Old Pasadena Annual Wine and Jazz Walk

Yeah Frank beat me to it on this review… thank you Frank! i invited you to this event! LOL jk… this was for a good cause… for the California Symphony they needed to raise money$$$ – so everything started from Heritage Wine store, which I am sure it has been Unilocaled many many times. You pay $ 40 dollars for 3 glasses of wine (most of the places gave 2 reds and one white)…10 participating restaurants around old town Pasadena… so you do the math… did we finish it… of course not!!!
it was a lot of fun. i hope they do it next year again, i am not giving it five starts because of the lack of the hors d’œuvre at each location each time we got there.
It was a good turnout and it was great to see people in the street holding their little «passport» or pamphlet asking us «where is vertical? bodega?etc…
Let see if they do it next year again

Only thing that can beat the 90 degree blistering-​and-​sunny SGV weather is lots of glasses of Chardonnay at 5 in the afternoon! I think that pretty much sums up this wonderful fundraiser/​oenophile experience. By the end of the night, I was toasted AND I was toasted.
Eight wine bars participated in this event. Each participant/“passport” holder received three glasses of wine to taste at each bar. This equals twenty four glasses in total. (Now that’s the type of math that I like.) So you could only imagine how many happy and glowing faces I saw yesterday.
Brief and blurry rundown of each location:
Heritage Wine Co. — Where we initially started; very generous portions of each wine, although all were red and from Argentina, so not much of a thirst quencher in the disagreeable heat. At least they had good hors d’oeuvres.
Vertical Wine Bistro — The most decked out wine bar. Ya know, your typical dark and sleek and completely modernized interpretation of what a bistro should be. Lovely thing about this place is that it is upstairs, so you have to go through a small alley way to the stairs. Kind of reminiscent of Europe. Didn’t care for any of their wine, except the first, which was either Sauvignon Blanc or Chardonnay.
Holly Street Bar & Grill — A more casual atmosphere. Aire libre. Finally, live music, a band in the corner. Served Coppola wine. I just had Chardonnay.
Pasadena Jazz Institute — Upstairs and hidden. But that’s all that I remember.
Bodega Wine Bar — Finally where Spanish wine was served. Apparently so crucial for some people. I liked it. Surprisingly, it wasn’t red wine from Spain. Blanco y dulce.
D’Vine Wine — Peach wine. Sweet and chilled. Ever so refreshing. If you bring in your own grapes, they can distill and bottle some wine made from your own grapes. Customized wine… that’s revolutionary.
redwhite+bluezz — My disdain for this restaurant skyrocketed yesterday. Last stop. Everyone was hungry. Sat down to have food, but we couldn’t enjoy our free wine up front at the restaurant. Had to go to the back patio area where the wine bar was set up, where the event was hosted. Couldn’t bring our wine back to our tables because there isn’t a way from the front to the back, and no alcohol allowed on the streets, even if we were going back to the front. Then get us an escort, I said. Got a manager. Told him off. He escorted the drinks back. Servers ignored us the rest of the night. I may have complained too loudly and too frequently every five minutes they passed by; that was the point. I went into complete bitch mode. My filet was decent, although I couldn’t get the bitter taste out of my mouth. Sour experience. This restaurant needs to learn to be more efficient and accomodating.
The Crêpe Vine — Didn’t even go. Couldn’t. Needed to lie down by then.
Overall, a good solid experience. I hope the restaurants next year will provide more hors d’oeuvres and better selections of wine, since this is their chance to promote themselves to many oenophiles or residents of Pasadena/​LA area. Of course, I speak of one restaurant in particular that better get its act together, regardless of special events or not. I can’t bitch any longer. I thought I had fuel, but perhaps my ranting and raving is best captured at the moment I have something to say. It’s not like words can recapture truly my disappointment.