Los Angeles

55 Degrees

Ask any guy who's circled the block ten times, or refused to call the IAEA when his dirty bomb fizzled -- men simply hate asking for assistance. Buy wine self-sufficiently, at 55 Degrees, soft-opening tomorrow.

Unobtrusively located in an Atwater Village strip-mall, 55's mission's to educate customers on around 500 mostly Italian wines without forcing them to ask annoying questions like "Does this go good with chicken?" or "If I take this with Phenobarbital, will it make me gassy?" To accomplish this, wines are segregated into "light bodied" and "dark bodied" racks, then stocked in ascending order by origin -- from the toe of the Boot on up to that strange folded bit that evokes sword fights and general bawdiness. Further idiot-proofing things, each bottle'll soon be marked with a color-coded card to indicate robustness (i.e., whites range from fruity "pale yellow" to richer "gold"), and another card with pairing notes -- which you're free to take, store in wallet, and discover three years later when you're looking for your Frequent Taco Card.

Of course, drinking is the ultimate decider, so 55's built a Poe-ish downstairs tasting room (candles, brick walls, wrought-iron gates) you can pop into for nightly-changing, sommelier's choice wine flights -- or to just lay low when you've run out of gas, and a ticking sound has begun finally emanating from your trunk.

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