LA Drinks

‘Ineffable’ is the word Lou Amdur uses when describing his attraction to wine.  He groups wine with love and friendship as being beyond description in terms of his ardency for them.  When I first met him in the 2000s, I immediately recognized him as a champion of wine, especially wine made from marginalized grapes.  I came to regard him privately as the patron saint of the forgotton grape- probably pineau d’aunis, an obscure grape that he gallantly promotes.Lou’s story of how he found his path in the world of wine is really one of inevitability and of his responding to the stimulations of a life beyond software development, his previous career.  He caught himself at various moments in his life acting like a wine geek.  Eventually he had to admit to himself that he belonged among the bottles.  His new career was also completely self-made.  After deciding that he would start a Paris-style wine bar in L. A., he saved for 5 years until he had enough capital to be able to get underway with no partners or family members pitching in.  The place was unique. Garrisoned in the crook of a misbegotton mini-mall on the edge of Hollywood, one entered into a warm modernist dining room with well-sourced, good food and reliably unique wines by the glass.  The attenuated arc of the restaurant was caused by a bad landlord and the untenable condition of his building.  It had been open for seven years.After a brief stop barnstorming his new retail wine concept next to Squirl Restaurant, he moved up the street to Los Feliz and the permanent home of Lou Wine and Tastings. It is here that a wine vision is being realized with the rapid comings and goings of hundreds of highly unique wines and a discourse that includes considerations of history, gastronomy and community emanating forth from Lou.There is no doubt that Lou’s shop provides the most arcane and stimulating wines in Los Angeles.  If there is a half-hectare vineyard of a recently rediscovered ancient grape clinging to the side of a mountain in the French Alps, you can be sure that you will get to try its wine at the shop.  The wines he stocks are also noteworthy for their purity and their ‘natural’ constituency, meaning that most fall squarely into the niche market that has become known as ‘natural wine’.  Though a definition of ‘natural wine’ is debatable with some versions tasting more like cider than wine and other versions simply having detestable qualities, Lou will fight you if you aquaint his business with other purveyors of skitchy natural wine.  The winemakers that he deals with are masters of their craft and their wines rely on traditional winemaking, meaning from organic grapes, without chemical inputs, introduced yeast or new oak flavors.Ironically, whereas Lou was looking forward to a career as a wine obscurantist, he now also finds himself handing out newly-popular pet-nat in volume to an eager public.      Lou lost a comrade in arms when Jonathan Gold died.  They had known each other and while Gold instructed Lou on eating in L.A., Lou, no doubt, supplemented Gold’s considerable knowledge of wine with his own.  Like Gold did, Lou uses his influence and knowledge in an effort toward a better understanding of his city through the sharing and promotion of things that you’d want to put in your mouth.Notes:a.o.c. opened in 2003- I really should have remembered thisKris Yenbamroong is the chef/owner of Night+Market in Los Angeles and Venice.

We continue our conversation with Adam Weisblatt, who is a  principle in Last Word Hospitality, a consulting firm with a healthy list of high-profile restaurant clients.   In 2015, at the tender age of 30, Adam teamed with Holly Fox, formerly a project manager at entertainment group SBE.  Since then, the two have helped consult on all aspects of the successful launching and running of restaurants, bars and other businesses.  This means soup to nuts: from establishing occupancy all the way to the by-the-glass wine list. But their ambitions extend much further.  In 2016, they entered into a management agreement with a faded Thai restaurant, Rambutan in Silver Lake.  Their work included a rebrand as Same Same Thai, a new look, a new beverage program and radically improved sales.  Next was Found Oyster in East Hollywood, a smart take on an east-coast oyster bar which has been up and running since November 2019.  So far, it has exceeded business expectations and is a worthy visit (this is a personal recommendation).  And there are aggressive plans for more restaurants according to a template that Adam shares with us.  To top it off, Last Word runs an ‘academy’ a few days a month in L.A. and San Francisco in the form of workshops devoted to providing the tools to future managers and operators in the restaurant/bar industry.  Both ‘soft’ skills such as personnel management strategies and ‘hard’ skills such as negociating a lease might be subjects of instruction.  Adam states that there is no true intellectual property in hospitality. LWH is seeking to broaden this program to compete with college-level hospitality curriculums one imagines.  Adam’s advice to those aspiring to entrepreneurship:  go learn how the business works as an employee and when you are ready to take the next step to management or ownership, take advantage of their instruction, which for the time being, is free.  In the second part lf our interview with Adam, we move specifically toward the beverage program: how it is assembled and its specific role in the success of a hospitality business.  Then Adam outlines his vision for the ‘academy’ and we talk about future plans that synergize consulting, education and upcoming LWH hospitality ventures.

