Wine Adventures with the 2 Dollar Wine Connoisseurs: The Side Door Wine Bar in Mammoth Lakes

We were in Mammoth Lakes for the Thanksgiving weekend and stopped by a cool little wine bar at the area known as The Village.

Wine , Crepes, Paninis, and Fondue are featured at the coolest little wine bar called Side Door Cafe in Mammoth Lakes, CA.  We had stopped the night before for a Christmas Tree lighting with the kids and sat for a few minutes on the outdoor patio area --while the kids had kettle corn.   We knew we had to come back again the next night and check the place out.

We had a nice reasonably priced bottle of Russian River Valley Chardonnay called Pech Merle which was a very good, smooth Chardonnay typical of the Russian River Valley region. We enjoyed some great Swiss Gruyere Cheese Fondue and followed that up with a tasty S'mores Crepe!

The bar itself had a cool jazz/retro feel and was a great place to relax and get out of the cold.  This place is not only a wine bar/ but has a full cocktail menu as well, and in the mornings fronts as a coffee house (which is ideal for a snowy mountain resort).

Here is their website.....If you make it up to the mountains be sure to drop in.

http://www.sidedoormammoth.com/

The village is a really cool area that features lodging, shopping and restaurants.  They have fun outdoor games and fire pits that really brings an Aspen like feel to Mammoth Lakes.

http://villageatmammoth.com/

Follow our Facebook page below

https://www.facebook.com/2dollarwineconnoisseur

It's 5 O'clock somewhere --Just not at the 5 O'clock Wine Bar?

After our mishap with a Living Social deal for a place near the beach called The View (which had closed after being open only a few months) – we were able to cash in that unused coupon with Living Social for a new deal at a place called The Five O’Clock Wine Bar down in the Alamitos Bay Marina area of Long Beach. We had been there before when it had a different name after dinner one night, and had enjoyed the chocolate fondue. 

Well the name changed and so did our experience. The place was super crowded when we arrived as an annoying Art/wine class was going on. The art class was crowded and the instructor sounded drunk –so we decided to sit away from the loaded art class and in an obscure alcove area located next to the broken ATM machine.

The Living Social deal was for a wine Flight and a shared appetizer which we thought would be a good start to the evening and then we expected to order more. The wine flight itself was nice, but the cheese plate was tiny and looked like something I could throw together myself with scraps from the fridge and we weren’t even given utensils to spread the cheese on the meager offering of crackers. 

  After the wine flight we waited awhile for our waitress to return hoping to order another glass of wine and maybe something more substantial to eat. We waited quite awhile as the annoying mood ruining art class rambled on and our waitress never returned.  We finally decided we should go inside to see if we could order something else. The interior area was now fairly empty – our waitress was nowhere to be found so we walked up to the counter and stood there ignored by the staff , which seemed more content on chit chatting with their friends than serving customers.   We stood there waiting for several more minutes until what we assumed was an owner walked out (she appeared to be drunk herself!!). She then proceeded to tell the waitress  “ I want you to leave –because I don’t want to pay you for tonight…..go ahead and just talk with your friends” . We sadly agreed the staff was slacking off, but the owner/manager should have pulled her into the back room and should not have canned her in front of the customers, (Very Unprofessional) which she herself proceeded to ignore as we stood there getting no service for several more minutes as she (The Owner/Manager) then sat chit chatting with her own elderly friends. We walked outside and agreed that we should definitely go somewhere else, since apparently no one here was interested in serving us.

It was like an episode of Kitchen Nightmares. It would be fun to own a wine bar, but if you are going to own one.   
Rule 1: Hire good staff.  
Rule 2: Don’t use owning a wine bar as an excuse to drink your own inventory while at work and inappropriately fire the bad staff you hired in front of the customers.
Rule 3:  Actually serve your customers.   The customers shouldn’t have to seek you out to get service and after doing so still get ignored , because you are too drunk to notice them.

Apparently you need to get to the 5 O'clock wine bar at 5 O'clock before the staff gets too drunk to care about the customers.

Our Facebook page is here

https://www.facebook.com/2dollarwineconnoisseur

The Red Barrel - The best little Wine Bar in Long Beach CA that you may not know about yet.

