Next Meeting - Champagne Brunch!

Tracy is hosting a champagne brunch starting at 11am on Sunday, August 15th.  Please bring your favorite bubbly!

Westside Wine Club Member's First Film Festival

Jen, her husband Mark and Dee Dee's husband Danny's first short film together, The Ricochet, got into its first film festival! It will be showing at the LA Shorts Film Festival on TUESDAY, JULY 27, 2010 at 10:00 p.m. at the Laemmle Sunset 5 Theaters located at 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood CA 90046. Tickets are on sale on the festival's website and are $12 each. Your ticket gets you in to the 10:00 p.m. slot, which will show 8 short films.

The Film Festival:
www.lashortsfest.com

The Website:
www.thericochetfilm.com

The Trailer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-YdXC_-52y4

Thank you all for your support!!

Welcome Chicago!

Some wonderful ladies in Chicago are starting their very own wine club with an inaugural meeting this month.  We look forward to keeping up with their adventures on their very own blog.  Cheers!

Happy 1st Birthday Westside Wine Club!

The Westside Wine Club is turning 1! Dee Dee will be hosting this month on July 23rd, time TBD.

Please RSVP via evite and bring a bottle of an anniversary edition wine or anything else that would fit in the birthday theme.

Can't wait!

Sonoma Wine Tasting

During my last trip up north in June, we spent a day wine tasting in Sonoma and Healdsburg with a focus on the region's renown pinot noirs and zinfandels.  Sonoma and Healdsburg are great; the towns themselves are quaint and charming with some nice restaurants, and the surrounding vineyards and wineries are picturesque and relaxing.  It's much more laid back than Napa; during my last Napa trip, we needed appointments at pretty much every winery we visited, and made our dinner reservations a month in advance.  There was also some pretty bad traffic on the main roads.  In Sonoma, most places we visited did not require reservations (more like Santa Barbara), and the people were super friendly and laid-back.  We tasted some fantastic Pinot Noirs at Sojourn Cellars and Copain Wines (pictured above) and nice Zinfandels at Mauritson Winery.  We wanted to try more zinfandels at wineries around Mauritson in the Dry Creek Valley, but unfortunately we ran out of time.  We also had a lovely dinner at the Girl and the Fig in downtown Sonoma and a casual lunch at Bovolo in Healdsburg.  For more pictures and details, visit here.

Wine Tasting Event @ Bin 73

The June wine club event was held at local wine bar, Bin 73, in Marina Del Rey, which is next door to Mercedes Grill, both owned by Mercede Ahrablou. She put together a special menu for the club which included 5 generous pours paired with 5 delicious appetizers. Thank you Mercede for providing such a wonderful evening for us!!

Here we are enjoying the first wine, a bubbly rose, which was paired with the beet fruit salad.

The delicious ahi tuna poke was paired with a crisp Spanish white wine.



We all loved the filet mignon panini, paired with a smooth Roth cabernet.

And of course we had to have dessert! Love the signature '73 on the cookie, which we hear is the year the owner was born.

Here is crew with Mercede, our server Ryan, the self described wine snob, and our super friendly busboy.

A Quiet Night at Pourtal

Pourtal Wine Tasting Bar in Santa Monica seems to be one of the few places in the city (and probably only because it's new) that offers a quiet, low key wine tasting environment. Like Ugo, Pourtal's wine tasting concept uses the pay-as-you-go tasting credit cards that you can load up or cash out as you like. However, unlike Ugo, Pourtal offers ample seating and elbow room. On Saturday night, May 29th, Chris and I loaded up $30 and were able to get 8 pours total.

Portal offers a rotating wine selection of "boutique, vintage, cult and value-driven" wines. I especially appreciated their section devoted to female winemakers from around the world, many of which were organically grown. Interested in trying some? Below is the full list:

• Cantine del Castello di Conti "Boca" - Italy (Organic)
• Pfneiszl "Starling's Favorite" Shiraz - Hungary (Organic)
• Domaine Felines Jourdan Merlot - France (Organic)
• Patricia Green "Estate" Pinot Noir - Oregon (Organic)
• Ampelos "Gamma" Syrah - California (Super Organic!!)
• Niner Bootjack Ranch Sangiovese - California
• Lopez de Heredia "Bosconia" Reserva - Spain (Organic)
• Domaine La Lorentine 2004 Lirac - France (Organic)
• Donkey & Goat "Isabel's Cuvee" Rose - California (Organic)
• Lopez de Heredia 1997 Rose - Spain
• Nikolaihof "Hefeabzug" Gruner Veltiner - Austria (Biodynamic)
• Cold Heaven "Le Bon Climat" Viognier - California (Organic)
• Inman Family Pinot Gris - California (Organic)
• Gunderloch "Diva" Riesling - Germany
• Gentilini "Aspro Classic" - Greece
• Hoyt Family Vineyards Chardonnay - California

I especially enjoyed the Niner "Bootjack Ranch" Sangiovese which was rich, complex and full of great fruit and spice flavors. I went back for 2 more pours!

Pourtal also features "Angel Shares Happy Hour" that features discounts on wine and appetizers and a portion of your tab goes towards local non profits! A votre sante!!