Designing a Wine List for Different Restaurant Scenes

It might be easy to imagine away, with the pull of a cork or two, all the work it takes to be Wine Director for the Toscana Group's restaurants Toscana and Bar Toscana in Brentwood, and SY Kitchen in Santa Ynez. But first you have to account for the years of study. For Emily Johnston, the person who is that Wine Director, that meant studying French and Italian in college, then wine at ALMA Scuola Internazionale di Cucina's Wine Academy in Parma, Italy. As she puts it, "There's a lot of work that goes behind putting together and maintaining a wine list, from spread sheets to inventory. It's not just sitting around under the sun drinking wine."

Want to read the rest then do so at KCET's Food Blog.

Two Gentlemen of Verona

Mixologist Alberto Battaglini hadn’t seen Chef Luca Crestanelli in nearly a decade, since back when they attended the same culinary school in Verona, Italy, where they both are from. “It was my second night in Los Angeles, and I walked in to a new job at Bar Toscana, and there was Luca,” Battaglini recalls. “We were like, ‘Whoa!’ Somehow we both ended up there at the same time.”

Want to read the rest then do so at the Indy's site.