Wine & Dine at Cohn Restaurants, March 2-12

The Cohn Restaurant Group is behind several of San Diego's most well-known restaurants, including The Prado, the Gas Lamp and La Jolla Strip Clubs, Blue Point, and 333 Pacific. If you have been planning to test the wine selection at any of their establishments, this is the week to do it, as they have launched a wine special that looks very tempting. From their website:

Wine & Dime - 10 Wines, 10 Days for 10¢

Visit any of our Family of Restaurants from March 2nd through March 12th and purchase a glass of wine from our "Dime Wine" list and receive your second glass of equal or lesser value for 10¢.

To check out the rest of their website or see their full list of restaurants, visit their website here.

Family Winemakers Event - Five Days Left to Register!

If you live in San Diego and have been wanting to visit wineries in Napa or Paso Robles or some other exotic California wine locale but haven't had the time or money to do it, have no fear - you have an opportunity to have THEM come to YOU.

Family Winemakers of California will host Tasting 2010 at the Del Mar fairgrounds on Sunday, March 14 from 3 to 6 p.m. The event as billed as "a showcase for the state's small, family-owned wineries," and the list of participating wineries does not disappoint. Register before March 5 for discounted tickets.

Among the wineries that caught my attention:

Profile: Burgundy Grill and Wine Bar - La Jolla

I went here for the first time to meet up with two girlfriends, and we were very happy with our choice. Burgundy has great happy hour specials, a solid wine selection, a menu with both appetizers and full meals, and inexpensive flights so you can try a few new things.

It was a nice place to go with a group of girlfriends, but given that all three of us kept commenting on how romantic the setting was, the best occasion for this place is probably date night.

On the other hand, there is a huge outdoor patio that will probably become a scene when the weather is warmer, and I could see getting a big group together to enjoy the wine and sunshine.

Paso Robles comes to San Diego

So, I have totally been slacking with the blog, and not for lack of material - there are a ton of great wine-related things happening in San Diego. However, I was inspired to get cracking again after an event I went to yesterday.

About 40 winemakers from the Paso Robles area came to San Diego this week as part of the Grand Tasting Tour, a series of tastings, winemaker dinners, and seminars designed to connect Paso winemakers with San Diego residents. I went to the trade tasting event in Point Loma to interview reps from some wineries that I am going to be profiling as part of my new gig as a freelance reporter for a local San Diego newspaper group (another reason I have been a blog-slacker).

For some of theses wineries, San Diego is the largest restaurant account for several of the wineries I talked to, which means there is huge demand for Paso wines in America's Finest City. Here are some of the highlights from the people I talked to:

Meet Frank the Tank

On Friday night I had the serendipitous experience of eating at Addison for the second time. As the French-nouveau restaurant at the heart of The Grand Del Mar, Addison is one of the few places I have been where I truly understood how food preparation could be considered an art form, and the only place I've been where butternut squash, mustard, carmelized apples and crispy shallots really do taste good together.

The best thing about this restaurant, though, is not the five-star dining but the way that the staff actually make the wine experience fun...