Californians like their wine! We stopped in to visit The Winery Restaurant & Wine Bar located in Newport Beach, California. Newport Beach, located in Orange County, is an upscale costal town and features a beautiful restaurant that boasts an immense wine list.
In addition to the amazing wine list, patrons can purchase a private wine locker to keep their wine at the restaurant. Each locker has a placard with the owner's name on it along with a wine book that is used to document wines that have been drank and with whom they have been enjoyed. A cursory visual indicated that the wine of choice was Kosta Browne. While no wine is actually produced on location, there is wine that was made by the owners on the list.. . . it is a Halter Ranch Syrah from Paso Robles.


We tasted their Chardonnay offerings which included a 2013 Raymond "Reserve", Napa Valley and a 2014 Raeburn, Russian River. The Raymond "Reserve" was by far the superior Chardonnay. The Raymond boasted wonderful citrus and mineral notes. On the other hand, the Raeburn had a lemon zest flavor with aromas of petroleum. If we lived in the OC, we would visit this cool wine experience regularly and "for sure" would own a wine locker!