Cultivate L.A. 2014, Beverly Hills

Wally’s Wine Cheese booth

The Farm Shop

This year Cultivate L.A. was held in the Holmby Hills at the opulent Pritzker Estate, one of the largest homes in Los Angeles. This mega mansion is owned by an heir to the Hyatt Hotels fortune and encompasses some 50,000+ square feet with spectacular views overlooking much of the LA Basin including Westwood and downtown further in the distance.

With roots in both LA and in the Napa Valley when I was notified of this event by Blue Lifestyle (an organization founded by wine, spirits, and lifestyle personality Anthony Dias Blue) my interest was immediately peaked. I soon reached out to several Napa Valley vintners I know and all were kind enough to donate either large format bottles or visits which were then auctioned off. Thank you Arns Winery, Blankiet Estate, Jericho Canyon and Tedeschi Family Winery for your support. And I donated a tour of the Napa Valley which was combined with a stay at the Healdsburg Hotel.

Some of the finest Los Angeles Restaurants, specialty foods and winemakers arrived hours before the event to setup booths on the expansive lawn. For culinary enthusiasts, a visit here was an indulgence in a variety of intriguing and tasty food products. The vendors highlight some of the best LA has to offer in food and drink with select wineries represented from around the state.

The auction item table focused on wine and included large format wines from some of the most premium wineries in the state including Screaming Eagle, Colgin as well as several wines from First Growth producers in France.

Culinary, cocktail, wine and dessert highlights were plenty. Domenico’s Foods is located in Beverly Hills and Founder and President Dominick Dibartolomeo was there with his wife serving home made pasta and sauces. He is immediately a likeable guy and clearly has a passion for food and people. If you attend some of the larger Farmer’s Markets in LA County, chances are you will see one of his booths represented there. Nearby were the Truffle Brothers – serving a variety of products made with real truffle oil. And they proudly displayed a small basket of black truffles – valued at something like $8000 for just a handful of this “black gold”.

Plenty of vendors were pouring alcoholic drinks – several memorable vodka based concoctions were being offered up by the folks at Loft & Bear located in downtown as well as High West out of Park City Utah. Wally’s Wine, an iconic wine and well-known store for the Los Angeles market was also here pouring several wines from their store and featuring a number of delicious cheeses.

Then there was the dessert section – a collection of everything from designer chocolates (Compartes Chocalatier) to ice cream personally being made with liquid Nitrogen by Benjamin Fernebok of Super Cool Creamery.

For more information about this event, please visit: www.unitedfriends.org/news-events/cultivate-la