Swirl and Mingle

Of all the tastings held at wine retailers around the city, the Friday night soirees at the Wine House are by far the biggest party. Brash and dimly lit, the affairs attract plenty of pretty women and hunky guys. By 6 p.m., there is usually a line of a hundred or so people snaking out the door and down the sidewalk waiting to get in. It’s wine tasting gone MTV.

Of course, crowd enough people into a room and there’s sure to be energy, especially when you add alcohol to the mix. Though not all the 30- and 40-something professionals who make up the bulk of the attendees are single, many are.

“I was telling my mother this might be a good place to meet someone,” said Sara Adler, a 33-year-old nurse who attended January Cab-O-Rama at the popular West Los Angeles wine retailer. “This might be slightly less shallow than going to a bar. Not that going to a bar is a bad thing.”

The Wine House affair is just one of dozens held each week in a city rich with tasting options. We’re a serious wine town in a serious wine state. Make that the wine state. California’s 900 or so wineries produce 90% of all U.S. wine. As for Los Angeles, often maligned by our Northern Californian brethren for our lack of culture and taste, the metropolitan area is the No. 1 wine market not just in California but in the country.

“More wine both in tonnage and in dollars is sold in Los Angeles than in any other city,” says Roger Rogness, general manager of Santa Monica’s Wine Expo shop. “This is also the most exciting and consumer-friendly wine market in the world,” a result, he says, of the vast numbers of retailers and a volatile distribution system. “The moral is, if you’re a consumer in Los Angeles, you can buy extraordinary wine for small money.”

It helps to know a little something about wine to reap the full benefits of being here. And judging by the number of book titles devoted to wine demystification--the “Dummies” and “Idiots” series alone feature half a dozen--it’s safe to say a lot of people feel pretty ignorant when it comes to wine.

This is where tastings come in. Most take place at wine shops, others in restaurants. A mix of socialization, education, commerce and hedonism, the tastings attract everyone from wine novices to mid-level wine connoisseurs. (The hard-core generally prefer to taste in a more rarefied environment.) And they are a relative bargain. The cost to sample five to 20 different wines is usually well under $50, and some are less than $10. Often the price of a single bottle exceeds the total tasting cost.

Not that tastings are the only path to knowledge. There are wine classes, wine books, wine magazines. One could just go on a buying spree and pull a few corks at home. But none of these options is as fun as the informal, organized tasting, which is increasingly popular.

Because Cabernet is such a beloved grape varietal, the January tasting of California Cabs at the Wine House was an especially hot ticket. Quite a few people didn’t even get in. Those who did paid the usual $20 admission fee. In return, they were given a glass, a list of the night’s offerings and nine raffle-style paper tickets, one for each wine being poured. Once they were inside the tasting room, the frenzy began. Some people grabbed a seat at one of the half-dozen banquet tables. (Seating is at a premium here.) Others swarmed the food table.

“You know how it is when something’s free or perceived as such in terms of food,” offered store manager JB Severin, who was policing the display of bread, cheese, salami, quiche and gumbo, trying to discourage hoarding. The majority of attendees made a beeline for the bar. Here, a couple of guys were furiously pouring wine, trying to keep up with the crush of people.

Despite the wait at the bar and the fact that the experts pouring didn’t have much time to talk about the various wines--they were too busy being bartenders--most everyone was in good spirits. Those intent on studying did so on their own, or with friends. Theresa Totani, for instance, a Friday night regular, stood at one corner of the bar swirling and smelling and scribbling notes on her tasting sheet as she tried each wine. “I love tasting wine,” said the 44-year-old self-proclaimed wine connoisseur. “It’s a nice way to end the week.”

On the other side of the room, 26-year-old Michelle Bailey of Long Beach and her friend, Tina Shoepe, 28, debated whether the sweet note in a particular wine was caramel or molasses. “We’re amateurs,” confessed Bailey. “But we aspire to be more,” added Shoepe. They were also soliciting the opinions of those around them. “I don’t know how many times we’ve gone up to people and asked, ‘What do you think?’” said Shoepe. The happy-hour atmosphere encourages this kind of open discussion. “It’s not like the old-style tasting where people are so serious,” said Bailey.

Not everyone, however, was happy. Artist Terry Harper, a hip 58-year-old who made a New Year’s resolution to “learn Shakespeare and wine” and was tipped off to the Friday night tastings by his lawyer, was unimpressed. “It’s more intimate getting your bags checked at LAX,” he said. “This is just a crowded bar. It’s more like a college-type atmosphere. It’s loud, boisterous. This is not a place to learn wine. It’s more sociable than scholastic.” Even the Wine House’s Severin admits the Friday night tastings are mainly social. “A lot of these people could care less that they’re drinking wine,” he said.

There’s slightly more emphasis on learning at the monthly tastings at Beverly Hills’ trendy Reign restaurant, but only slightly. When participants enter the VIP room where the tastings are held, they are handed a pamphlet with descriptions of each wine in the night’s lineup and ample space for note-taking. Pencils are proffered. But few accept. Co-sponsored by Wine Brats, a nonprofit group that spreads the gospel of wine to the under-40 set, these tastings skew a bit younger than those at the Wine House. And while the weeknight event is hardly dressy, it’s clear that many of the guests have taken pains to look sharp. It’s a swanky restaurant. It’s a chic room. Why not?

