By MERV HECHT Special to the Post Some of the best private collections of wine anywhere are in the Palisades. A few of the super rich (in wines) declined to be interviewed for this article, but here is a sampling of a few local collectors who love wine. Neil and Cindy Selman bought their home on Latimer Road in 1987. Cindy visited Latimer Road many years before, and fell in love with it, and when she and Neil were looking for a home in the Palisades, she remembered its beauty, and was delighted to find a home for sale there. Both were also pleasantly surprised to find that the prior owner had built a concrete and reinforced steel bomb shelter attached to the house, with a filtered air supply and plumbing, but converted to a wine cellar with wine shelves already installed. Recalling their early dates before they married, when they drank ‘nectar ros’,’ the Selmans began to collect wines in 1982, and moved the collection to their new cellar when they moved to the Palisades. Neil and Cindy particularly like to go to restaurant Valentino, and JiRaffe in Santa Monica, and share a bottle of wine, or two, with friends. They like wine because of its connection with other people and its sociability aspects, but they also share a bottle together at home most evenings when they eat in. Cindy prefers white wines, particularly Viognier and Condrieu, while Neil prefers full-bodied reds, such as Rhone wines and California Zinfandels. With two neighbors from Latimer Road, Steve and Harriett Henry, and Robert and Nancy Good, they’ve purchased three acres in New Zealand, where the Goods have moved. They produce about 300 cases of Pinot Noir on the property, which they intend to bring into California in the near future to share with their friends. Clearly these are the kind of friends to have! Linda and Tony Rubin live in a beautiful, country-like setting in Mandeville Canyon. Tony’s a California boy, born in Bakersfield, and educated at Berkeley and Pepperdine Law School. Linda is from New York, and came to Los Angeles to further her acting career. They met in 1988, married in 1989, and moved to the Palisades in 1992 when they built their present house. When they built the house, they knew they would want to house some fine wines, so they built a wine closet. That was quickly filled up, so in 1995 they added refrigeration to a hallway that runs between their pool and kitchen, creating a large wine cellar. Tony remembers his first taste of ‘great’ wine: a glass of Mateus Ros’ (remember the ceramic bottle?) in 1967. In 1980 he met Jeff Kavins at Greenblatt’s deli in Hollywood, and begun to collect serious wine. He’s maintained his relationship with Jeff, but now frequently buys from Moe’s Fine Wines in Brentwood as well. Tony and Linda appreciate the history and aesthetic of wines. They typically have a glass of wine with dinner, and always take a bottle with them when they go out, unless it’s to one of the few restaurants that don’t permit outside wines. Tony analogizes wine collecting to stamp collecting: it’s a great feeling to know you have one of the few bottles left in the world, and it’s a great way to learn about other countries, places, and times. And wine collecting brings people together, creates a common interest between people, and then permits a taste sharing that few other collection hobbies offer. I visited a few other cellars in the Palisades. One well-known lawyer and his wife, who declined to be interviewed for this article, have an elaborate room attached to their home, filled with legendary wines. I noticed some Bordeaux from the 1950s. A couple who just moved to Amalfi Drive has installed refrigerated drawers in their kitchen to house part of a wine collection started by his father. The first few drawers I looked at were full of Petrus wines from the 1970s, and we recently shared a 1982 Cos d’Estornel. My friend Dr. Ivan Gabor converted a closet off the garage into a refrigerated wine cellar filled with a variety of wines ready to drink, and into which he and his lovely wife Sarah are clearly making headway. They particularly appreciate the Tornesi Rosso that I import. And then there is my cellar, which people often ask me about. Do I have any legendary wines, going up in value every year? Probably not. Most of the wines in my cellar are wines I import, and’like most wines, they are meant to be consumed within two to four years of production. But I do set aside each year a few bottles of Brunello, Barolo, and Burgundy’the three B’s’, and sometimes a Chateauneuf-du-Pape, and sample them year after year after an initial resting period of three to four years. I make notes, and compare the notes from year to year to see how the wines change with time. What I see is a lot of variation. Some vintages age well, and improve dramatically after six to eight years. Some begin to lose fruit after the third or forth year. And some stay the same for a long time, before a decline. I get a lot of pleasure from watching the life cycle of the wines, although I’m not sure why. It’s similar to the pleasure I get from growing a fruit or vegetable in the garden and then serving it for dinner. The fruits in the market might be better, but the fruit I grow is more interesting. The older wine I can buy at auction might be better, but the wine I’ve aged myself, and tasted over the years is more interesting, and more fun to talk about with friends. What struck me the most in my interviewing these cellar owners is their enthusiasm for wine, and the variety of pleasures they get from it. What I heard most clearly was that wine is an entry to establishing a relationship with other human beings. It’s a basis for a social connection and eases communication with others. And now that we know that red wine also promotes longevity, we need all the connections we can get!
This page is available to subscribers. Click here to sign in or get access.