Today, while seeking out more beverage truths about Los Angeles, we take a slight detour to the subject of creating success in an eating and drinking establishment.  And we ask about the unique role that a beverage program has in this undertaking.  Our guest is Adam Weisblatt, a principle in Last Word Hospitality, a consulting firm with a healthy list of high-profile restaurant clients.   In 2015, at the tender age of 30, Adam teamed with Holly Fox, formerly a project manager at entertainment group SBE.  Since then, the two have helped consult on all aspects of the successful launching and running of restaurants, bars and other businesses.  This means soup to nuts: from establishing occupancy all the way to the by-the-glass wine list. But their ambitions extend much further.  In 2016, they entered into a management agreement with a faded Thai restaurant, Rambutan in Silver Lake.  Their work included a rebrand as Same Same Thai, a new look, a new beverage program and radically improved sales.  Next was Found Oyster in East Hollywood, a smart take on an east-coast oyster bar which has been up and running since November 2019.  So far, it has exceeded business expectations and is a worthy visit (this is a personal recommendation).  And there are aggressive plans for more restaurants according to a template that Adam shares with us.  To top it off, Last Word runs an ‘academy’ a few days a month in L.A. and San Francisco in the form of workshops devoted to providing the tools to future managers and operators in the restaurant/bar industry.  Both ‘soft’ skills such as personnel management strategies and ‘hard’ skills such as negociating a lease might be subjects of instruction.  Adam states that there is no true intellectual property in hospitality.  LWH is seeking to broaden this program to compete with college-level hospitality curriculums one imagines.   Adam’s advice to those aspiring to entrepreneurship:  go learn how the business works as an employee and when you are ready to take the next step to management or ownership, take advantage of their instruction, which for the time being, is free. In the first part of a two part interview, Adam recounts his journey in hospitality from the Boston area to Los Angeles and beyond.  The challenging restaurant/bar environment in Los Angeles, we learn, requires that, from the the first step, that operators must know their staffing and how their people inhabit their workplace efficiently.  Because of a recent legal redefinition of the ‘tip pool’ in Los Angeles, allowing the distribution of tips beyond the front-of-the house, creative ways of staffing can now allow a more equitable distribution of the total staff monies coming in.  With creativity, it can come down to fewer staff sharing the salary budget and tips. This allows for retention of a talented front-of-house while improving financial conditions among the cooks.  Adam states, that In creating an establishment, LWH also looks for a built-in advantage from the start regarding occupancy, labor and cost of goods.  This can save an establishment if things don’t go ideally and a re-concept is necessary.  We touch on other factors of Adam’s consulting work such as creating ‘cohesive and timeless’ brands that easily convey a concept and why LWH is committed to small ‘specialty’ projects.  

Caroline Styne is a successful restaurateur and a partner in the Lucques Group.  She and her partner, Suzanne Goin, are also responsible for the first self-conscious ‘small plates’ restaurant in Los Angeles, a.o.c., which began a trend that is still going strong today.  In doing so, she also initiated a vast by-the-glass wine program that not only provided many options to diners eating an unusual variety of things for dinner, she also made sure that those wines were really good and often quite different than what was around in 2003 when a.o.c. opened with 50 wines by the glass. The quality, diversity and number of wines that suddenly became available at an exciting and unique restaurant made a large impression on the Los Angeles restaurant culture.  But if we look around us presently, it’s hard to overstate the undeniable effect of a.o.c. on many of our favorite restaurants now almost twenty years on.  Range of artisanal wines on the list? check.  Generous by-the-glass menu? check.  Small plate dishes of various influences? check.  Casual but informed and efficiant service? check.As the eating public became more food and drink literate in the beginning of the 21st century, Caroline’s restaurants were a good fit and her instincts as to what L. A. was ready for in terms of wine were also spot-on. More recently, The Lucques Group has expanded its landmark brand of hospitality to providing food and beverage for the Hollywood Bowl.  On the horizon are several new projects for the new downtown L. A. Proper Hotel complex. Note:At one point in the interview, I state that most wine makers in California do not make estate wine.  This may not be true and I should have specified that I meant that most small (less than 5000 case) artisanal winemakers in California do not make estate wine.

