With the announcement of the 2013 Family Business Awards in Pacific Coast Business Times, oenophiles everywhere swelled with pride. The annual Family Business Awards recognize companies with two or more family members actively involved as owner-managers. One of these awards was bestowed upon Sam and Shawnda Marmorstein, owner-managers of Los Olivos Wine Merchant & Café.
Sam and Shawna Marmorstein, courtesy of Los Olivos Wine Merchant & Café
The restaurant (and its wine list) quickly outgrew its humble beginnings as a simple café in 1995. In 2001, the Marmorsteins added the Wine Merchant store, and the restaurant’s previously paltry two-item wine list expanded to encompass 500 wines.
Since then, Los Olivos Wine Merchant & Café has continually provided the opportunity for fine dining (with great wine pairings!) to Santa Barbara County residents, acting as a distribution hub for the surrounding wine country vineyards.
Consider heading up San Marcos Pass and making a stop at Los Olivos Wine Merchant & Café for a delicious dinner and some wine pairings. According to founder and owner Sam Marmorstein, “When a guest walks through our doors, it is the job of every employee to make them feel like they are a guest in their own home.” Swing on through and see for yourself the service and atmosphere deserving of county recognition.
Food and wine overflow at this yearly event where participants take their logo wine glasses on a self-guided tour of several downtown venues, sampling bounty along the way. End the tour with the final party at Santa Barbara Historical Museum. Several downtown locations.
A spirited toast to all things alcoholic! By Leslie Dinaberg
Looking for a fun way to spend your Sunday? Taste of the Nation is your chance to taste delicious bites from some of the city’s top chefs alongside sample sips from more than 25 local wineries and breweries, all while supporting the worthy work of United Boys & Girls Club of Santa Barbara County, Foodbank of Santa Barbara County, California Food Policy Advocates and California Association of Foodbanks.
Island Brewing Company’s Island Blonde (courtesy photo)
There’ll also be food aplenty, including Arlington Tavern chef Ron True’s Kobe hot dog bites with house chips and peanut butter cheesecake (yum!) and Four Seasons Resort The Biltmore chef Alessandro Cartumini’s house-made pork sausage ravioli with cherries, sage and balsamic, as well as our favorite chocolate creations from Jessica Foster Confections, to name just a few.
With 100% of the proceeds from Taste of the Nation going toward efforts to end childhood hunger in Santa Barbara, you can raise your glass—and pile your plate—high, and feel good about it.
Tickets for the event, which is this Sunday from 3–6 p.m. at Montecito Country Club, can be purchased by calling 1-877-26-TASTE or visiting TasteOfTheNation.org.
When she’s not busy working as the editor of Santa Barbara SEASONS, Cocktail Corner author Leslie Dinaberg writes magazine articles, newspaper columns and grocery lists. When it comes to cocktails, Leslie considers herself a “goal-oriented drinker.”
It’s almost time for the ultimate grown-up Thirsty Thursday! On May 23 from 5:30-9:30, the nonprofit Santa Barbara Downtown Organization will host the Downtown Art & Wine Tour for a night of supreme Santa Barbara culture.
Courtesy of Meesh photography
With your complimentary logo wine glass in hand, you will stroll around some of Santa Barbara’s finest galleries and shops all while sipping fine wine and enjoying spreads of tasty hors d’oeuvres. A few of the guided-tour hot spots include Industry Home, James Main Fine Art, Jane Deering Gallery, Plum Goods and Salt Caves. For the last two hours, enjoy a finale at Santa Barbara Historical Museum along with live music, dancing, photo booth fun, raffles and a silent auction.
Whether you’ve been waiting to get a taste of Santa Barbara or you’ve been drinking in her beauty for years, this Art & Wine tour is perfect for local and visiting wine, art and food lovers alike. Tickets go on sale May 1 on Eventbrite or at the Arlington Theatre Box Office. For more information, call 805/962-2098 or visit the website. All proceeds will benefit the 61st Annual Downtown Holiday Parade.
Wine country is “run country” at the annual Santa Barbara Wine Country Half Marathon, where a portion of the proceeds benefit the Foodbank. Race starts on Sagunto St. in downtown Santa Ynez and ends with a Wine and Music Festival in Solvang Park.
You’ve heard of an oxygen bar, a brow bar, a dive bar, but have you been to a bubbles bar? Now’s your chance! Santa Barbara County’s first ever Sparkling Wine Bar opens this weekend at Flying Goat Cellars Tasting Room on Sunday, April 21 from 11 a.m–4 p.m.
Photo courtesy of Wanderlush and Lipstick
At this boutique winery located in the Lompoc Wine Ghettoat 1520 East Chestnut Court, you can sip your way through a flight of four Goat Bubbles (a sentence I’m sure you’ve never heard before), sparkling wines all crafted in-house and in the traditional méthode champenoise, including Rosé, Crémant, Blanc de Blancs and Blanc de Noirs. Goat Bubbles, because “A Toast is Not Just for Breakfast!,” is so delicious that the only vintage bottle submitted to Wine Spectator won 89 points. You’ll give your taste buds an extra treat as each of the sparking wines is made from a different vineyard in our surrounding areas, including Clos Pepe Vineyard, Solomon Hills Vineyard and Sierra Madre Vineyard.
