Tuesday, September 01, 2009

If it's Tuesday it's AKA Bistro

Tuesday night is a special night for me. It's the night that AKA Bistro in downtown St Helena hosts a local winery and offers a tasting of their wines for $9. Tonight featured wines from a winery that I didn't get the name of. I didn't get the name because the reps of the winery were dicks. Best I could tell without my glasses is that name on the bottle was Halliburon but I am sure I am spelling it wrong.

After I sat down at the bar I was greeted by Robert the owner of AKA as he pointed out that it must be Tuesday because I pledged to him last week that I would be at AKA every Tuesday until the day comes that I have to leave St Helena. He told me that the winery was offering Cabernet Sauvignon from various vintages 2001, 2002, 2004 and 2005. After further discussion with the bartender I found out that I would get 2 pours of 3 ounces each of the wines I chose. So I walked over to the table and asked the reps (one being the winemaker) which of the 4 vintages they recommended. One of the other reps said "You should never ask a winemaker which wine to choose".

What the hell is this guy's problem? Did they not want to sell any wine? Why were these people being dicks?

Well I was here and I wanted to try the wine so I went for the older vintages and got a glass of the 2001 & 2002. The 01 was rather blah but the the 02 had really benefited from bottle age, the tannins had smoothed out but the fruit was still powerful. I enjoyed a sample of a delightful tomato puree soup with a touch of spice with my cabs. I followed this up with a sampling of the 2004 & 2005 vintages (even though they were dicks they still got my business) and paired this with the AKA burger medium rare with bacon. NICE! The 04 & 05 showed their youth and I really thought that tasting the 01 & 02 with the 04 & 05 was a good learning experience as you could tell the significant differences in the young verses the older vintages.

Since I didn't get the name of the winery I can't tell you who they were or where to get their wines which is cool because they were dicks.

I am a big fan of AKA Bistro and I recommend their Reuben sandwich, vegetable pasta and of course the killer burger. If you decide to drop in one Tuesday around 6:30pm feel free to come by and say hi to me at the bar.