JMac

I stopped by and talked to Chef Cam's wife. She did not know what I was talking about. The emergency vehicles do not seem to have been for Bistro Provence. They are open. Cheers!

I drove by Ren's a few days ago, it looks pretty forlorn. It is a pretty bad location anyway but the rent must have been really, really low. I drove past Satsuma on Norfolk Ave. in Bethesda and noticed a sign in the window that said "Dan Dan Ramen". I thought at first perhaps Ren's had landed there but I must be wrong. It looks like they are jumping on the ramen bandwagon but I do not see ramen on the Satsuma website.

Here are the Blenheim products that are available for sale in DC and Mongtomery County. Also, my last post said the Rosé is Cabernet Sauvignon. The Rosé is Merlot. Anyway, please ask for them at your retailers and restaurants. 2009 Chardonnay 2009 Rose 2009 Viognier 2008 Blenheim Farm Chardonnay 2009 Syrah NV Red Table Wine NV White Table Wine 2009 Cabernet Franc 2009 Seven Oaks Merlot I just got the wines yesterday and am sampling with customers. Black Salt is my first customer and ordered 2009 Rose - will pour by the glass 2009 Viognier 2008 Blenheim Farm Chardonnay 2009 Seven Oaks Merlot Any retailers out there please contact me for a tasting. Cheers!

I am pleased to announce that Simon N Cellars is now distributing Blenheim Vineyards wines in DC and Montgomery County. Blenheim is perhaps best known for its owner Dave Matthews, but vintner Kirsty Haron makes top notch wines. This is brand new to me so I do not have all of the details concerning the products and the prices. I do know that we will have a Viognier, a Chardonnay and a Rosé made with Cabernet Sauvignon. If any licenssees out there are interested, please contact me for a tasting. Cheers!

Hi all, I will be doing a tasting at Cork & Fork Logan Circle 1524 14th Street NW next to Homemade Pizza (between Church St. & Q St.) this Saturday. Come meet me and owner Anna Landragin as I pour: Domaine Georges Vernay Rosé - 100% Syrah from the northern Rhône, this is the last of our rosés for this season, our rosés won't be back until next Spring Domaine Jean Vullien Vin de Savoie Chignin-Bergeron- 100% Rousanne from the under appreciated Savoie region Domaine Bastide St. Dominique Côtes du Rhône red '07 - 80% Grenache/20% Syrah - excellent medium bodied red Domaine Bastide St. Dominique Beaumes de Venise - dessert wine - this is the dessert wine for people who don't like dessert wine 100% muscat, sweet but not cloying Cheers!

There is lots of good canned beer available locally these days in addition to Oskar Blues there is 21st Amendment from San Francisco, New England Brewing, Boddington's, Murphy's Stout, Guinness and many, many more. Red Derby in Columbia Heights apparently only carries canned beers, no taps no bottles. In addition to blocking light, cans also allow for practically no air at the top of the can unlike bottles where there is always a little air left at the top of the bottle. As has been said, light and air are a beer's worst enemies. I have read that canning used to be pretty expensive and that is another reason why cans weren't used by smaller brewers. I understand that a fairly inexpensive canning machine has come on the market within the last few years which makes canning more affordable for the smaller brewers. Also, the new cans are lined with something which prevents a metalic taste. However, the lining is a little controversial as some folks suspect that the lining is bad for one's health.

Wholesale alcohol prices in Montgomery County are automatically 25% higher for the restaurant/retailer. This is because the County Department of Liquor Control, by law has to first buy every drop of alcohol then resell it to the restaurant/retailer. The County mark-up is 25% of their cost. Their cost also includes state excise tax. For example if a case of XYZ Belgian Blonde ale were sold in DC/VA for $30.00 to a restaurant/retailer then the same case of beer would be sold in Montgomery County for $30.00 plus $7.50 (25% mark up) plus a little more for the excise tax. Final cost to the Montgomery County restaurant will be around $38.00. Plus rent prices are very high in that part of town. Not sure how they compare with DC and VA though.

