December 2010
2 posts
New website is up and running! →
Let us help you find wine for your personal wine...
As the work on the construction of the new Inn and Market at the Black Olive come to completion, the excitement about our new wine program is growing. The market will allow customers access to many of our favorite wines, and our wine expert Dimitris Spiliadis can even help you in planning and purchasing the right wine for you to cellar at home.
September 2010
1 post
Our good friend Paul Hobbs
Today one of the premier winemakers in the world stopped by the Black Olive to show us some of the newest, extraordinary offerings that he has in store for the world. We were truly blown away. This week we will feature photos and some words about some of these wines.
August 2010
3 posts
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Wine in the Cellar: Part One
A dinner last night in the wine cellar at the Black Olive swept me away in a beautiful freeze of white and then red, appetizers and then as the temperature (perfect for wine) of the cellar got to be too much, back out onto the porch for deserts. The wine was from a special box that I have kept for some time, and the selections were magnificent. I will do some research and give you more details...
Sangria
As the summer winds down the biggest wine discovery for us recently has been sangria. We have been serving and drinking it all summer, made from different wines and the freshest organic fruits available. The results have been magnificent and varied. The key is good wine and fresh fruit, there is no other real trick to it. Let your wine and fruit marinate for a couple or more days and you have...
The Wine Blogger at the Black Olive is Back
After a short break I have returned to write regularly about wine and the Black Olive. My name is Andreas and my brother, Dimitris, has created the wine cellar and the wine list at our family’s restaurant. I will be attempting to put into words the vast knowledge and important stance on wine that my brother has used to build the collection thus far.
I have been hired to write for the...
April 2010
3 posts
2 tags
Viva Argentina, Great Wine, Great Practices
The delicious Santa Julia Organic white, from the interesting varietal called Torrontes, is another testament to the great wines coming out of Argentina. But not only is this Mendoza wine delicious, it points to another trend that wine lovers should pay attention to. Many of the wines coming from Argentina are starting to use environmentally friendly techniques, as well as ethical employment...
February 2010
1 post
Valentines Day and Post Snow Restaurant Week...
Wine fans: WE ARE BACK OPEN AND SERVING AN AMAZING SELECTION of wines both new and old, with our great restaurant week menu extended for some delicious deals on some of our best dishes. The snow took us out for a few days, but we are back up and ready for you to come see us!
January 2010
8 posts
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Sigalas Mavrotragano
Mavrotragano is the name of a rare Greek varietal that is grown on the island of Santorini. We just got in a rare shipment of the most amazing version of this delightful treat yet to be made. I will go into more details after I taste it but you should know that this is one of the finest wines the Black Olive has EVER procured and we are VERY excited. We will even be offering it as part of a...
A Beautiful Wine called The Truth
Last night I tried a wine from California called Truth, “cuvee de fume” 2007. A well-balanced refreshing white wine, this is a perfect bottle for accompanying grilled fish. Many other things too, I imagine. It has a tartness that does not overwhelm, and it skips all of the gaudy notes that can accompany some white wines, even the pricier ones. It is simply lovely to drink, well...
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Lamadrid Reserva, 2006, Argentina, Malbec. Single...
Malbec is a varietal that can make some of the most beautiful wines imaginable. This one is spectacular, deep purple, with aromas that are exquisite, and a taste that opens up like a deep valley. The grapes are grown on a single vineyard high in the mountains, where the sky opens up to deep blue and the altitude scares away bugs without a need for pesticides. The grapes grow with the intensity...
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One of Our Favorite Organic Wines... →
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Grape Farms and the New Wine Market
In recent decades farming of grapes has not been the primary concern in the minds of the majority of wine enthusiasts in the world. Of course where and how grapes are grown and harvested has been a root issue for all of wine history, but modern wine drinkers have taken the vast changes in the agronomy behind wine for granted. Pesticides and mass farming techniques can have short term success in...
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December 2009
16 posts
What You Will Find, Starting in March
When the Inn at the Black Olive opens in March, wine enthusiasts will be provided with an essential ingredient for their wine hobbies. The new market will act as personal negotiant to customers, and will sell a short list of hand picked sustainable wines from around the world. The wine list at the Black Olive Restaurant will continue to be long and complex, but the market and the bar at the...
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The New Inn at the Black Olive: Part One
A dozen years ago when the Black Olive Restaurant first opened, Fell’s Point was still a struggling neighborhood, with many vacant houses, and an old city charm that was in a state of decay. The original restaurant, which later expanded into a neighboring building, occupied a rowhouse with a storefront that had been vacant for years. The renovation of this building was a turning point for...
Check Out the New Inn Blog →
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More Information About the Amazing Skouras Wines →
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Megas Oenos by Skouras
A dozen years ago, when the Black Olive Restaurant opened, Dimitris started getting this wine. As a result we have a vertical. Which would just be normal if this wine was from France or California, but it seems that no one at that time, and few people now, really collected Greek reds, aging them and dealing with them on the level that they actually are
on. This wine is consistently beautiful...
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This was delicious. Hey CALIFORNIA, you should... →
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From the Island of Santorini: Atlantis 2006 by...
