low-end bottles the local mega-distributor can sell them. (more…)