Hi Everyone, Dave McIntyre wrote a nice feature in the Food section of today's Washington Post about Bien Nacido Vineyards in Santa Barbara. Tantara Winery is the only California winery represented by Simon N Cellars. Tantara is produced from Bien Nacido grapes. The wines are produced in very limited quantities and are hard to find on the East Coast. The only DC area retailer that regularly stocks them is MacArthur. However, you can contact me directly and I can get them to any retailer. These are terrific California Pinot Noirs and a Syrah. I can't quote exact retail prices as I have no control over them. But depending on your budget , these are probably "special occasion wines" in that you can expect to pay over $40.00 per bottle. Cheers!

Hi all, it's a work in progress but here is the Simon N Cellars brand new Facebook page. I aim to post a lot more images of our products and also do the usual things like announce tastings and promote our accounts. Cheers!

Hi All, Saturday July 3, 2010 at Cleveland Park Wines, 3423 Connecticut Ave, NW 20008 (across from the Uptown Theater) by the Cleveland Park Metro 3:00PM to 7:00PM. I will be tasting the following wines from Simon N Cellars' portfolio: Jacques Simonin "Les Courthelongs" Macon Vergisson '08 - white Burgundy, 100% Chardonnay, with a little bit of oak, no butter. Great for light summer dishes and sharp cheese. Domaine Brusset "Les Boudalles" Côtes du Ventoux '09 - red Southern Rhône 60% Grenache, 15% Carignan, 15% Mourvèdre, 10% Clairette. Perfect for pasta with red sauce, lamb and sausage. Château Haut-Bana Médoc '07 - 70% Merlot, 30% Cabernet Sauvignon. Fruity and full bodied, try this with grilled beef, hamburgers or ribs. See you on Saturday. Cheers!

Circle Wine & Spirits is having an event called Grill & Chill this Saturday, June 19, 2010. Circle Wine & Spirits is just inside of DC south of Chevy Chase Circle at 5501 Connecticut Ave., NW DC 20015. I don't have the details of what other vendors/products will be there. Food is going to be served and plenty of samples will be served. I will be showing/tasting: Linden Vineyards Hardscrabble Chardonnay, '07 Linden Vineyards Vidal Reisling, '07 and Rondeau Bugey Cerdon rose sparkling Gamay NV. Linden is located near Front Royal, VA. Vintner Jim Law makes highly acclaimed terroir driven wines. Bugey Cerdon is a brand new Appellation halfway between Lyons and Geneva. This is a terrific summer wine, 100% Gamay, 8.5% alcohol. Cheers!

Cork & Fork DC tasting, 1522 14th Street NW, corner of 14th and Church, next to the Home Made Pizza Company, this Saturday June 12, 2010 3:00PM –7:00PM I will be tasting these wines at Cork & Fork DC this Saturday. Jean Vullien & Fils Vin de Savoie Chignin-Bergeron - 100% Roussanne from the Savoie region in the Alpine foothills, this is a pretty versatile food wine. It pairs well with rich seafood dishes such as grilled lobster or clam chowder. Also goes well with pork and poultry. Domaine Georges Vernay Rosé – 100% Syrah from the Northern Rhône, another versatile food wine that can be paired with cheese dishes, poultry, seafood and even Chinese, Thai and Indian food as long as the spices are not turned up too hot. Can also go with strawberries and cream at dessert. La Bastide Saint Dominique – Beaumes de Venise dessert wine – lightly fortified Muscat from the Southern Rhône, sweet but not cloying, this wine often pleasantly surprises people who feel that dessert wines are too sweet and unsophisticated. Serve slightly chilled. This wine is great for a cheese course or lighter desserts. Southern Rhône red added to the tasting: La Bastide Saint Dominique Côtes Du Rhône red ’07 – 80% Grenache, 20% Syrah, some of the the last bottles from a great vintage, medium bodied, berries and black pepper on the nose, red berries on the palate, mild tannins. Another versatile food wine. Great for red meat on the grill, pasta with red sauce and even pizza. Cheers!

