Navigating Dante's Inferno

Hello Industry,

Currently, the west coast is engulfed in flames, which means it's smokier than dinner at Chef Francis Mallman's house. Hurricanes threaten the gulf, we are still in a pandemic that the remainder of the world seems to have under some degree of control except for the U.S. Vignerons are rushing to harvest prematurely to save yields from smoke taint and we'll be damned if we can find one of those blue mailboxes that recently adorned the street corners. Welcome to September 2020. It is the month of ripened wild berries, and low hanging orchard fruit, singing locusts & cicadas, raw bone dry heat, or that oppressive blanketed humidity that makes even those baby hairs around the face curl. September is the month of block parties, spraying hydrants, ice cream truck music that can be heard from blocks away. Street markets of cheap food trucks and crafts, farmer markets of fresh and flavorful produce, and those long-awaited county fairs of vomit-inducing, questionably safe, amateur rigged carnival rides that we so willingly throw ourselves upon just to swear to the ‘God of Motion Sickness’ that we’ll never do it again.

This September will be different for many; there will be no county fairs, block parties, or street markets. Covid-19 still has a grip on our country with no vaccination insight, and an administration split on how relief will be brought to the people of this country. In the hopes of celebrating summer, the OMvino team is reaching out to its network to bring you monthly recipes, playlists, discussions, secret hidden gems, and news from the industry’s most talented pool of professionals.

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ŌMvino Client Updates

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KOSTA BROWNE

Ready to take your home-cooked meals up a notch? Our client, Kosta Browne Winery, has teamed up with former Top Chefs to create custom dishes with instructional cooking videos for a second season! Then every Friday (until October 2nd) tune into their Instagram @kostabrownewinery for a live interview with the chef. For access to recipes, videos, and more, visit their site: kbkitchenseries.com

CANOPY

Join our client CANOPY for a virtual event about Sustainable Fashion September 16th at 2 PM PT.

About the event:

Fashion contributes significantly to climate change. McKinsey research shows that the sector was responsible for 4 percent of the global total of GHGs (GreenhouseGas emissions).  This does not include the chemical pollutants in water systems that affect the health of those who rely on them.  In order to meet the 2015 Paris Climate agreement, fashion would need to cut its GHG emissions to 1.1 billion metric tons of CO2 equivalent by 2030. How is the Fashion industry going to do this?Join CANOPY in this conversation with companies who are at the forefront of sustainable fashion and are already a part of this solution:  Andras Forgacs - Co-Founder & CEO of Modern Meadow, Michelle Zhu - Co-Founder & CEO of Huue Bio, Lewis Perkins President of Apparel Impact Institute (AiiI), and moderated by Kim Kolt of For Good Ventures. Event Link

TOR wines

Real magic cannot be explained or reasoned. This month TOR released some of their most exclusive wines - the “Magic” collection. This collection includes their 2018 Black Magic and two additional new wines: 2018 Pure Magic Beckstoffer To Kalon BFD and 2018 Pure Magic Vine Hill Ranch Vineyard. Sign up for their mailing list to learn more about this amazing producer and these magic wine. LINK

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ŌMvino Projects

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ŌMvino has launched a Sommelier Affiliate program that will allow somms to consult on projects with the ŌMvino team. We are consistently acquiring small and large projects and are hungry to keep our somm brothers and sisters working through considerable uncertainty. So whether you are looking to make a career change or just a side hustle, visit Soignewest.com, fill out the application and join our affiliate team.Please share this newsletter, share the link, pass on the word; let's help keep our community strong and fed.

**We are currently seeking Native American Somms**

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If you are or know someone who is, please contact us at info@omvino.com with resumé and cover letter. We have projects coming up that require your expertise and cultural background.

We support minorities, our Hispanic, and POC industry professionals. The Native American community of industry professionals is exceptionally small. We are looking to bring businesses and recognition to our native family.

Please spread the word.

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Hey YOU! Are you a wine buyer or sommelier? Are you interested in working some virtual tastings or just connecting with some wineries? If so, please fill this out! We would love to connect and see if you would be interested in attending some events or working some virtual gigs!  LINK

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Industry Peeps

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Monthly we will be bringing you recipes from the industries top talented professionals from bartenders to somms and chefs. This month we are featuring Gaby Mlynarczyk of LA Loving Cup. She was brought to us by OMvino's Director of Client Acquisitions, Lelañea Fulton, who was lucky enough to collaborate with Gabby while building wine programs in Los Angeles in 2017. Lelañea expressed, "I have worked alongside many of the industry's most talented Bar Directors while working in NYC, Los Angeles, and Detroit. Gabby is bar far one of the most unique, talented, and professional bartenders I have had the pleasure of knowing. Her cocktails are more than palate pleasers. They are truly expressive of personality. They are whimsical, feminine, ethereal at times, and wildly creative. Undertones expressive of nature, wild and undomesticated, she captures incredible flavor profiles by working with somewhat obscure ingredients. I follow her on IG account, and every time I see a photo that she posts of her drinks, I am not only blown away by the cocktail but also the artistic photography. She is so damn old-world and witchy with her creations. I have a huge girl crush on her!" Gaby Mlynarczyk has more than twenty years of shaking things up at some of the world’s best bars and most innovative watering holes in the U.S. and her native U.K. Her recipes have been featured in such publications as The NY Times, Los Angeles Times, Food 52. Cool Hunting and Fast Co Design. Bars under her direction have won awards such as Bar of the Year, Best Culinary Cocktail Bar, and Best Bar Team. When not behind the stick, Gaby writes the blog L.A. Loving Cup created as an online exploration of the processes that go into creating thoughtful, whimsical cocktails. Her particular focus leans toward using culinary ingredients with molecular driven techniques and their applications behind the bar.

