10 Reasons to Attend the 4th Annual Malibu Wine Classic This Saturday

1. 60 wineries, 20 restaurants, three hours, 79 bucks.
2. Score whores! The wineries include Saxum (2003 Bone Rock Syrah, Parker 95), L’Aventure (2004 Cuvee Cote A Cote, Parker 97) and Linne Calodo (2005 Problem Child, Parker 92)
3. Malibu Wine Classic founder Michael Barnes also founded law firm Barnes Morris Klein Mark Yorn Barnes & Levine (in the CAA building's north tower). More importantly, he’s from Iowa and one reason he started the event is he missed going to state fairs. Only this is Malibu, so you have celebrities instead of farmers. Maybe even drunk celebrities.
4. In addition to locals like Il Grano, Michael's and Water Grill, one of the restaurants will be American Flatbread, which makes what’s probably the best pizza on the West Coast. However, its only location is the otherwise godforsaken Los Alamos.
5. It’s a good cause, dammit.
6. Malibu's weekend forecast: 73 degrees and sunny.
7. The wine comes from four counties (Los Angeles, San Luis Obispo, Santa Ynez, Santa Barbara) and include microboutique garage winemakers (next year, Barnes will probably have bottles from his own Malibu acre of Syrah, Malbec and Touriga Nacional).
8. Winemakers mean barrel samples; barrel samples mean bragging rights.
9. Barnes remembers his first wine tasting more than 25 years ago: “It was Riunite Lambrusco and Velveeta cheese on a saltine cracker. I tried to suck it down my windpipe and almost choked.”
10. Barnes admits it.
    
    
    The Malibu Wine Classic will be held Saturday March 31 from 1 p.m.-4 p.m. at Sunset Restaurant, 6800 Westward Beach Rd. on Zuma Beach. There's also an evening session (6:30 pm-9:30 pm), but that's more of a sit-down/silent auction thing at $250 a head.