As we reported previously we were really excited when a wine bar opened up in our neighborhood.   Having visited the Red Barrel several times now  and our love for it keeps growing (along with their selection of wines).  Our favorite Chardonnay at the Red Barrel had been the American Wine Company Chardonnay ---but now they have added one of our favorites from another great place 320 Main in Seal Beach called Snapdragon.  We got lucky enough to stumble in on Tuesday evening which is currently  All-Day Happy Hour so the Snapdragon was only $5 a glass.  We are also looking forward to someday making it in on a Friday or Saturday night when they have live musical entertainment.

The service is always excellent no matter which waitress is there.  They are all very attentive and friendly.

 The food has been outstanding each time we have gone.  The menu has expanded since our first visit and all of the new items we have tried have been great.  This time around we ordered Flatbreads.  The Italian Hawaiian was perfect and the four cheese one was tasty as well.   

Just this past Tuesday we met up with some friends and this time
we tried the Kobe Beef Sliders with Applewood Smoked Bacon andBlue Cheese, and liking the flatbreads as much as we do, we gave the Margherita Flatbread a try. We loved them both!! 

 Check out the Red Barrel and visit often….we want this place to thrive and be around for a long time.

Follow our Facebook page below

https://www.facebook.com/2dollarwineconnoisseur

Check out their facebook page here.....

https://www.facebook.com/theredbarrel?fref=ts

Next time we will discuss our Guide to some  of the Wine Bars of Long Beach

Seattle Wine Adventure

We went to  Seattle for a weekend wedding in September.   It was a busy weekend of wedding rehearsals, rehearsal dinners, weddings and receptions.   We did have some free time the night we arrived that we took full advantage of by walking to a cool wine bar in downtown Seattle.   The place was called the Purple Café and we were impressed!   It has a big metal door, but the rest of the restaurant was all glass windows  that looked out on the city streets.  In the center of the restaurant was a spiral stairway of wine. Very cool!.      We decided to try a White Wine Chardonnay flight with some appetizers  that had three wines.   

 

One wine was from Washington, One from Oregon and  then one from  California. We noticed that the closer we got to California --the better we liked the wines. After our flight we got a reasonably priced bottle of Martin Ray Chardonnay from  (you guessed it) the Russian River Valley. This wine was excellent and is right up there with Hanna as one of our favorites. Buttery, Smooth and delicious.   I joked that my wife should write an ode to Martin Ray  

like I did to Hanna.

(Here is our Hanna blog)
http://2dollarwineconnoisseur.blogspot.com/2012/07/ode-to-wine-named-hannaour-favorite.html

While researching a future trip to the Russian River Valley---It turns out these 2 wineries are literally neighbors.

 Here is the Purple Cafe's website ...Definitely worth a visit if you go to Seattle.
http://www.thepurplecafe.com/

Our Facebook page is here https://www.facebook.com/2dollarwineconnoisseur

Wine Adventures with the 2 Dollar Wine Connoisseurs: The View at 1900 : The shortest Wine Bar Review Ever

The View at 1900 in Long Beach

(This was the view we were looking forward to)

We got a Living Social Groupon for Easter for a good deal at a brand new wine bar in Downtown Long Beach called The View at 1900.  It looked really nice online.  It had  a  sunset view overlooking the ocean with a good menu and the new wine machines, the kinds that work when you buy a card and then sample a whole bunch of wines. So I got off extra early from work and we drove on down there only to find out that it had already shutdown. Shutdown??  But it supposedly just opened. We don’t know  why or how it just wasn’t there anymore. It had just opened in March of this year 2014 but was already closed by May of 2014, with no explanation when we tried to redeem our Groupon??

We're  wondering if the location which was in a residential apartment tower doomed it.  They probably did the Living Social Deal to build awareness---but apparently not enough people showed up?  Who knows?   

So if you have a Living Social coupon for this place get a refund now and save yourself the drive.

