I am a new member. My wife and I have lived in the Logan Circle area for the last three years and in McLean for the previous 13 years. We are serious foodies and enophiles. I am an accomplished amateur home cook. We love being able to walk to restaurants in our hood and beyond. Particularly in the warm weather, we frequently walk as far as Dupont Circle, Penn Quarter, and the U Street corridor. We are particularly excited about all the new restaurant activities around Logan Circle. We keep a running wine collection of about 200 bottles at any one time. We own a 20-acre vineyard in Lake County, CA, which is about an hour northwest over Cobb Mountain from Calistoga in Napa. We grow Riesling and Pinot Gris and sell the grapes. Prager Portworks out of St. Helena makes a single-vineyard Late Harvest Riesling, 2006 Sweet Claire, exclusively from our grapes. Our grapes are in the yet-to-be released 2007, and they will be making another single-vineyard Sweet Claire for the 2008 from our grapes. The vineyard and my wife's work enable us to travel to some wonderful destinations for business and pleasure. We try to get out to CA at least 3 or 4 times a year and in the past few years have traveled to South Africa, Chile, Paris, Tuscany, Istanbul, Thailand, and Cambodia. We are planning our first trip to Provence in September.
I have frequently made postings on the usual suspects, Zagat, Washington Post, and Washingtonian, and am looking forward to participating in the don rockwell experience.
Cheers,
Robert Mandel