Last night warranted the tasting of a special wine. The wine we tasted, the exceptionally dark and cowboy-romantic Atlantis 2006 is a wine from the island of Santorini, where extreme conditions and a volcanic soil give wines half their character, and where rare and ancient varietals provide the other half of the beauty. In this case the grapes used are Mavrotragano, which we have discussed...
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If You Care About Good Wine... →
Palazzo 2007 Cabernet Franc
Last night we tried a great wine, by winemaker Scott Palazzo. The ‘07 Cabernet Franc, which tastes amazing, and has an ultra-low production run. It won’t be around for long, because it drinks beautifully and is reasonably priced. It is very French influenced, but prices much lower than a Bordeaux wine of similar quality. We drank it with Black Olive fish soup, and it held up to the...
What Do Wine and Green Building Have to do With...
If you like good wine you should support “Green Building”
Wine is an essential part of the big picture here at the Black Olive. Our wine list has won nationwide acclaim and has helped us to become one of the best dining experiences in Baltimore.
Wine will play an even bigger part in our newest project, The Inn at The Black Olive: Each of the Inn’s guest rooms will be named after a...
November 2009
21 posts
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A Wine Bottle is the Perfect Size for a Table of...
Two old friends can sit down and share one bottle of red wine and a meal and be perfectly content. The quantity of wine in one wine bottle is neither too much nor too little to please the tempo and grease the conversation without tilting the table over. A wine bottle is aesthetically pleasing, in part because of the aforementioned qualities, in part because of the way it sits, shapely, on a...
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http://www.paulhobbsimports.com/press/list/96/57/0/... →
An Introduction to Paul Hobbs Argentinian Malbec →
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Paul Hobbs Argentinean Wine
Yesterday my brother’s good friend Paul Hobbs came to the Black Olive for a high level tasting of his wines from Argentina. As we have said before in this blog, Paul Hobbs is one of the top winemakers in the World, and though his first wines were from California, he has gone to many places to make wines. These wines are incredible. Chardonnay, Malbec, and Cabernet. All champions, with a...
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Upon Tasting a 1968 and a 1970 Rioja...
The wine world is deeper and more complex than the wine intelligentsia ever gave it credit. History books missed critical events, and now in 2009 we can only piece together the truth. Wine regions with fantastic and world cup level wines were ignored as the commerce of wine pulled too hard on the aesthetic competition and entire regions were left out. Grape growers in parts of the world where...
Wine and Symposium, Next Wednesday
The fourth in a series of amazing conversations, paired with good food and wine, will occur next Wednesday, November 18th. The topic will be stem cell research and the food and wine will be amazing. Several of the top thinkers in the field will be weighing in on many aspects of this topic. Make your reservations now. Call 410-276-7141.
PS We are going to pick some AMAZING wines to help...
If You Missed the First Wine/Purchasing Dinner,...
The wine cellar, questions and answers, the beautiful Lolonis story, Lolonis Fume Blanc, grilled scallops, the hard to get Lolonis 2007 Chardonnay, everything organic (all night long), grilled lobster, greek salad, the indisputably complex and lusty Lolonis Orpheus 2005 (predominantly Petit Syrah), conversations about culture and local politics, the amazing cheese halumi, firm enough to be...
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How Do We Pick Black Olive Wines?
First of all, we did not start out being wine experts. There were only two cases of wine at the restaurant when it opened. But over time, and largely thanks to the discovery of how amazing Greek wines are in comparison to the world’s best, we built both a collection and a knowledge of how the world of wine works that is getting thick. As we slowly built our knowledge, so too did we begin...
2006 Richebourg for your PINOT NOIR education
In France it is the Burgundy region that grows the Pinot Noir grapes that make the legendary beverage, made famous through song and verse, known as Burgundy Wine.
The area of Burgundy that this wondrous wine comes from is the Nuit St. George region of Cote D’or. This is part of the reason that we treasure this wine, for the area makes some of the best Pinot Noir wines in the World.
This...
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Lolonis Wine Dinner, Few Seats Still Available
Winemaker Spotlight: The Ladybugs of Lolonis
When the Lolonis family immigrated to California, they began to grow grapes and make wine using many of the old varietals from their homeland. When the Spiliadis family started a restaurant, they discovered Lolonis. What better way to compliment Greek food in America than a wine from America made by a Greek family? Lolonis wines are not only amazing...
Some Cool Cretan Music to Check Out with Your... →
Another Sigalas Wine with Great Depth
The Sigalas Santorini 2008, fermented in oak, is a white wine with a really simple, deep character, different from some of the higher noted virtuoso wines we have talked about from this winemaker. It shows the range of the wines from Sigalas and highlights one of the predominant Greek varietals, Assyritiko, all by itself. Add the oak and you have another unique invention that reminds you of...
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Wine and Conversation
Two people. A bottle of wine that both enjoy, in this case the Adelsheim 2007 Pinot Noir (yum). Some good food. The right pace. It seems that wine reviews do not take into account the beauty of a wine’s unfolding ability to shed light and warm a human embrace. A bubbling, chattering, laughing restaurant on the nose. The full taste of an original thought, spoken and confirmed, that...