Next Stop the Pasta Shoppe

“Fresh pasta versus box pasta — the difference is night and day,” says Diane Harding, owner of The Pasta Shoppe (38 W. Victoria St., [805] 770-3668, thepastashoppellc.com) in the Santa Barbara Public Market. “People come in and buy our pasta from Corona del Mar, Santa Monica, Thousand Oaks, and all say, ‘You have to open something by us!’”

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Dolin Malibu Estate: Vines with a View

Elliott Dolin, proprietor of Dolin Malibu Estate Vineyards, is a man for whom all the wrongs seem to turn right. Back in the day when he was a bass player, he was in the Manhattan Transfer before they had a recording contract. Then he moved to Nashville, where the jobs were, only to shortly head out to LA -- "the promised land," as he puts it, "of great weather, cars, the ocean, the Beach Boys" -- just when all the session musicians moved to Nashville. You know, where the work was.

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The Good Lion Roars into Town

If learning that The Good Lion takes its name from a Hemingway children’s story about a lion that prefers scampi and Negronis instead of fresh kill doesn’t charm you, the bar itself certainly will. Opened last month by recently transplanted Angelenos Brandon and Misty Ristaino inside the Granada building where Marquee used to be, The Good Lion (1212 State St., (310) 770-0899, facebook.com/TheGoodLionBar) exudes old-world charm and ease. But it’s also “Santa Barbara market fresh and seasonal,” said Brandon, adding, “what an amazing market town this is.”

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Celebrate Repeal Day By Learning About California's Wine History

Like Thanksgiving, Mardi Gras, and the Opening of Buck Season in Pennsylvania, December 5, aka Repeal Day should be one of our nation's great holidays. After all, the demise of the 18th Amendment, also known as the Volstead Act, also known as Prohibition, brought an end to 13 (sort of) dry years for our country. Alas, what Prohibition wreaked on California's wine industry reverberated for at least 40 more years (that the era fell between WWI and WWII, and so many fell then, too, of course didn't help matters). But here's one fact that will prove it took decades for an industry to recover from Prohibition: it wasn't until 1967 when table wine finally surpassed dessert wine in volume sales in the U.S.

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Tercero Verbiage Blanc

Tercero Verbiage Blanc 2013: The back label of Larry Schaffer’s latest white Rhone blend claims, “I love to talk—a lot! I also love to make wine—a lot!” After tasting it you’ll say you love Verbiage Blanc—a lot!

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Zinfandel, The Only American Wine Grape

It's fitting that zinfandel is often considered the only true American grape, as the wines made from it are brash, big, bold, sometimes verging on port in their ripeness, sugar, and alcohol levels. November 19 is National Zinfandel Day and while no doubt there's National Name Something a Day Day by now, zinfandel deserves its moment in the sun, especially in fall when bigger wines are even more welcome as the mercury drops. Plus it's not a bad match for Thanksgiving, either (it's one of the few wines that can stand up to cranberry sauce, for instance). So here's a little explainer about this somewhat misunderstood varietal.

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Sip This: Beehive Jack Rabbit Gin

Beehive Distilling Jack Rabbit Gin: Rose is a rose is a rose is a gin is one way to think of this small batch product from Utah, the first legal gin from the state in almost 150 years.

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