Newest Tasting at 55 Degree Wine? Beer!

WHAT A CONCEPT. The neighborhood's favorite basement hangout - the tasting room at 55 Degree Wine, 3111 Glendale Blvd. - is getting sudsy. Monday is its summer beer tasting, called Red, White & Brew. Taste 4 ales and a lambic for $15. Reservations required at (323) 662-5556, because, well, who else is doing beer tastings around here?

The Newbie Endorsement: 55 Degrees Wine

IF YOU FIND WITHIN Los Angeles city limits a better Italian varietal and French bubbly wine shop and basement tasting room (with a wine locker kept at, you guessed it, 55 degrees) - co-founded by an Iranian expatriate who currently lives in Hawaii - buy it! Unless you just bought it. In which case, welcome to the neighborhood. 55 Degrees [Thrillist] "You can pop into for nightly-changing, sommelier's choice wine flights" 55 Degrees [Iron City Ex-Pat] "Go down a flight of steps and you'll find this gorgeous, exposed brick and wrought-iron tasting area. It's kind of like learning about wine, whilst on break from a 19th century British factory." The Dish: 55 Degrees [Eater LA] "Expect lots of color coding, take-away info cards and other 'idiot proofing' measures for wine shopping." 55 Degrees in Atwater Village [Miles Think] "The staff is incredibly nice, the owners outgoing and the look and feel of the place is quite inviting." Wine Store and Tastings in Atwater [Eater LA] "In addition to what owner Ali Biglar says will be a rotating selection of some 2000 Italians, he's planning a nice selection of Spanish bottles, 500 rotating small-production sparkling wines and eventually beer, cheese and condiments." On opening day this weekend, the staff urged Mrs. Newbie and I to stop by at least 4 nights a week to take advantage of the changing wine flights. (Wouldn't want to miss one!) And when they sold us $85 worth of Italian reds, they also sold us a story that one of them has been bottled for 1,000 years and was once reviewed by Leonardo da Vinci. By the last drop, we didn't really care if it was true. (55 Degrees Wine, 3111 Glendale Blvd., next to one of the Starbucks stores in Atwater Village; store 11:00am to 10:00pm, tasting room 6:00-10:00pm)

Name That New Wine Bar

AS REPORTED HERE on the Newbie blog, our blogmates over at Franklin Avenue now confirm: Standing at the Crispy Crust (free samples!), we wound up talking to the man standing in front of the future wine store. The man - I believe it was owner Andy Hasroun - basically confirmed everything that Atwater Village Newbie mentioned last December. The wine shop will include regular wine tastings (functioning much like Colorado Wine Co. and its small wine bar) in addition to sales; a large wine cellar will be located in the basement. Hasroun told us he's still trying to come up with a name -- The Cellar or L.A. Cellar are two possibilities. I'd suggest going the pun route: Atwater Into Wine. Love it. The nameless-for-now wine bar goes in the Glendale Blvd. retail strip with Starbucks, H&R Block and Crispy Crust. (Home of, by the way, the neighborhood's best pizza, the thin-crust chili con carne.)

Canele Love Continues in 2007

Neighborhood bistro slash savior Canele (3219 Glendale Blvd.) is back open after a brief intermission and has the attention of Mike the Wine Guy: "...My favorite by far was a Spanish wine called La Planella, a blend of Carignan, Grenache, Cabernet Sauvignon, Mourvedre, and Syrah. "The latest release of La Planella is just as impressive as what I remember tasting that day in Paris. "An excellent value at around $16, this was great with the Roast Pork Loin at the recently opened Canele (Atwater Village). Yum A-Go-Go! "Available at: Topline Wine, Glendale."

Wine for Watching the Golden Globes

And maybe the Oscars, too, when they come around. Nominee Chardonnay, from the 365 brand by Whole Foods.

You Can Judge a Wine By Its Label

Perhaps There Will Be a Wine Bar After All

At first it looked like Fergie and her bandmates would be stuck with mere lattes and taxes adjacent to their "dilapidated" studio. But pedestrian passersby and these meeting minutes from an Atwater Village Neighborhood Council seem to indicate a third, higher purpose for the former Atwater Ranch Market site:

Wine tasting business proposal for 3111 Glendale Blvd. was presented by Andy Hasroun. [Right, in photo, with LA City Council President Eric Garcetti.]

He indicated that beer consumption would be limited to twelve ounces per person at the store. Wine would be inventoried upstairs and storage would be located on the lower level. Hours of operation will be from 10:00am to 11:00pm, or less during the week days.

Another tenant in the center, H&R Block, is seasonal and will not use required spaces for most of the year.

Mr. Hasroun assured the committee that the new sound wall being built at the rear of the parking lot would prevent nearby homes from being affected.

No indication of when Atwater's answer to Eagle Rock's Colorado Wine Company might pop its first cork, but if it takes anywhere near as long as Starbucks has to get going, don't hold your breath.

Newbie Night at the Bowl

Cheese Plate
+ Bottle of Wine
+ Hollywood & Highland Shuttle
+ LA Philharmonic
+ Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture
+ USC Marching Band
+ Fireworks
+ Nearly Full Moon

= Ideal first visit to Hollywood Bowl

How do they position and build an outdoor music venue - mere blocks from the heart of Hollywood - that so completely protects the audience from outside sound? Even during the quietest piano concerto, only cricket chirps made it over the walls. For our Colorado friends, imagine dropping Red Rocks Amphitheatre next to Union Station and losing none of the acoustic wonder.

Hairdresser Rumor Alert

Hairdressers have access unlike the rest of us. Something about pointing sharp objects at our heads. They learn things. Half-baked things, sometimes. But often they're fully baked. (The rumors. Not the hairdressers.) From Eating LA:

Is there a gentrifying cranny of the city that doesn't have its own wine bar in the works? My hairdresser tells me that a new wine bar is coming to the former Ranch market space in Atwater where Starbucks is also supposedly going in.

This could arrest the reports and rumors bouncing around Atwater Village for months. Congrats, wine sippers. Sorry, SBUX haters.

Maybe this new joint can class up the neighborhood the way Asia Los Feliz does, with a giant TV aiming out floor-to-ceiling windows so neighbors (and drivers waiting at Los Feliz and Glenfeliz Blvds.) will never miss another sports highlight.

Eat Local

One Angeleno is attempting to eat locally - fruit, veggies, eggs, dairy and wine originating within 100 miles of LA. Here's how our Atwater Village Farmer's Market (Sundays 10:00am-2:00pm) hooks her up with deliciousness:

The best discovery so far, though, has been Cardone’s Mozzarella. Richard Cardone makes fresh ricotta, mozzarella and boccocini right here in my neighborhood and sells it at both the Silver Lake and Atwater Village Farmers' markets every weekend. It’s fabulous stuff, especially the ricotta. In fact, we like it so much it found its way into many a dish this past week - sprinkled on our ratattoulle, mixed in our potato-asparagus hash, and stuffed inside our mint and pea ravioli. The boccocini, on the other hand, don’t mix with anything other than a plate of olive oil, salt and pepper and then head into our mouths.