She’s the author of Clean + Dirty Drinking, a seasonal cocktail book published in 2018 and Alumni of the Imbibe 75 2018. She’s also a contributing writer at Liquor.com, Gather Journal, NY Post, and LA Weekly.    Gaby is currently based in Los Angeles.

WATERMELON MINT JULEP

5 large fresh Thai basil or sweet basil leaves

1⁄4 cup plus 1 Tbsp [75 ml] watermelon  mint juice (see Note)

3 Tbsp [45 ml] bourbon, such as Buffalo Trace or Old Grand-Dad

11⁄2 Tbsp [22 ml] fresh lemon juice

1 Tbsp [15 ml] Simple Syrup

1⁄2 Tbsp [7.5 ml] rose water (I use Sadaf or Al Wahdi brands )

Small basil and mint sprigs and/or

1 edible pink rosebud for garnish

Powdered sugar for dusting (optional)

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METHOD

Put the basil leaves in the bottom of a Julep cup or stemless wine glass. Fill the cup with crushed ice Pour the watermelon  mint juice, bourbon,  lemon juice, syrup and rose water. Insert a swizzle stick. Position your palms flat on either side of the swizzle stick and run your hands back and forth to spin and twirl the stick and stir the mixture. Garnish with the herb sprigs and/or rosebud, dust with powdered sugar, if you like, and serve immediately. ‍

NOTE: To make 1 cup [240 ml] water- melon + bergamot mint juice, in a blender, combine 11⁄2 cups [225 g] cubed watermelon and 1⁄4 cup [24 g] fresh bergamot mint leaves. Blend until smooth. Alternatively, pass 11⁄2 cups [225 g] cubed watermelon and 1⁄4 cup [24 g] bergamot mint leaves through a juicer. (See the Resources section, page 211, for where to find bergamot mint. If you can’t find bergamot mint, substitute regular garden mint.)

FOR AN NA VERSION REMOVE THE BOURBON ENTIRELY AND BUILD / SWIZZLE  AS ABOVE

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With no block parties in the summer heat, we city folk have been seeking more nature. More hikes, mountain bike riding, camping, river boating, and lake swimming. We caught up with Los Angeles’ very own Sommelier, Matt Kaner, to find out where he’s been sneaking off to these days to escape the heat, reset the soul, and not to lose his freaking mind. Matt gladly shared one of his favorite locations. Matt can be found hunkered down under the Millard Falls in Altadena at the base of the Angeles National Forest with a bottle of Ruinart, Blanc de Blancs. That is soooooo, Kaner!

Matt knows some of the best-hidden gems of his city and wine as Matt was voted somm of the year in 2013 by Food & Wine and was featured in Wine Enthusiasts’ '40 under 40' in 2019. Matt is the Co-Founder of Los Angeles winebar Bar Covell and Co-Founder of Solovin and the Host & Producer at Somm Tv.

To keep up on Matt, follow his  IG for all the latest but don’t expect him to share his secret waterfall spots. You can only get that here on the ŌMvino Newsletter.

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Now that you got your cocktail, word on a dope, coveted waterfall outside of Los Angeles, you require tunes. Let’s get away from the redundancy of the top 40 hits and that commercialized, formulated sound sterilizing the mind. We asked Sommeliére, Lelañea Fulton what she has been listening to these days. Lelañea has opened over 20 restaurants in her off-and-on again, 27 years of hospitality. Along with her wine lists, she has been known to also build music playlists for the restaurants and lounges she has been affiliated with. Immersed in the urban street culture of Brooklyn for over a decade, she has rubbed elbows with some of the most avant-garde musicians emerging from a meshed culture of classically trained jazz meets raw, self-taught sound hustlers. She has a diverse list of playlists that can be found and publicly enjoyed on Spotify. We asked her if there was a particular playlist for our September issue.

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“I have recently moved to the Columbia Gorge in Washington and made a playlist that embodies the sights, smells, and feels that I get here. It’s hot and dry this month. The Gifford-Pinchot National Forest in my backyard is chock full of dry cedar, and if I go high enough in elevation, I hit those dry ponderosa pines. I swim waterfalls; I watch eagles soar through the gorge from my living room as I have my morning coffee. ‘Here, in the Gorge, where Cedar Burns’ is an ode to my experience in this new place. I think that’s a good playlist for August.”

If you would like to keep up on Lelanea and her adventures, you can find her IG link here.

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Trend Watch

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Can Hip Hop Help Solve Wine’s Millennial Problem? On July 31st, Vinepair.com published an article reporting low numbers of millennials consuming wine; However, in March of 2019, Business Insider reported that “Millennials drank 42% of all wine consumed in the US in 2015, and winemakers are meeting the generation’s demands.” and that “Millennials are predicted to overcome Gen Xers as the biggest fine wine drinking generation by 2026.”  ŌMvino team wants to hear from you, restaurants, bars, wineries. Is the millennial generation a demographic you target? Are they lost to us? Will wine not be significant to this generation? Please join our poll by sharing your thoughts HERE.

In Solidarity,

The ŌMvino Team