ALONG COMES MARY

While this weekend found us with countless Labor Day activities, Last week the place to be was in Downtown Los Angeles. For the 5th consecutive year, The LA Food & Wine Festival has ensured its place to become one of the best, & most prestigious, events in the country. In conjunction with Lexus, this 4 day & night long faire gives diners & winos the opportunity to meet some of the top names in the Cuisine world while trying out some of their decadent dishes as well as wines being poured by many of the wine makers themselves.

I absolutely adore a great glass of wine, so, put me in an atmosphere with nearly 100 wineries proudly serving their best varietals? Mary is a happy writer! While covering Friday’s Night Market along Grand Avenue, then returning for Saturday night’s event, I would say that I definitely had a great amount of some of the best wines out, with my favorites being primarily from right here in California.

Saturday night I was extremely excited to be covering LA Food & Wine Festival as they had a very special, intimate concert from one of the most unique bands out there, The Roots. While I was only acquainted with these musical geniuses through Late Night with Jimmy Fallon, where they have been the house band since 2009, I definitely knew that they would not disappoint.

Hitting the stage around 8pm, when this group of 7 men graced the stage, I was immediately struck with the amount of fans surrounded around me; the couple next to me have been attending shows for over 20 years, & told me that no 2 shows of The Roots are alike. Something I look for when searching for live artists. From the moment they began performing, they wasted no time in delivering musical styles that ranged from rap to soul, from hip hop to rock. Especially, as they sampled one of my most favorite Led Zeppelin songs, The Immigrant Song. You truly never know what The Roots will sample, or cover

A huge treat they had in store for us were some solo numbers by Jeremy Ellis. Ellis is best described as a “world-renowned finger drummer, keyboardist, Maschine expert and educator”. If you do not know what the heck “Finger Drumming” entails, look no further than Ellis. This man blew out all the stops as he created beats, loops, strange noises, DJ’s, plays keyboards. He holds the ability to continue blowing your mind after thinking it had already been done watching The Roots.

With all this marvelous mayhem happening before your eyes, you also need just one more essential: Wine! Looking back on my stand out’s, they would have to be Kunin, a wine with a philosophy I take to heart as owner and winemaker Seth Kunin believes: when you open a bottle of Kunin Wine, you can be assured, from vineyard to glass, very little has been done to alter the purity of the fruit or its natural terroir. Kunin has succeeded in their beliefs as I could smell nothing but flowers, fruit & citrus notes as I sipped their wine.

Like Kunin, another Central Coast wine I discovered is Melville. I had a glass of their Pinot Noir that was divine. Bold, with strong notes of cherry & currant. While complete opposite of Kunin’s white I devoured, this Pinot was totally my kind of wine, as I tend to go for the reds.

And, moving away from The Central Coast, Italy’s Tenuta Sant’Antonio crafts elegant wines from 100% estate-grown fruit and is highly regarded for Amarone. It has earned a reputation as a premium and progressive producer of Veneto DOC wines, as well as Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. I got to try out the Chardonnay which combines that infamous rich oak of a Chardonnay with moments of a ripe pear.

All in all, my 2 evenings at The LA Food & Wine Fest were fabulous. Join me next year? xo

(*Disclosure: A very special thank you to The LA Food & Wine for proving me with media credentials. All opinions are my own.)