Wines

I opened this bottle, poured out a glass of the deep garnet Syrah and got a whiff of sun-baked hillside, dark berries and wild herbs. The taste is redolent of spice and blackberries, smoke and something brambly and wild. A close but less glamorous cousin of Hermitage, the 2009 Crozes Hermitage "Les Jalets" from Jaboulet is made from 25-year-old vines. The grapes come mostly from "Les Jalets" vineyard, named after the old French word for the pebbles left by Alpine glaciers. FOR THE RECORD: Wine of the Week: In the April 20 Saturday section, the Wine of the Week review of the 2009 Paul Jaboulet Aine Crozes Hermitage "Les Jalets" gave an incorrect phone number for Monopole Wine in Pasadena.

Susan Brink O'Flaherty is the wine director for both Dominick's in WeHo and Little Dom's in Los Feliz, and for Tom Bergin's Tavern . She opened Venokado wine shop in West Hollywood in 2008 and a second location with a tasting room in Santa Monica in May. A former manager at A.O.C., she caught the wine bug there. "A Cruvinet and 50 different wines a day? It was really fun and opened up my mind. " You can find her at Dominick's on Tuesdays and Little Dom's on Thursdays when she selects wines to showcase for the evening's wine flights.

The sale and purchase of foie gras has been illegal in California since July 1, but a couple of Orange County chefs say they have found a legal way to continue serving the French delicacy. Noah Blom of Arc in Costa Mesa and Amar Santana of Broadway by Amar Santana in Laguna Beach are drawing the ire of the animal rights group PETA for serving fattened duck liver. People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has sent letters to the chefs threatening legal action. Santana was offering customers a glass of wine for $55, with a free side of foie gras.

Former Royal/T and Test Kitchen chef Sandra Cordero's catering company Cordero Negro is teaming up with ART from the ashes , a nonprofit using art to support communities affected by natural disasters, for a benefit culinary pop-up and art exhibition featuring works of art from over fifty L.A.-based artists. The Wine Vault in Glendale will be hosting "Comida y Arte," scheduled to kick off on April 25 with an opening reception featuring cocktails and bar bites. On April 26 and 27, Cordero Negro will be serving up a paella party-themed threecourse menu, starting at 6 p.m. The opening reception costs $20 per person and the dinner by Cordero Negro, available on April 26 and 27, is $40 per person.

Raj Parr is one busy guy. In addition to overseeing the wines for all 18 restaurants in the Mina Group , he is a partner in the wine bar RN74 in San Francisco and Seattle, and is involved in two wineries on the Central Coast. That's why he's been spending more time lately in Santa Barbara than San Francisco. With winemaker Sashi Moorman , he founded Sandhi in Lompoc, which produces mostly Chardonnay from the Santa Rita Hills. The two just acquired the old Evening Land property there, where they'll produce estate Pinot Noir under a new name, Domaine de la Côte.

  For anyone who loves a leaner, more elegant style of Chardonnay, this is the one. Liquid Farm proprietors Nikki and Jeff Nelson are going for Chardonnay with less oak influence and lower alcohol. Bingo. That's a recipe for a food-friendly wine, and with the help of winemakers Brandon Sparks-Gillis and John Dragonette of Dragonette Cellars, they're making this terrific Chardonnay from Santa Rita Hills grapes. I love its minerality, the sharp, fresh scent of citrus and, well, grape that comes through loud and clear.

Do San Francisco in style before heading out on a Princess cruise to Alaska's Inside Passage. Uncommon Journeys offers the 10-night cruise with pre-boarding extras: tours of Napa Valley wineries and the city while spending three nights at the Westin St. Francis Hotel. I like this offer for the three-day pre-trip itinerary, and the fact you don't have to go to Seattle or Vancouver , Canada, to board. Elegant Alaska , as the trip is called, also features a welcome dinner at the Presidio Social Club along with a day of wine tastings in the Napa Valley and a day touring San Francisco.

Dim Sum Crawl: Chinatown's Dim Sum Crawl is scheduled to take place on April 18 from 6:30 to 9:30 p.m. The crawl will include dim sum from four different restaurants, including Empress Pavilion, Mandarin Chateau, Hop Woo and Plum Tree Inn, and beer pairings which will be provided by local breweries. Tickets, available online , purchased before Sunday are $50 per person and after that will be sold for $60 per person. www.chinatownla.ticketbud.com/dimsumcrawl . Eagle Rock Brewery dinner at Muddy Leek: On Wednesday, Chef Whitney Flood of Muddy Leek in Culver City is teaming up with Eagle Rock Brewery for a five-course tasting menu to be paired with the brewery's craft beers.

Wine sales in the United States, including California vintages, reached a record high last year, jumping 2%  compared with 2011. Sales totaled 360.1 million cases with an estimated retail value of $34.6 billion, according to the Wine Institute, a San Francisco trade group. Sales of California wines accounted for 58% of the U.S. business. The Golden State shipped 250.2 million  9-liter cases, worth $22 billion, to U.S. and foreign customers. "The U.S. is the largest wine market in the world, with 19 consecutive years of volume growth," Wine Institute President Robert P. Koch said.

That bottle of Bordeaux you put aside may become even rarer in the next few decades as climate change could reduce wine grape production in traditional parts of the world and move it elsewhere, researchers say. Danish Cabernet, anyone? Wine grape production's sensitivity to climate makes it a good test case for what could happen over the next several decades. And the land suitable for viticulture in current major wine producing regions could be reduced by 20% to 70% by 2050, depending on the amount of greenhouse gases produced, the researchers said this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.