Dinner and Wine with Old Friends

Full disclosure, for the past 10 days, we have been visiting family and friends in sunny California. We left Connecticut on March 6th, following a winter storm that left us with more snow and arrived in Los Angeles to 80 degree delight. We were there to celebrate my husband's sister's birthday. One of the things that we also did was to get together with my husband's high school friends. We met up with Mary and Paul at another friend's restaurant, Alan Greeley's The Golden Truffle. Alan has owned and run this restaurant for at least 35 years. Through the course of the evening, we learned that Paul was the best man at Alan's wedding. The three men reminisced about the time they went to the desert to ride their truck pulled lawn chair and motorcycle pulled milk carton. I know you can't picture this, so photos are on the way.

We were there during restaurant week so we chose the Prix Fix. We had this Pinot Noir with our appetizers and a crostini that Alan brought out for us. What was nice about The Golden Truffle is that they have half bottles and my husband and I ordered this half bottle of 2012 Windy Oaks Pinot Noir. Tasting this Pinot Noir was very interesting to me because I was in an online class with the son of the owners of Windy Oaks, Spencer Schultz. On their website, I learned that this Pinot Noir is made from a mixture of 5 clones. My husband really the Pinot Noir, he definitely got the California influence, but felt that it was a well balanced wine with fruit and acid and great color. With our meal, we had another half bottle, this time we chose a Gigondas that paired very well with the stuffed grape leaves. Here is a photo of the trio, from left, Paul, Alan and my husband.

Alan regaled us with stories of drinking a 6-liter bottle of La Tache. We basically closed down the restaurant and my husband had a great time recalling high school times with his friends.