Patrick Comiskey should be well-known to those who read the Los Angeles Times or who seek out writing about wine.  He has been a regular fixture with the Times and, more recently, with the wine and spirits blog 750 Daily with many articles advising about smart wine drinking as well as various aspects of the Los Angeles wine world such as the legacy of Piero Selvaggio of the recently-closed Valentino restaurant or a story about L A wine tasting groups going back to the 60’s and the future important figures in L A wine who were members.Perhaps more importantly, Patrick has been an editor at Wine and Spirits Magazine and has written for a more deeply wine-savvy readership.  In our talk, Patrick gives an insight into how the W & S editorial board chooses its subject matter.Patrick also wrote a book on the past and present of Rhone grape varietals in The U S titled, “American Rhone: How Maverick Winemakers Changed the Way Americans Drink” (U. of California Press).  Sounds nerdy, but if you have ever wondered where that Syrah, Grenache, Mourvedre, Viognier, Rousanne, etc. came from, there’s an entertaining and compelling story that Mr. Comiskey offers up.  Patrick’s experience as a sommelier in San Francisco in the early 90’s gave him a first-hand knowledge of many of these wines and their creators.Today, grape varietals from the Rhone have been bursting out in availaility and various styles.  They are also a forward-looking class of varietal and blended wines which, for the forseeable future, may respond well to our changing climate.In our discussion, Patrick’s formidable insight into American Rhone grapes is always slightly under the surface of the various other topics that we touch on, including the various styles of wine that presently coexist in our market, recent trends in wine marketing, thoughts on wine journalism and more.  Hopefully this interview will encourage listeners to seek out Patrick’s nuanced and engaging writing and his byline wherever it may be found. When at the end of our talk, Patrick refers glowingly to his neighborhood,  it is Village Green in Los Angeles. In this conversation, I glowingly mention the producer Scar of the Sea.  At the same time I was tasting Scar of the Sea wines, I was also tasting owner Mikey Guigni’s wife, Gina Guigni’s Lady of the Sunshine wines. They were equally excellent and worth seeking out.

Today we’re talking to Zach Negin who is the owner of Tabula Rasa Bar in Thai Town.  Rather than talking about drinks per se, we take a look inside an establishment that is on the front lines of what we should think of as an L. A. wine bar.   In the past few years wine bars have been staking out territories across L. A. and in some cases they have been emphasizing low-intervention or so-called ‘natural’ wines (not to mention artisanal beers).  Tabula Rasa is such a place.  Zach talks about how he came to his project and how he was inspired along the way as an entrepreneur and a ‘hospitalitarian’ (Danny Meyer reference) by many including his original partner Daniel Flores and Ori Menache owner/chef of Bestia fame.A lot of what Zach has to say is about what happens before the bottles pop and the taps flow.  He recounts his journey to bar ownership. It was a long one.  His decision not to become an engineer (or a mustard mogul) had its origins in his search for the sense of community he felt growing up in a special neighborhood in exurban Maryland.  As he moved his way through life after college, hospitality exerted that familiar, sought-after effect and his time at Bestia restaurant influenced the decisions that he would make about his own business even before he had found a location.Hospitality = community is the equasion that only needed to be proven when Tabula Rasa opened. Tabula Rasa has assembled thoughtful and canny menus for food, wine and beer, a welcoming environment and a ‘touch the customer’ style of service.  The bar frequently hosts industry-oriented trade tastings, partnerships with food trucks, customer wine education as well as live entertainment. This interview could have been left unedited.  Zach speaks in an effortless stream-of-conscious style that make you feel that he has control of any topical direction he might choose and that any direction is viable and interesting.  There is an inherent holistic insight uniting the many subjects that he is likely to touch on.The way that Zach explains it, the profit motive and the impulse toward generosity and community-building are intertwined.  Doing well is doing good.  Charity and profit are not binary.  They meet at the intersection of community.

Nina Sventitsky moved to L. A. from New York in the 1990’s.  Her career in marketing for magazine conglomerates led her there.  She took a beginner’s wine course at Wally’s and became a wine enthusiast.  After a stint at a short-lived wine magazine and a struggle as a wine rep through the economic crash, she became involved with the North American Sommelier Association, becoming a board member and cultivating sponsorships for the organization.  Soon after, she landed a job as a marketer for the Rioja wine region. This job has allowed her to participate in the long-term sales strategy of the Rioja Consejo Regulador and flex her  skills.  Over the years that she has worked for Rioja, the long-term plan has met with continued success.  While working for Rioja, she devised a master Rioja course curriculum which ultimately has become an offering at the Napa Valley Wine Academy.  This led to her being brought on to run the Academy’s business development.  Currently, the Academy is riding a wave of national interest in wine education.Nina is an exemplar of the matte side of the wine business.  Her work has been in the trenches, adjacent to the glossy side, creating awareness of wine, whether through handing out promotional corkscrews at tastings or devising a marketing strategy for the largest educational wine business in the country. 