Our Facebook page is here https://www.facebook.com/2dollarwineconnoisseur

Wine of the Week: J Vineyard Chardonnay

Our Wine of the Week is this Russian River Valley Chardonnay that we picked up at BevMo. We couldn't find several of our favorite Chardonnays (like Hanna) so we decided to try something new. That's when we came across this gem of a Chardonnay which we found to be a tasty wine with notes of pear and vanilla. It has more of an acidic finish to it than the buttery finish that we like so much but it was definitely worth the purchase. This wine was a bit of a splurge as we normally try to keep our wine reviews to our favorite finds under $15 (This wine ran us about $24) but we felt is was a good find and worth the time for our review. 

Just like most good Chardonnay's this wine would pair well with a light chicken or turkey dinner, personally I think it would be fantastic served along side a  homemade Chicken Fettuccine Alfredo or even a good cured meat & cheese plate! 

Our Facebook page is here https://www.facebook.com/2dollarwineconnoisseur

Wine of the week: Handsome Devil Cabernet Sauvignon

My husband told me that they finally named a wine after him (lol).  He may have his mistress Hanna  (Chardonnay) --- but now I have my Handsome Devil.   I'm normally a Chardonnay girl myself, but this Handsome Red Devil is hard to resist.   He is a smooth and charming  Cab with no bitter aftertaste that has a hints of  cherry and vanilla.  This fellow has quickly become one of my new favorites.   It can be found  at your local Target and is our choice for wine  of week.


Our Facebook page is here https://www.facebook.com/2dollarwineconnoisseur

Wine Adventures with the 2 Dollar Wine Connoisseurs: A New Wine Bar in our Neighborhood The Red Barrel in Long Beach

A new wine bar within walking distance from our house???  Yep it has finally happened.  A wine bar in the neighborhood that we could actually walk to.  Earlier this week a friend of ours posted a picture on Facebook from a Wine bar in Long Beach.  It turns out that it is right around the corner from our home.  So we anxiously headed over there the first chance we had to check it out.  

The place is called the Red Barrel and it is located  near the intersection of  Ximeno and Atherton in Long Beach, CA. It sits in an odd spot between a Baskin Robbins and a laundromat.  They are so new that they didn't even have permanent signage yet, but the inside is really nice and immediately makes you forget where you are.  They have nice ambiance and the decor includes wine artwork created by the owner herself, and the kind of music you would expect in a nice wine bar.  

The staff was extremely friendly. We loved our waitress Emily, she was outstanding!! Not to mention this place has some really good food. We shared a Grilled Cheese Panini with Maple bacon and a Margarita Flat bread pizza, all of the food was made fresh and did we mention it was delicious. The wine we  tried included  Black Stallion Estate -which was a 2012 Chardonnay that had a crisp apple taste to it.  We also tried a wine called American Wine Company Chardonnay from 2012, this one was from Sonoma and had the buttery taste that we love.  Both wine and food choices were exceptional and we just can't wait to go back again!! So we just wanted to spread the word and let people know about this great new place in our neck of the woods.

Up next we will talk about a really cool wine bar we visited in Seattle while up there for a wedding in fall of 2013.   Look for that soon and check out our other Wine Adventures.


Our Facebook page is here https://www.facebook.com/2dollarwineconnoisseur

Wine Adventures with the 2 Dollar Wine Connoisseurs: Wine and music in Malibu : Rosenthal Wine Tasting

During the summer of 2013, on our way to a dinner at the Sunset Restaurant in Malibu we stopped for some wine tasting at Rosenthal.   It is located right along Pacific Coast Highway and was a nice find on our way up the coast for a fun day adventure.   A wine tasting room right across the street from the Pacific ocean with some of the coolest ocean and surf inspired labels ever. 

Here are some samples of some of the unique Surfrider labels .

Instead of doing a tasting of a bunch of wines we decided to just select a bottle of Rosenthal Chardonnay  and relax in their nice outdoor seating area and listen to some tunes.  We absolutely loved the outdoor seating area with its tops of  barrels  reused as tables.  The wine was a pleasant smooth Chardonnay and the music was enjoyable.

It was a relaxing afternoon stop on our journey to a delightful beach  dinner.  

Below is one of the bottles that we had to take home with us.

We would definitely recommend a stop at Rosenthal if you are in the Malibu area.

Here is Rosenthal's website......

http://www.rosenthalestatewines.com/visit

Our Facebook page is here https://www.facebook.com/2dollarwineconnoisseur