After at least six months (and probably more) of delays, setbacks, postponements, setponements, and postbacks, K&L Wines finally opened their Hollywood branch this past weekend. Huzzah.

I’m a big fan of K&L.  I like their selections, I like their prices, but more importantly I like the way they think about wine and the way they talk about wine. When K&L wholeheartedly recommends a wine, I can feel reasonably certain that it’s because they like the wine in the same way that I would like it – that is, as an expression of the grapes grown for the wine and the way that the land they were grown on affected them. Read Greg St. Clair’s thoughts about Brunello di Montalcino, for example, and you’ll understand that the wines he cares the most for are the wines that serve as windows to what the sangiovese grape truly is in Tuscany, not simply the wines that are seamless, international, fruit-driven efforts. The same goes for Clyde Beffa and the wines of Bordeaux, and a lot of the other senior K&L staff members think along the same lines as far as I can tell. K&L also has one of the best online presences in the wine selling community, with a comprehensive site, a fun blog, and detailed descriptions of a lot of their wines (although some of their notes are simply taken from the winemaker’s notes, but whatever).

So you can see why the prospect of K&L, which was usually a sort of bonus trip for me whenever I found myself in the Bay Area for a weekend with a little cash and some spare time, coming to LA was a pretty cool thing for me. And on Monday, J and I took a trip over to the new store – less than 10 minutes away in Hollywood traffic! – to see what’s what. First impression: it’s got a parking lot! Always a huge plus at the Sunset and Vine catastrophe. And it’s alarmingly close to my gym. I can see that going one of two ways: either I set up some system of pain and reward by working out and only then allowing myself to go grab a bottle, or I start out driving to the gym, but end up sneaking back into the house twenty minutes later with two bottles of Leoville-Poyferre stuffed under my shirt. “No hon, those are just my awesome abs that I’ve been working on since I go to the gym so often. Hey, where’s the bottle opener? I have to…uh…do something…over here…with the door closed. Don’t come in!”

Inside, it’s a bit smaller than I thought it would be. Not to say that it’s small, but the Wine House doesn’t seem to be in any danger of losing its advantage of comprehensiveness. It’s a very big, open space, and at the moment it feels rather hollow – hopefully with time, it’ll have more of a lived-in vibe. They also look like they’re still in the process of stocking the aisles; you can see the empty spaces on the shelves in the photo. So far it looks like they’re going to have a considerable French wine selection (the biggest section of the store by far), a good number of Italian wines (not surprising considering that Greg St. Clair is running this newest location), and a decent helping of everything else. The staff was friendly, albeit a little harried as it seemed like there were still some kinks to be worked out with the cashier computers.

They’re offering tastings on a semi-regular basis on the weekends, which I’m looking forward to. In fact, next weekend features an Italian wine tasting with Greg St. Clair!  Sweet.

I ended up getting a couple bottles of one wine that I’m very happy with, but unfortunately I can’t share it with you because one of them is a gift and that person will probably read this before they get the gift, so…sorry. In any case, however, if you’re in the LA area and you are feeling like you could use yet another wine store in your life – who couldn’t?! – give K&L a spin. It’s good times.