NEWS
July 5, 2013 | By Rosemary McClure
It's not surprising hotels are unleashing special perks and menus aimed at dog owners. Pet owners are an attractive demographic, last year spending more than $50 billion on their four-legged friends, a 73% increase in the last decade, according to Dillon Media, a marketing strategy firm. The biggest spenders were people who don't have kids at home - the kind of traveler who can stay longer and spend more. Although dog menus are still a rarity in U.S. hotels, they're a growing trend.
NEWS
June 25, 2013 | By Mary Forgione, Los Angeles Times Daily Deals and Travel Blogger
"A Parent's Guide to the Coast Redwoods" singles out seven great California parks where families can see the quintessential state giants up close. When to go, where to go and what to do when you get there are covered in the free guide, which you can download online. The deal: The all-color digital guide by the Save the Redwoods League provides the kid-friendly key to touring and enjoying coastal redwood groves. You could find all of this information elsewhere, but the guide distills what you need to know and collects it in an easy format.
ENTERTAINMENT
July 24, 2011 | By Russ Parsons, Los Angeles Times
An Ideal Wine One Generation's Pursuit of Perfection — and Profit — in California David Darlington Harper: 356 pp., $26.99 The California wine business is full of contradictions. Little wonder. On the one hand, the industry cultivates an image of wine being an almost accidental beverage, a product of a munificent nature that takes ripe fruit from sun-dappled vineyards and somehow, magically, transforms it into a liquid symphony that can ennoble not only those who consume it but also those who make it. On the other, it is a ruthless, cutthroat business, one that accounts for more than $18 billion in sales every year — 80% of which goes through fewer than a dozen large corporations.
FOOD
June 30, 2011 | By S. Irene Virbila, Los Angeles Times
Mount Eden Vineyards Estate Chardonnay is consistently one of the finest from California. But this one from the winery's Saratoga line — designed to showcase the Santa Cruz Mountain terroir — is a real find at this price. The fruit is right there in the first sip. Light on the oak, the 2007 Saratoga Chardonnay carries a gentle lilt of citrus and a touch of anise. Like its big brother, it is Burgundian in style, grace in a glass. Bring it to a dinner party as a ringer: It could be mistaken for a very expensive bottle.
CALIFORNIA | LOCAL
May 23, 2008 | John M. Glionna and Steve Chawkins, Times Staff Writers
A wind-driven wildfire raged through an area of the Santa Cruz Mountains on Thursday, destroying at least a handful of homes, closing schools and prompting evacuations. The blaze, first reported about 5:30 a.m., had burned through more than 3,000 acres and was 15% contained by Thursday evening, said officials with the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection. The cause was under investigation. A thick cloud of smoke was visible on rural roads as far as 20 miles to the east.
MAGAZINE
April 1, 2007 | Charlie Schroeder, Charlie Schroeder is a Los Angeles-based freelance writer.
On the continuum of things that make no sense to me, spitting good wine into a tin bucket falls somewhere between intelligent design and every David Lynch film I have ever seen. And so, even though "spitters" would crucify me for it during my eight-hour speed-tasting tour of Santa Cruz Mountains wineries, I was determined to drink up. A rising blood alcohol level would help me deal with my friend Rod, who had yet to apologize for abruptly blowing off my East Coast wedding three years earlier.