Rivoli Restaurant (Albany, CA), Kosta Browne and Hartley Ostini Pinots

Oh Solano mio… just a few miles away, but the I580/80 curve and traffic through Berkeley can make you seem so far. However, just for sheer number and variety of great (and really good) restaurants, Solano Avenue, stretching across North Berkeley and Albany, is one of the best dining destinations in the East Bay. There are many places that are worth the trip.
Rivoli Restaurant is one of Solano’s shining stars. Three of us had never tried Rivoli and it had been years since the fourth had been there but excellent fare is the norm. Rivoli has been in The Chron’s Top 100 Restaurants of the Bay Area since 1996. Chef Wendy Brucker’s menu changes every few weeks and it just switched over. Wouldn’t you know it, right before I could refer to the online menu to write this post? But trust me, the girls said the vegetarian entree they ordered was delicious, calling it “the best vegetarian entree that they ever had.” We boys, stereotypically ordered steak, flank steak that is, and it was excellent as well. My goat cheese souffle with truffle oil appetizer was like music in the mouth. Service was attentive and professional. The very small dining room looks out over a cute “secret” garden and despite the room’s size, you can still hear your conversation partner without them having to yell.
Corkage at Rivoli is $20 per bottle. We brought:
2006 Kosta Browne Pinot Noir Amber Ridge Vineyard – USA, California, Sonoma County, Russian River Valley (3/19/2010)
Excellent rich, mouthfilling cherry, vanilla cream, and brown sugar flavors. Primary, but tasty, with everything in wonderful balance during a relatively short window. (89 pts.)
2004 Hartley-Ostini Hitching Post Pinot Noir Cargasacchi Vineyard – USA, California, Central Coast, Santa Rita Hills – Sta. Rita Hills (3/19/2010)
Quite interesting that if guessing blind, I would have identified this wine as the Russian River and the Kosta Browne as the Santa Rita Hills. There was significantly more ripeness and roundness in the KB. Both wines share similar fruit flavors (at times it would have been tough to tell them apart) but where the KB heads in a mouth-filling, candied direction, the HP Cargasacchi has more green herb and anise undertones — flavors I tend to associate more with Old World or Oregon Pinot Noir. (88 pts.)
Preference between these two wines would come down to preference of style instead of a “rating” though I would have to say on this night, the Kosta Brown was just a tad more enjoyable. However, it is worth noting that both of these wines were pretty much dead by the end of the night after being exposed to air for two plus hours. Drink up. They are not for aging.
(Posted from CellarTracker on GrapeStories.com)