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Patrons thirsting for ambiance find it at wine bars
| Friday, May 16 2008 6:17 PM
Last Updated: Monday, May 19 2008 7:41 AM
Wine bars in Bakersfield? Oh yeah, we’ve got ’em.
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• Bakersfield Friends of Wine will host a tasting at 4 p.m. June 14 at Rio Bravo Country Club. Tickets are $35. Barbecue fare will be served.
• The Bakersfield Wine Society’s next scheduled event is Sept. 6 at Luigi’s. Call 395-4840 for more information.
• Cafe Med hosts wine tastings with appetizers the last Friday of each month. Call 834-4433 for more information. The Gourmet Shoppe, which is part of the restaurant, has a wide selection of vino.
• Valentien hosts frequent wine-related events, from multi-course meals to tastings. Prices vary. Call 864-0397 or send an e-mail to valentienrestaurant@yahoo.com
On Thursday, Bordeaux will flow during a five-course meal. Friday Night Flights are a recent addition, during which customers may taste several types of wine. Food is served late, starting at 10 p.m.
• Wine Me Up! is at 3900 Coffee Road, Suite 2 in the northwest. Call 588-8556 or go to www.winemeupbakersfield.com.
• It’s About the Wine, 9500 Brimhall Road in the northwest. Call 588-1689 for more information.
• The Orchid, 9500 Brimhall Road, in the same shopping center as It’s About the Wine. The Orchid has a wine patio and a cruvinet that accepts pre-paid cards for sampling wines. Call it wine-o-matic. Call 587-8900.
Photos:
Brittany Grimes, the daughter of the owner of Wine Me Up!, pours a glass of wine out of their climate controlled to-the-ounce wine dispenser, an Australian product called "Oz."
Don Grimes owns Wine Me Up! with his wife, Melynda. The wine bar near Coffee Road and Meany Avenue offers a variety of tastes and prices, and imported beers.
Pam Rodgers, left, and Lori Trimm lounge on overstuffed furniture at Wine Me Up!
Call this another instance of our community playing catch-up to offerings and trends popular in larger cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“They started in bigger cities. It stands to reason it will trickle down to the smaller places,” said Klaus Hoeper, who’s on the board of directors of Bakersfield Friends of Wine.
Although restaurants have long been part of the local wine scene, hosting tastings and special events, wine bars haven’t been that prevalent in Bakersfield.
That’s beginning to change though, and residents thirsting for a different ambiance have reason to celebrate.
Wine Me Up! opened in December 2006. Owners Don and Melynda Grimes, Bakersfield natives, weren’t sure if their idea would fly. But it has, and largely through word-of-mouth.
Don Grimes has 600 people on the store’s e-mail list, he said, and new customers walk through the door every day.
It’s a place to taste, lounge and shop, where regulars have hand-painted glasses.
“We’re tucked back into this corner. People can slip in and melt into the couch,” he said.
Beer is also served, as are cheese and crackers prepared by the Kern Regional Center’s All Star Cafe, a small business training program for developmentally disabled adults.
The business invites conversation among friends and strangers who might be at your elbow.
Patron Joshua McClure, 26, said his palate for wine has developed as he’s gotten older. He often pops in to chat and ask Grimes about wine/food pairings.
“It’s not the typical Bakersfield scene,” McClure said.
You won’t find blaring televisions and distracted guests watching them at the store, which is nestled in a shopping center on Coffee Road near Meany Avenue.
The wine selection has gravitated toward more boutique wines, and it’s a move Don Grimes believes will help his store stand out.
“(We) make these ties to these smaller mom-and-pop wineries,” he said, adding they “kind of match us a little bit.”
The store has a sleek steel cruvinet that stores and dispenses wines, and the machine keeps the liquid of the gods tasting like it should.
When oxygen gets into wine, it changes its character, said Mike Stepanovich, managing director of the Bakersfield Wine Society.
Grimes is often reluctant to order wine by the glass in restaurants that’s poured from opened but corked bottles because they’re often so bland.
For a few dollars, Wine Me Up! guests may sample two- and five-ounce servings, ranging from $3.50 to $16.
It’s a low-risk way to sample wines, Stepanovich said.
The shop hosts monthly pasta nights and has a wine club, “Put a Cork in It.”
Jack Waters, owner of Country Club Liquor and Deli, has been in business in Bakersfield for 48 years, and strong into vino for 45 years.
He carries 500 wines, the “goodies” he knows will sell.
Wine bars are “places to drink first, and then buy wine while you’re there,” he said, a cautionary note to customers whose palate judgment may decline the more they imbibe.
Don Martin, president of Metro Galleries Inc., plans to add Metro Lounge to downtown Bakersfield. It will serve organic coffee, tea and small plates of organic fare and, eventually, wine.
He’s hopeful construction may begin in June and complete around early fall.
Martin wants to create a space that’s not the typical bar scene but rather a natural component of what he calls “the fine art of living” — an ethos that involves art, food, wine and conversation.
A retail component in the lounge will come later, as will an adjacent restaurant.
The community has had a pent-up demand for wine stores, Stepanovich said, and some people are starting to fill that void.
Enter Mike and Barbara Hefner, of It’s About the Wine, a store at Calloway Drive and Brimhall Road.
Their selection is organized by varietals, many from California, and suggested food pairing signs are featured for guidance.
The plan is to expand the business, which launched last December, to include wine tastings for private events.
Their Cabs range from $4.69 to $137.99, and Chardonnays start at about $5 to $47.99. Barbara Hefner creates custom gift-baskets, too.
The Orchid, a Thai fusion cuisine restaurant in the same center as It’s About the Wine, combines wine and technology.
Customers can buy cards, add value to them, and insert them in a cruvinet and purchase samples.
Jeramy Brown, co-owner of Valentien Restaurant and Wine Bar, said there’s no bigger thrill than “somebody coming in and they’ve never had a Gruner Veltliner,” an Austrian white wine, and seeing their expressions.
Wine is an evolving experience, something that changes every year. It’s multi-faceted, and once people start exploring it, Hoeper said, “it’s a never ending quest to finding the finest wine that you can.”