Among the many troubles caused to Los Angeles bars and restaurants last year, one was novel and somewhat unprecedented: delayed celebrations.
The coronavirus shutdown and public health concerns have caused countless birthdays, anniversaries and various other joyous celebrations to be postponed. But with the city’s restaurants reopening (albeit with restrictions) and plans to fully resume capacity service on June 15, Los Angelesers are making up for lost time. For those who want to celebrate a special date with a bottle (or glass) of rare wine, visiting the Augustine Bar is like being accompanied by a generous collector.
In addition to a brief and frustrating reopening attempt last summer, Augustine has been closed for nearly a year, and now, access to Sherman Oaks’ paradise needs to be booked over the phone. According to the county’s regulations, the number of seats available is limited. The bar specializes in historic thoroughbred wines. The selection of wines in the evening is handwritten on the blackboard above and on the right side of the bar: A glass of 1985 Gainey Cabernet Sauvignon from Santa Barbara, priced at $30, Alexandria 1979 Della Giuseppe Barolo (Alessandra Giuseppe Barolo) sells for $40. The 90s Dehlinger Chardonnay from the Russian River Valley is priced at $35.
“Many restaurants have a very rich vintage wine list-if you go to some classic places in New York, Boston or New Orleans, you will find them,” said Augustine co-founder David Gibbs. “But the problem is that you have to promise a bottle. I can’t find a place to rely on glass.”
If you think that a $40 wine seems to be out of the range of the most loyal wine lovers, Gibbs points out that Augustine offers a range of options, including 6-ounce contemporary California wines, starting at about $12. “People sometimes equate the expensive with the best,” Gibbs said, but this is not always the case. “In addition to the rare things, we also offer other amazing wines that will give you a wonderful experience.”
The 55-year-old Gibbs discovered a wine problem during a tour with the alternative rock band Gigolo Aunts. He drank Müller-Thurgau in Germany and Central Otago Pinot Noir in New Zealand. “We will argue about everything, but the one thing we all agree on is wine,” he said.
In the late 1990s, he moved to Los Angeles to perform as a studio musician and participated in film projects such as “Josie and the Cat” adapted in 2001, as well as “Alias”, “Little Ville” and “OC “Including TV shows around this time, he became a frequent visitor to Bar Covell, a Los Feliz bar with an influential legacy and stubborn customers.
Before he opened Augustine in 2015 with Matthew Kaner and Dustin Lancaster from Bar Covell, he had been thinking about the retro bar model, partly inspired by the Tampa Bern Steak House, a restaurant bottle with six-figure inventory. Their vision for the Sherman Oaks wine bar includes an expanded version of the Florida restaurant’s old-fashioned wine glassing method (Kaner has now left the ownership of the bar), paired with high-quality bar food and rare vintage products alongside an easy-to-use modern wine list.
Their gambling-a bar serving Slovenian pyrotechnic natural orange wine, vintage California petit Syrah and aged wines from California, Burgundy, and Piedmont-struggled in the first few months, but eventually its customer base It expanded, first described by Gibbs as a neighborhood hug, and then eventually became a destination for wine lovers.
In an interview before the pandemic, 26-year-old Reid Antin, a filmmaker studying for a master’s degree in film production at the University of Southern California, sipped and sniffed the 69-year-old Serio & Battista Barolo. “Usually I drink beer,” he said. “But I am obsessed with’Once Upon a Time…in Hollywood’, and I have never drank wine from the year the movie was filmed.”
Gibbs is like a walking California wine reference library: he knows who uses organic products when, who sells them to a conglomerate and why, and which vintage of Heitz Cellar’s Martha’s Vineyard Cabernet is worth this price. He purchases his wines in various ways, some are modern (such as digital wine auctions and Craigslist searches), while others are firmly analog: real estate sales, private collections, and long-term relationships that become cellar sales. During the blockade, he continued to buy wine.
An adventure story begins with an old-fashioned online listing of Heitz Martha’s Vineyard, which leads Gibbs on a long road to Tijuana, where he meets a private seller who is sitting with his father The Dom Pérignon Champagne (Dom Pérignon Champagne) left over from the restaurant from the 1960s. The only problem is that they are buried underground.
“It was in this partially collapsed old brick and cinder block basement,” Gibbs recalled. “We had to climb over 20 feet of ground to get these bottles, but they are there: Dom boxes from 1969, 73, and 75 are still in their original wrapping paper and boxes.” He took them They were all brought back to the border and cooled safely in an ice bag.
“There is really no place where I would not go looking for wine,” Gibbs said, but not all stories are created equal, and not all wines are equally rare. Gibbs’ Augustine collection includes 1928 Chablis from the estate of the film composer David Rose (Judy Garland’s first husband), a bottle of Bordeaux rebottled in 1892, and Robert and Peter personally opened the bottle and tasted the California Cabernet Sauvignon in 1940 and Mondavi in 1946, and then partially re-bottled. (These bottles are very rare and special, and they are unlikely to appear on the blackboard menu anytime soon-Augustine’s curious guests should ask about the availability of other bottles, especially if they have a specific year or manufacturer.)
Today, people are undeniably cautiously optimistic about Augustine’s actions after the pandemic. “People are really happy to come back,” he said, “not just because of the wine, but also because we are social animals-we are eager to have groups and other people around. Ultimately, this is what it means to be a bar.
“I am grateful that people have chosen to come back and support us,” Gibbs added. “Some of us now come in and say they missed their 50th birthday or 30th wedding anniversary, and ask me if there is anything special to make up for?”
He did it-in fact, that’s the point. Whether you missed celebrating your 70th birthday or toasting to one of those unlikely lock-in events, Gibbs can provide you with wine in his vast collection, regardless of your year of birth or price.
“There are no formulas and no rules for what we are disclosing here,” Gibbs said, with a shy smile on his face, as if the idea had brought him basic happiness. “Every bottle is waiting for the right person.” Now more than ever.
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Post time: Jun-07-2021