Amy Christine started her wine journey as a server in Detroit.  She was encouraged to take the Certified Somm exam which satisfied her attraction to arcane information and laid the groundwork for further extreme studies.  After a move to Los Angeles and a fruitful stint in service at the evergreen A.O.C., she migrated to wine distribution and its more regular hours so as to more easily see her soon-to-be husband, Peter Hunken- and make wine with him.  They now have several labels, Holus Bolus being the foremost.  Amy continued her academic fascination with wine and now is one of a handful of women in the U.S. who have achieved the Master of Wine.  She is also active in wine education, mentoring MOW students, teaching WSET diploma level classes and writing articles for the Guild Somm Journal.So, on a given day, Amy might be participating in teaching, writing, selling, growing vines and making wine.When she comes to talk with me, there is a lot to discuss.  We cover her career but mainly we talk about specific issues that a women in her position can run up against any day such as the disadvantage of the Central Coast wine producer versus a producer from Europe due to land and labor costs.  Or, sustainable farming and the hall of mirrors that the farmer faces when making a growing decision and the winemaker, a vinification call.  We talk about the joy of the ‘Joy Fantastic’, the recent estate vineyard that she and Peter have leased and which is now a stable source of premium grapes.  We touch on the present generation as a market, how wine styles are changing for the better and what is currently selling in L. A. When I ask a question that is part of my boilerplate repertoire, ‘what can be done to advance wine drinking in L. A.?’, I get a surprising answer.  Amy is truly conflicted about the morality (yes, morality) of promoting drinking.  She has taken to heart recent reports on the linkage of drinking (anything alcoholic) to cancer.  We are post ‘French paradox’.  Recent health studies indicate that there is no sweet spot where a of couple drinks are said to be good for us physically.So, that’s a weird thing to learn about a woman who is up to her eyeballs in wine.  On the other hand, this is a stance that is processessing in a clear-eyed way recent information that not only will not go away, but is also common to the current generation’s understanding in their attitudes towards alcohol consumption.  More moderation is clearly being practiced and national wine consumption is declining.  Instead of going for quantity, there is a trend toward premiumization in wine buying where a young consumer is often more informed about a wine and is willing to spend a little more for it while buying less.  For the better, these are the wines Amy sells - and makes.  

Tequila is at the center of a more general expansion of premium liquor worldwide.  The wide-ranging flavors that are derived from the blue agave plant fall into line the with the variations one can find with the world’s finest spirits categories; scotch whisky, rum, cognac and others.  Along with the agave-based mezcal that tequila is closely associated with, it has quickly become legitimized in the marketplace populating all premium tiers and is growing faster than other spirits.Today’s guest, Steve Greer is a brand ambassador for a relatively new and formidable entry into the fray of the tequila marketplace.  In our conversation we talk about why he got involved with the brand Volcan and the brand’s pedigree and uniqueness.  Steve’s job is crucial to a product that does not put up billboards or advertise on T V. He travels around California extolling the virtues of Volcan to members of the drinks industry who will then serve it to their customers along with the story and information that Steve has provided.We also get to talking about tequila, the drink.  We talk about how far it has come since it was known mostly as ‘Cuervo Gold’ and was administered exclusively in shots.  We talk about how it fits into the atmosphere of premiumization in the drinks industry.  But we also speculate, for better or worse, on this most successful and Mexican of drinks and what it means to its homeland now that most of tequila is consumed in the U.S.

The idea of starting a Los Angeles winery is a compelling narrative.  Who doesn’t want to drink local wine?  Apart from the touristy San Antonio winery and Rupert Murdoch’s Bel Air vanity project Moraga, Angeleno Wines is the sole commercial winery in the city of Los Angeles or its immediate environs.  Jasper Dickson’s motivation in his local winemaking concept should probably be looked at foremost in terms of utilitarian convenience: If you live in a place and make wine, its easier to make wine from that place.  Still, he’s obviously on to something bigger.  Jasper has drawn on an opportunity to stake out a claim to the revived legacy of Los Angeles wine production.  This revival is necessarly linked with but happening at a delay from the locavore movement in food and drink that has been the norm in Los Angeles for years now.  Why is this?Well, the reason that there is no longer a wine industry in Los Angeles is because land for homes and office buildings is worth more than for grape vines.  So, winemakers have gone elsewhere.  But, if one is determined to find grapes, one can. Jasper found his grapes in Agua Dulce, about an hour outside of L. A. proper and at first, he brought them north to a crushpad in San Benito county, all the while with his eye out for a place in L. A. to make his wine.  That reality happened in time for the 2018 vintage and Angeleno Wine currently is located north of Chinatown.Having points of civic pride like the Dodgers or the Walk of Fame are endemic to the allure of a city and for all the regionalities of Los Angeles, there are a multitude of these points. The history of Los Angeles is short by some measure, but the legacy of the Los Angeles wine industry goes back to its beginnings as a post-mission settlement.  Angeleno Wine will qualify as a point of pride and most likely a successful business: a quality wine producer steeped in the history of the city. Incidentally, the facility and wine bar is pretty much at ground zero to L. A.’s original vine plantings.