During the opening, you can also taste Flying Goat Cellar’s Pinot Noirs and Pinot Grises, discuss the sparkling wine process and learn how to open a bottle of champagne with a saber—that infamous party trick you’ve been dying to master.
It will be a wine tasting event unlike any other, so don’t miss out!
A spirited toast to all things alcoholic! By Leslie Dinaberg
As Don Ho sings:
Tiny bubbles (tiny bubbles) In the wine (in the wine) Make me happy (make me happy) Make me feel fine (make me feel fine)
OGIO Prosecco (courtesy photo)
Just thinking about bubbles makes me smile: bubble baths, Wonder Bubbles, Bubble Up, Champagne and more recently, Prosecco.
I had my first taste of Prosecco just a few years ago, when a friend brought a bottle of Mionetto IL Prosecco to accompany our sushi at one of the summer concerts at El Capitan Canyon. It was delicious, bubbly and tasted good with potato chips too.
Prosecco—which is an Italian sparkling white wine—is growing in popularity by leaps and bounds these days, particularly with the trendsetting 21-something crowd. According to the beverage industry research website, just-drinks.com, “Growth in sparkling wine of the non-Champagne variety has been a somewhat unheralded success story of the global wines and spirits market during the past ten years, and the product which typifies the sector’s progress—and the star performer to boot—is the northern Italian fizz, Prosecco.”
Unlike many wines, Prosecco is designed to be consumed when it’s young, and the majority of Prosecco is meant to be light and fresh on the palate. Most of it is produced using the less time-consuming Charmat method (refermentation of the base wine in pressurized tanks, as opposed to bottles) and the taste just keeps getting better.
I recently tried a bottle of OGIO Prosecco DOC, which was delicious, light and not overwhelmingly sweet, with fruity notes of peach and green apple. As the company describes it, “an approachable, friendly and easy-to-drink wine for those who want to have a conversation over a glass of wine, not about a glass of wine!” That pretty much fits the bill for me.
In addition to the traditional Bellini, there are loads of other great mixed drinks you can create with Prosecco. Here are a few that would be perfect for a warm spring weekend:
Sgroppino, an Italian cocktail from Giada De Laurentiis, with Prosecco, vodka and lemon sorbet. Fruit Fizz, from Nigella Lawson, combines Prosecco with lemon, mango, raspberry and blackcurrant sorbet (are you sensing a theme here?)
Martha Stewart’sProsecco Cocktail has Angostura bitters, a liqueur infused with herbs, roots, and bark, and Ruffino Prosecco has an interesting recipe for The Fresco, using Prosecco, cucumbers, lime, hot sauce and sea salt.
When she’s not busy working as the editor of Santa Barbara SEASONS, Cocktail Corner author Leslie Dinaberg writes magazine articles, newspaper columns and grocery lists. When it comes to cocktails, Leslie considers herself a “goal-oriented drinker.”
Fine wine, good food, awesome cause? Count us in on this year’s Annual Central Coast Wine Classic! California’s Central Coast will be speckled with wine lovers this July 11-14 at events organized at Avila Beach, Shell Beach and San Simeon to help raise funds for our favorite non-profit corporations.
Central Coast Wine Classic, now in its 29th year, has been called one of the “Top Ten” charity wine auctions in America by Wine Spectator. This year’s theme is “A Celebration of the Remarkable Wine and Cuisine of the Central Coast of California and the Napa Valley,” and will center around Avila Beach with Avila Lighthouse Suitesas the official hotel of the event and Avila Beach Golf Resort as the event’s official auction venue. So what will they be selling? Do excursions to France, Italy, India, New Zealand and other places around the world sound pleasant? Good. How about fine wine? Uh huh.
So come support our local charities of Santa Barbara by taking a vacation to beautiful Avila Beach. Did I forget to mention the Annual Black-Tie Dinner at Hearst Castle with six courses compiled by amazing chefs?
It’s not wine … but C’est Cheese is giving away a free cup of tomato soup with each grilled cheese sandwich on National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day (April 12)
A spirited toast to all things alcoholic! By Leslie Dinaberg
I just returned from a lovely trip to Paris, where the wine is wonderful as well as less expensive than the coffee, and the cheese is nothing short of ambrosia.
I am a firm believer, as M.F.K. Fisher said, that, “Wine and cheese are ageless companions, like aspirin and aches, or June and moon, or good people and noble ventures.” Though my husband forbid me from filling our suitcases with Camembert, Reblochon and Tomme de Savoie (so I filled my belly instead), my appetite for cheese was not completely sated.
So I was thrilled to discover that today is National Grilled Cheese Sandwich Day. What better way to fight the post-vacation blues than to celebrate this traditional American treat and pair it with some of our favorite local wines?
Happy American Craft Beer Week! Santa Barbara is privileged to have several craft breweries to help us wet our whistles, and we celebrated a few of our favorite brewmasters and local breweries with our Cheers to Beer! video. Keep your eye out around town for special beer events and tastings, talks with brew masters and connoisseurs, and discounts on hoppy goodness.