About 40 people showed up to January’s “How Sweet It Is to Be Sipped by You” event, a tasting of dessert wines, complemented by miniature sweet potato pies, fruit tarts and cheese and crackers. The usual turnout is twice that. Dessert wines just aren’t the draw, of say, Pinot Noirs, at least not on this night. Still, the fruity floral wines were getting high marks.

“I had one that was really light and smooth,” said Angela Harvey, 34, flipping through the pamphlet to recall the name. Harvey was ensconced in a booth with three friends, all members of a book club (perhaps the only book club around with its very own group business card). The foursome was shortly joined by 33-year-old Jacquie Sargent, an outgoing business analyst who was working the room, and whom they had just met. Most groups, however, kept to themselves. Perhaps this is why Shoepe deemed a recent Wine Brat event--one of the occasional tastings the group holds at different venues--”kind of snobby. You have to go with friends. People don’t intermingle.”

In fairness, it depends who shows up on a given night. Certainly the Wine Brats volunteers present at Reign’s dessert tasting made an effort to mingle. And several people did exchange phone numbers. But Shoepe has a point: While big on style, the Reign event was short on warmth.

The Saturday afternoon tastings at Mission Wines in South Pasadena offer a cozier atmosphere. At a Merlot event earlier this year, there were no more than eight people at any one time gathered at the counter in the rear of the boutique shop. Though no big-city tasting can approximate the rich sensory experience of tasting at a winery--surrounded by barrels, the sweet scent of earth in the air, vineyards spilling out in every direction--the gatherings at Mission Wines do at least approximate the comfort level and lack of pretension that characterize the very best wine country tastings.

“This is sort of our Cheers,” said tasting veteran Valerie Hines, 58, between sips of an Australian Merlot. “Some of my best friends are people I met here. It brings together a very diverse group of people with one thing, or actually two things, in common: an appreciation for good food and wine.” Manning the bar on this day was psychology doctoral student and part-time store employee Steve Ball. At other times, it’s a winemaker or winery representative.

Who is pouring can make a huge difference. Having someone explain in easy-to-understand terms the characteristics of a wine and why it exemplifies a certain region is analogous to walking through a museum with a fabulous docent. Ball was a natural. He tailored the information he shared to each individual’s knowledge and interest level and managed to avoid snobbishness altogether.

Alyson Beecher, a 40-ish preschool director from Mount Washington, has been attending the Saturday tastings regularly for about three months. “I can actually hang with the conversation now and not feel stupid,” she said. “When I started, I had zero knowledge. I knew you had red, white and pink wines. Coming here really helped. I learned about different grapes. And we taste wine from all over the world.”

The Saturday afternoon tastings at Santa Monica’s diminutive Epicurus wine shop are equally intimate. But they are best suited to people with at least some prior tasting experience as the wines are tasted blind, or actually, semi-blind. The six wines featured each week are wrapped in brown paper bags and numbered 1 to 6. The same six wines are displayed unwrapped on the counter. So while participants know they are drinking one of these wines, they don’t know which wine is which until the end, when manager Mark Fitzmorris hands over a cheat sheet.

There are compelling reasons for tasting this way, which is why the pros often taste blind. According to Fitzmorris, it ensures “people will enjoy wines based on what they’re tasting versus what they’re seeing.” In other words, all the extraneous factors that might predispose one to liking or disliking a particular wine--the price, the label, etc.--disappear. People are forced to rely on their own palates.

For those without any tasting vocabulary, tasting blind can be daunting. But it can also be liberating. At a January tasting of 1999 California Zinfandels, people freely shared their assessments: “This one’s not too peppery.” “This tastes like raspberry soda.” “Icky.” It quickly became apparent that there was no consensus. The same wine one taster dumped into a bucket another promptly declared his favorite. “I like the most expensive wine,” announced John Castellanos, 40, after reviewing the list. “It never fails.” No sooner did he say this than one woman confided to her friends her consistent knack for selecting the least expensive wine.

The tight space in the rear of Epicurus where the tastings are held is a bit awkward, especially when it fills up. And it usually does, given the friendly $5 price tag. But it’s a surprisingly good feeling, albeit an unfamiliar one, rubbing elbows and chatting with your fellow Angelenos.

“Wine tastings are good from a lot of different angles,” says Anthony Dias Blue, wine and spirits editor at Bon Appetit magazine. “Obviously you’re not going to get the comprehensive knowledge of a course at UCLA. But you’re going to have a good time. ... You’re going to learn something. And you’ll meet some people who have similar interests.”

Of course there’s no proven correlation between wine appreciation and the degree of sophistication you’ll find among those drawn to the sip and mingle scene. However, a night of tasting--with its promise of new and interesting wines--is usually satisfying enough, as Totani’s experience suggests. “Unfortunately, I’ve met some ne’er-do-wells,” she said over a glass of 1999 Pine Ridge Rutherford Cabernet. The wine, on the other hand, she pronounced “outstanding.”

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Leslee Komaiko is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.