The Silk Road of Wine: L'OMBRETTA WINE BAR, SANTA BARBARA, CA

Visiting Santa Barbara for the weekend, we came across this gem: L'Ombretta, a Venetian-style wine bar at the corner of Chapala and Anapamu. The website still has a ways to go, but Venetian native Andrea and his wife (co-owners) run a great operation -- 100-200 wines by the glass, with selections that change weekly, and a six-page menu that features regional Italian cuisine ranging from small plates, smoked meats and cheeses to larger plates, all highlighting the distinct food and wine pairing typical of Venice. Two important caveats, though -- the wine list is heavily weighted to the Veneto region (so don't be embarassed if you don't recognize a lot of the names) and the food menu titles are all written in Venetian dialect (so the words are a bit closer to French and Spanish than to traditional Italian ... but the English translations are right underneath, albeit in small font).

We sampled a few small dishes such as the wild boar prosciutto, taleggio cheese and the mixed olives -- all were uniformly excellent. We paired those with the following wines:

2001 Anselmi Capital Croce
2002 Villa Russiz Tocai Fruiliano
2002 Schiopetino F. Sgubin
1999 Viviani Valpolicella Superiore
2000 Corte Lenguin Amarone
1999 Tedeschi Montiolmi Amarone

For those of you that have never tried Amarone -- do so, without reservation. Made from grapes that have been dried (rather than fresh), it shows succulent, extremely concentrated flavors that continue to evolve on the palate 2-3 minutes after you finish taking a sip. Once hooked, you may never go back to another wine again ...

As if you needed another reason to stop by, check out their coming attraction for Eclectico:

Recommended books on wine

Andrea Immer Robinson's excellent teach-yourself course on wine
The other great wine & food pairing book on the market
One of the two best wine & food pairing books on the market
Encylopedic reference tome on all regions and wines. Very educational.
Well-written and very informative.
A great compact reference book -- extremely helpful when trying to decipher wine labels in other languages.
Easily digestible sections for each micro-region in the world. Fantastic maps
The gold standard -- read this cover to cover and you'll know more than most wine shop employees

Great wine shops

Vintage Wine Merchants
More than a destination shop -- you can easily spend the whole day talking with Alex, Joe, Mike, Harry and the gang and learning a ton about fine wine. Santana Row wouldn't be nearly as much fun without their shop!
K&L Wine Merchants
Great selection and newsletter. One of the best-designed wine websites around.
The Wine Club
Some real hard to find gems, good futures prices and a great newsletter.
Joseph George Wines
Think about it -- how many wine shops do you know that are 3rd generation family-owned, provide you the owner's name and phone number on their website (and invite you to call for assistance in selecting wines), and are only open noon-5pm Monday through Friday ...! A sign of how well the shop is doing.
Vin, Vino, Wine Bottle Shop & Tasting Bar
Tucked away on California Ave. in Palo Alto, this is truly a shop for the connoisseur -- not as comprehensive as some of the bigger shops, but they more than make up for it with deep collections of exceptional red and white Burgundies. Their newsletter is required reading each month.

Support