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What is dirt candy? Vegetables, of course. When you eat a vegetable you’re eating little more than dirt that’s been transformed by plenty of sunshine and rain into something that’s full of flavor: Dirt Candy. It’s also the name of my restaurant, which opened in October, 2008.

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Why does it take so long to do the simplest things? This summer heat makes everything move at half-speed. But I finally updated the wine list online – it’s been different at the restaurant for a while but I’m finally getting around to doing it here.

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The big changes: we’ve made our sparkling wine a spumante (and a rosé at that), the vintage on the Rotgipfler and Goldmuskateller has changed from 2007 to 2008, we added a Chardonnay (say what?!? full explanation here) and our Le Fraghe Bardolino has changed to a Le Fraghe Rosé (what do you expect? It’s summer).

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Here’s the updated wine list.

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Say what?!? A Chardonnay on my list? Dirt Candy doesn’t have much room for storage and so I can only have about 8 wines on the wine list at a time. When the restaurant opened my plan was to highlight wines that were really unique and to stay away from Syrahs and Rieslings and Chardonnays. How did a *gag* Chardonnay of all things wind here? It’s my least favorite varietal in the world, and one of the most boring wines on the planet, IMHO. So what happened? Well, I found a Chardonnay that blew me away, Les Graviers 2007.

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Okay, it’s a 2005 in the picture. Sorry!

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This took forever to get online, but it’s been a hectic couple of weeks. That said, the sake dinner on 5/20 was a huge success. Both seatings sold out in about a day and we got a lot of nice press about it, but more than that it was fun to work with our neighbors down the block, Sakaya, one of only three retail sake shops in the US. Sakaya is owned by Rick Smith and Hiroko Furukawa and they were already open when I started building Dirt Candy, so they got to see the struggle up close and personal.

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The Dirt Candy wine list has been updated. Say farewell to our Pinotage and the Don David Torrontes. Currently we have one new white wine (an Abecal Albarino) and because it so gloomy I’ve added three new reds: the Le Fraghe Bardolino, the Le Piane Maggiorina and taking the top spot previously occupied by the Pinotage, Churchill’s Touriga Nacional.

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Thanks to Toho’s lawyers,

we no longer serve Cabzilla.

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You can find the updated list here.

The Touriga Nacional is Portugal’s most famous grape. Normally used to make port, Churchill’s Touriga Nacional Douro is one of the rare instances in which it’s used to make wine, and the result is a really intense red that’s so dark it’s violet. Wine Spectator called it one of the “Top Wines of 2009″ and wrote, “The finish of chocolate mousse and café au lait is long and mouth-filling.”

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We looked long and hard to find a wine to replace our beloved Pinotage and this is the only one we felt was worthy of filling its shoes.

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Albarino is the maladjusted, troubled teenager of Spanish wines. Growing mostly in Portugal and Galicia (in the northwest) it’s a grape that loves the cold and being blasted by wind and rain (so moody!). Albarino was developed in isolation, away from all the other wines and their stupid judgments, and it’s mostly harvested by hand (making it very difficult, like a troubled teen, and also more expensive, also like a troubled teen) and it’s often mixed up in the cocaine trade (very troubled) since Galicia, where it’s grown, was one of the leading cocaine smuggling hubs for all of Europe until recently. Fun fact: Condes de Albarei winery is located on property that was seized from a coke dealer and they dedicate 5% of their land to a drug rehab program.

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Less coke-fueled, but just as delicious, is the Abacela Albarino we started serving recently, a rare North American Albarino, grown in Oregon at the Abacela winery.

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There’s a story about La Maggiorina, the newest red wine on our list, and it’s almost as good as the wine itself. Sometimes a wine has such a unique taste and such an incredible backstory that it’s an honor to serve it, and that’s the case with our La Maggiorina from the Le Piane winery.

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Meet our new red wine: Le Fraghe Bardolino 2008. It’s from the Le Fraghe winery in Cavaion Veronese, near Verona, in northeastern Italy. Verona was a vacation spot for Julius Caesar and the setting for Romeo & Juliet and the Le Fraghe Bardolino is definitely a story about two star-crossed grapes. On the one hand, you have corvina, a highly structured grape with lots of body and a distinctive sour cherry taste. On the other, you have rondinella grapes which are simple and uncomplicated, don’t have a lot of flavor but are low in sugar.

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I’m not a huge fan of Rieslings, and for some reason there’s a bit of hard-to-shake folk wisdom that says Rieslings go well with vegetables, which means that every vegetarian restaurant has a selection of overly-sweet, perfumed Rieslings on their wine list. But when I met the Hugel Gentil 2007 I was won over. It’s not just a Riesling, but a blend of all the noble grape varietals in the Alsace region – spicy Gewurztraminer, big bodied Pinot Gris, subtle Riesling, intense Muscat and refreshing Sylvaner – a blend called a “gentil.” It’s an old tradition and the resultant wine is perfect for folks who like Rieslings, but as Kristen (our noble server) is fond of saying, “It’s not your grandma’s Riesling.”

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We only have room to serve one beer at Dirt Candy and since the beginning it has been Peak’s Organic, but now there is a beer I love so much that I must serve it and now we are serving it and it’s like all my dreams have come true. Ladies and Gentlemen, please meet the amazing, award-winning, unbelievably cute Hitachino Nest White Ale from Japan’s Kiuchi Brewery.

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The Hitachino Owl has a message for you.

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