The list could be pretty long but I will throw out a few things. This is not exactly authoritative and hopefully others will chime in but I will give it a shot. White Sancerre = Sauvignon Blanc Red Sancerre = Pinot Noir White Touraine usually Chenin blanc, or Sauvignon blanc Southern Rhone reds have eleven (I think) varietals to choose from but they are usually a blend of Grenache, Syrah, Mouvedre (GSM). The rest of the varietals include Cinsault, and Carignane. Southern Rhone whites have ten varietals (I think) to choose from, including Granache blanc, Viognier . and Clairette blanc Northern Rhone red - mostly 100% Syrah Northern Rhone white - Marsanne, Rousanne, blend, others are 100% Viognier Cahors - Malbec, usually blended with something else such as Merlot and Tanat Muscadet = Melon de Bourgogne Alsace, usually 100% varietal, Reisling, Pinot Gris etc. Champagne can use these varietels - Chardonnay, Pinot Noir and Pinot Meunier, Bordeaux usually Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon blends but can also include Cab Franc sometimes Malbec and others that I can't think of right now Like I said, the list could go on and on. The AOC rules are pretty comprehensive. Cheers!

I am a sales rep for Simon N Cellars. I cover Montgomery County and DC. I am always looking to originate new business. So please contact me if you you are a retailer or restaurant and you want to schedule a tasting. After months of mostly lurking I decided, at Don's suggestion, to post the availability of Simon N Cellars' wines. As some of you know, Simon N Cellars is a Charlottesville based importer and distributor of boutique, limited production wines. Simon N Cellars is owned by French ex pat Didier Simonin so most of the portfolio is French. But Simon N Cellars also carries Linden Vineyards from Virginia as well as Tantara from California and Medici from Oregon. The wines are all hand crafted. Simon N Cellars, with a few exceptions, has a direct, personal relationship with everyone who makes every drop of wine that is in the Simon N Cellars portfolio. I am still assembling the data, so this list is not comprehensive, but it includes most places where the wines can be found in DC and all of Montgomery County. Also here is a Google Maps directory. DC Ace Beverage Adour Bistro Francais Bistrot Lepic and Wine Bar Brasserie Beck Calvert Woodley Fine Wines & Spirits Central Michel Richard Charlie Palmer Steak Chevy Chase Wine & Spirits Circle Wine & Liquor Cleveland Park Liquor Connecticut Avenue Wine & Liquor Deli Cork and Fork Courduroy Cowgirl Creamery Dickson Wine Bar Et Voila! Kinkead's Restaurant La Chaumiere Le Chat Noir MacArthur Beverages P & C Market Pesce Restaurant Potomac Wines and Spirits Proof Rasika Schneider's of Capitol Hill The Jefferson Hotel The Latham Hotel The Wine Specialist The Wine Specialist Wagshal's Market Willard Intercontinental Zola Restaurant MD Bezu Bistro Provence Cork and Fork Grapeseed Rays the Classics VA Chef Geoff's Tysons Cork and Fork Inn At Little Washington Ray's The Steaks Cheers!

Great, I will do it now. Thanks, Justin

In the shameless self promotion department (I represent the importer/distributor Simon N Cellars), the white is a wine of the month for June at Chevy Chase Wine & Spirits. It is also available at Wagshal's. The red is at Cork & Fork in Bethesda. Cheers!

I had Hop Pocket Ale on tap at Hard Times Bethesda last Friday 4/23/10. Hard Times has always been a supporter of Tuppers. Incredibly, it was only $1.00 as they have a late night happy hour there. It was only about 8:00PM. I guess that qualifies as late here in wild and crazy Bethesda. It is ordinarily $5.50 per pint which I think is still an OK price. My bill for a beer and a bowl of chili was under $9.00. I was pleasantly surprised. The other craft beers on tap I think were $4.50 regularly. The beer was great. I do not keep notes but it seemed to be pretty much the same as it used to be. Three cheers for Bob, Ellie and Hard Times. All locals who are doing good things.

Bethesda location closed within the last few days. Won't be missed by me. I used to like it for cheap eats when I was single then with the kids but haven't been there since Thompson Hospitality bought it and the menu changed. Anyway, it is a nice space in an excellent location across from Jaleo and a few doors up where Wiedmaier's new fish place is going in on Woodmont in the fancy part of Bethesda. Another restaurant will probably give it a shot. Rent there is still sky high from what I hear through the grapevine and perhaps the high rent played a part in the decision to close Austin Grill. The location is not listed on the web site anymore.

