{"id":27705,"date":"2021-12-07T11:46:18","date_gmt":"2021-12-07T19:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/hi-lo\/?p=30000023768"},"modified":"2022-02-10T15:22:02","modified_gmt":"2022-02-10T23:22:02","slug":"the-wine-beach-brings-the-best-of-the-central-coast-to-belmont-shore","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/hi-lo\/food\/the-wine-beach-brings-the-best-of-the-central-coast-to-belmont-shore","title":{"rendered":"The Wine Beach brings the best of the Central Coast to Belmont Shore"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you\u2019re into wine, and you\u2019re into road trips, then chances are you\u2019ve gotten up early, relying on the protective powers of your coffee to guide you safely as you get in your car and take the 405 north through LA, and then up the 101 as you head to wine country.<\/p>\n

Why drive all the way to the Central Coast for wine when you can go to a wine store in town? Because it\u2019s there that you can buy wines that often you can\u2019t buy in stores. Truly special bottles that are made by people with purple hands, pink faces, and stories that can bring you to tears; people who grew the grapes and squished them personally. And the very fact that you\u2019ve found this hideaway means that each time you open a bottle, you\u2019re going to tell a story of your own.<\/p>\n

Jodi Meade and Deb Jarrett understand that, and now they\u2019re making that drive for you. They\u2019re bringing all of those hidden gems into their shop where you can taste them, buy them to bring home, open them up to drink there, or save them in your personal temperature-controlled locker.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are personal friends of most of these labels that we\u2019re carrying \u2014 these winemakers and vineyard owners \u2014 we have personal relationships with them and they are ecstatic that we are bringing them down to Southern California,\u201d Jodi Meade tells me as we wander through the first wave of their wine selection.<\/p>\n

On Dec. 4, the couple opened their Belmont Shore wine shop, The Wine Beach,\u00a0 at 5351 Second St., and are already stocked with an impressive array of obscure, small production wines from the Central Coast with a focus on Paso Robles, Lodi, and Santa Ynez at the moment.<\/p>\n

\"\"
A wall of wine at The Wine Beach. Photo by Matt Miller.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

What sets The Wine Beach apart from any other place to buy wine in Long Beach is they really know what they\u2019re talking about. You don\u2019t have to worry about asking for wine pairing advice, worried that you won’t figure out if the person giving you the advice actually knows what they\u2019re talking about until it\u2019s too late, because they both have very extensive backgrounds with wine.<\/p>\n

Jodi Meade\u2019s family owned a vineyard and she has been around the nuts and bolts of wine her entire life. And Deb Jarrett is actually a level 3 sommelier (out of four levels of expertise).<\/p>\n

What does level three mean, exactly?\u00a0 A sommelier\u2019s job is to understand wine, and most importantly, know exactly how to pair it to whatever you\u2019re eating. And the amount of knowledge needed to become a high-level sommelier can be quite staggering.<\/p>\n

For example: Becoming a level one sommelier is essentially the same as sitting down at the DMV, reading the rules of the road booklet, and then taking the written driver’s license test. The knowledge for a level two sommelier is equivalent to watching your favorite movie until you can quote it, know every scene, and all the movie trivia \u2014 an impressive party trick, but certainly obtainable for anyone with an interest. A level three sommelier needs to be able to recite John Steinbeck\u2019s “Grapes of Wrath,” and “East of Eden,” verbatim, and in any chapter order. And a level four (master level) sommelier needs to be able to memorize and intimately understand \u2026. well, let\u2019s just say a master \u201csomm\u201d is somewhere between Yoda and Google.<\/p>\n

Which brings me to another reason The Wine Beach is a special place: This wine shop has a full kitchen. And Jarrett and Meade are designing the rotating menus themselves specifically so the foods coming out of the kitchen are already paired to the wines they\u2019re featuring.<\/p>\n

\u201cStarting in the beginning of the year we\u2019ll have a passport,\u201d Jarrett says, speaking of their forthcoming wine dinner series. \u201cSay we\u2019re hosting Italy: We\u2019ll have four Italian wines for a sit-down dinner, and we\u2019ll host you from the beginning with their whites, through to their reds.\u201d So you\u2019ll get a chance to understand, not just what makes Old World wine so special, but how food and wine work together.<\/p>\n

In addition to international wine dinners, they\u2019ll be hosting winemaker dinners (which if you haven\u2019t ever been to a sommelier paired wine dinner, you really need to put this on your bucket list \u2014 it will change the way you eat forever) where you\u2019ll be meeting the winemaker, go through a tasting, and have a prix fixe dinner during which the winemaker will be talking about their wines, as you dine to a specially paired menu.<\/p>\n

The series will kick off in the new year by hosting a \u201cwomen winemakers of the year\u201d dinner series, January through March.<\/p>\n

Also unique is their wine club ($65 per month for two bottles: red\/red, white\/white, or red\/white). On the first Sunday of every month, wine club members are invited to taste the wines and make their selection from the wines being featured, which is great if you\u2019re the type who likes to know what you\u2019re buying before you buy it.<\/p>\n

And, unlike most wine stores that have a wine club, the club wines are so special that they will remain exclusively for wine club members only and will never be offered to the general public.<\/p>\n

In addition to the tastings, and wine dinners, and wine club, they will also be offering 16 wines by the glass, eight white and eight red, at the bar, a selection that will change every week. (And you can grab a glass of wine to-go too if you\u2019re heading across the street to the beach \u2014 but you can\u2019t drink on the beach \u2026 that\u2019s illegal.)<\/p>\n

The really cool thing about small production wine is that it\u2019s more than just a bottle of wine, it\u2019s a summer captured in a bottle. It\u2019s wildfires and rains, heatwaves and droughts, sunny days and foggy nights all trapped in those grapes, trapped in that bottle, creating flavors that no mass-produced grocery store wine can ever imitate.<\/p>\n

\u201cHave a great glass of wine, don\u2019t be intimidated, because it\u2019s about enjoying a glass and hearing the story,\u201d Meade said. \u201cWe just like to take the scary out of wine.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Wine Beach, 5351 Second St. Instagram: @thewinebeach<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The really cool thing about small production wine is that it\u2019s more than just a bottle of wine, it\u2019s a summer captured in a bottle. It\u2019s wildfires and rains, heatwaves and droughts, sunny days and foggy nights all trapped in those grapes, trapped in that bottle.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":71831,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[31988,31965,72],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[31936],"class_list":["post-27705","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-food","tag-mattmiller","tag-the-wine-beach","tag-wine","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27705","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/71831"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27705"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=27705"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lbpost.com\/esd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=27705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}