I second the Gruet advice. I see it everywhere around here. I just attended a 40th birthday party in Southern California. I recommended Greut to a co-host who knows more about wine than I do. He bought a case and it went over very well. People thought it was great. I think it was $12.99 per bottle out there at BevMo which is like Total Beverage.

Giant at White Oak has had a beer and wine license for a very long time. Way back when they originally obtained the beer and wine license, chains were permitted to have beer and wine licenses. After they got the beer and wine license, the legislature wrote a new law that said chains were prohibited from having beer,wine and liquor licenses. So this one Giant and a Safeway in Briggs Chaney were allowed to keep theirs, i.e. grandfathered in. Trader Joe's, a chain - is a relative newcomer and they can not get a beer and wine license. Snider's on the other hand is not a chain. As an independent it can have a beer and wine license. I am not sure about Rodman's (two MD locations and one DC all with beer and wine). My hunch is that the ownership is structured such that they are all independent. Incidentally, the ban on chains applies to all of Maryland. That's why Total Beverage, with its corporate office in Potomac, MD, has no stores in Maryland. Somehow, they seem to own a Corridor Wine & Spirits in Laurel and another place which I think is in White Marsh, Baltimore County. I assume this is done legally through different ownership structures.

Maybe a little off topc but . . . I just bought a product called Private Preserve – www.winepreserve.com. It was recommended to me by a retailer in DC. It is a little early for me to tell whether or not it works as advertised but so far I am satisfied. The reviews on Amazon are pretty positive. I am very weak at science so I can't really explain how it works other than to say that it is a spray that seems to put a blanket of inert gas on top of the liquid which prevents the liquid from getting exposed to oxygen. It costs around $8.00 – 9.00 per bottle and I think it is worth a try.

I have not had it recently. I had the pale ale and stout when they first came out as I am always looking for good canned beer. Butternut seem to bee too focused on the marketing with the silly name and Monty Pythonesque web site. Wacky marketing is OK with me when there is substance a la Dogfish Head, but I found these beers not to be very good. I don't have notes and it has been a while. However, I am not alone based on the postings I have seen here and at other sites. Oskar Blues is arguably the leader of the pack in canned micro beer but there are many good ones out there such as Sea Hag and 21st Amendment, all available locally . For what it's worth, macro brews Guinness and Beamish in cans are both pretty good as are some other Europeans such as Boddington's and Speckled Hen.

Growlers are illegal in DC. Other than DC I get them all over the place. I keep about six empties around the house. The brewpubs all have different and seemingly inconsistent rules about filling growlers. For example, Rock Bottom requires Rock Bottom growlers. I have gone back and forth on this with their home office and it boils down to a lable/legal issue. In other words what's written on the growler must match what's in the growler. So Rock Bottom won't put their beer in a Gordon Biersch growler. Rock Bottom also does not put its seasonals in growlers I think because they are limited production beers and management wants the beers to stick around as long as possible. Also, a few retailers sell growlers from kegs, the only one that comes to mind is in Charlottesville but I think there are some closer in. Other places that sell growlers in no particular order: Franklin's in Hyattsville, Rock Bottom Bethesda and Shirlington, Growler's in Gaithersburg, Gordon Biersch Tyson's and Rockville, Cap City Shirlington, Sweetwater - Sterling, Merrifield, Centreville, Blue & Gray Fredericksburg, Dogfish Head, Rehoboth and the Baltimore places already mentioned. There are many more - register at www.ratebeer.com and you can find just about everywhere in the country that sells growlers. Cheers!

My trip with wine was quite easy. I used a suitcase with hard sides. I used the suitcase instead of a box because suitcases have handles and wheels. I used a combination of cardboard inserts from wine boxes - the kind that are in the shape of bottles - and bubble wrap to pack a mixed case of wine. It was just a regular checked bag. When I opened the bag there was one of those form letters from the TSA saying that the bag was inspected.