If you LOVE wine and great atmosphere, how about those two together and more than 2,000 labels of wine on the shelves?

Visit Water Tower Fine Wines at 6136 Campus Lane in Mt. Washington, and you will find such an oasis of wines, champagnes, sparkling wines and more. Shopkeepers David and Jan Lazarus pride themselves on having the largest selection of wines in the tri-state area. They also offer the largest selection of champagne (180 varieties) and sparkling wines (130 varieties) in the United States. If you love wines, you’ll have a blast looking and buying from this unique and vast selection.

“I have extremely eclectic tastes,” says David Lazarus. “That’s why we have a couple thousand wines in the store.” The wines are from all over the world—California and other states, also Israel, Greece, France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Germany, Australia, South America, and more.

One attraction of this shop is the weekly Friday Night Tasting Event. Each Friday from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. the shop has a lavish wine tasting. Heavy appetizers are served (Key staff was invited recently and all was yummy, especially the wines!). Tastings range from $12 to $40 per person, depending on the price points of the wines being tasted that particular Friday.

One reason Water Tower Fine Wines is better for visitors to the area is the Lazarus approach to shop hours of operation. The store is open for a limited number of hours each week, but call the shop (513-231-9463) and the proprietors will open the store by appointment. So if you can only make it after hours on a Tuesday, call, and work it out with David or Jan, and they’ll be there. Regular hours are: 12 – 6 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday; 12 – 10 p.m. Friday: and 12 – 5:30 p.m. Saturday.

Asked about the average customer frequenting the shop, the answer is there is no average buyer of wines. Water Tower Fine Wines has a wide range of price points to satisfy all kinds of shoppers, from those who want good quality at a lower price to those who collect the rare or special vintages.

“Many people don’t realize that we have some of the collectible wines that tend to be bought up quickly and become hard to get.” Lazarus said. He has 12 highly rated wine collectibles in his shop just now. He mentioned three: 100 Acres and Amuse Bouche, along with Salon champagne. “I don’t sell on ratings and people may not necessarily know that we have the wines. But we do.”
There are also wonderful selections of port, dessert wines and other specialty wines. For instance, Kopki vintage port selection includes many a 1900s bottle: including a ’91, ’78, ’75, ’66, ’60, ’55 and ’51. That’s just one label.

“Our goal here is to match the wine to the person buying it. We’re not out to sell a specific bottle to our customer. This is a service business, and our job is to find out what our customer is looking for in a wine and then match that to a wine that will be what the customer wants.”

Lazarus can help the novice find wines that will satisfy as well. For those who buy in case lots, there is a 10% discount for such purchases. Water Tower Fine Wines is a hidden gem…..worth the find…..see you there!

Artists can be a quirky lot. Creative impulses often place the artist on a path that veers away from the ones most traveled. Nowhere is the less traveled path more notable than on the walls of Art Beyond Boundaries gallery at 1410 Main Street in Cincinnati’s Over the Rhine enclave.

The gallery is devoted to artists with disabilities that have nothing to do with the creative process. The disabilities can be physical or cognitive, according to J. H. “Jymi” Bolden, gallery director and curator. “What we display here on these walls is ability, not disability. These artists (on display) have talents every bit as compelling as other artists, but they have been shut out of the mainstream art venues for reasons that have nothing to do with their creative abilities,” he said.

The gallery has been a showcase for the artists Bolden describes for more than a decade, and has weathered the Great Recession as well as the sputtering economic times on both sides of that 2008 meltdown. “The economy really doesn’t matter where art is concerned,” Bolden stated. “If art reaches out to you, and touches you, speaks to you, then you want to possess it, and the state of the economy is of no significance.”

Currently a show entitled “Say It Loud” is being exhibited at the gallery. The artists featured are: Ricky Michaels, Michael Todd and Kelvin Poole. The show runs into September, and draws patrons of the arts from the tri-state area (Ohio, Kentucky and Indiana), as well as regionally and nationally, and even internationally.

As the current Say It Loud exhibition illustrates, the art found at Art Beyond Boundaries is eclectic and diverse. “The artists whose works are displayed here bring the perspectives of their experience to these walls,” said Bolden, himself a practicing creative photographer with a degree in fine arts from the Art Academy of Cincinnati.
Primarily, patrons who visit the gallery will find collections of paintings that carry messages as well as graphics. Some of the compositions are conventional flat art with 3-dimensional aspects incorporated as part of the graphics. Paintings are done in oils and acrylics. The paintings include several with strong, vibrant colors and a diverse palette. There is a Picasso-inspired quality to some pieces in the exhibit, and a wonderful random intricacy to other pieces in the show.

“Really, we can talk of the pieces in the exhibit and describe them and all the rest. But the experience of the gallery is worth seeking out,” Bolden said. He encourages everyone who visits the city to put Art Beyond Boundaries on the list of must-visit stops, because there is nothing to substitute for seeing the actual art and experiencing the totality of the exhibition now on display. Call for gallery hours at 513-421-8726.

Ever been in a true Italian restaurant in Philly or the Big Apple?  It’s a special experience, no question.  Just such an experience awaits you at Pompilios, here in Newport, Kentucky (a few minutes from Fountain Square).  There’s a very special bonus, too, besides, because the toothpick scene in the movie Rainman, with Dustin Hoffman, was filmed in the bar at Pompilios.

Pompilios features that bar, Colonel Pomp’s Tavern, at the front, a bocci bar out back (complete with bocci-ball court), and an Italian “red-sauce” restaurant in between.

Let’s go to the tavern first, just for drinks if you want.  It’s a great destination hot spot for satisfying a thirst.  For starters, you will see one of the very best tied-house back bars in the Midwest, built the year FDR entered the Whitehouse—1933, when Pompilios opened for business.  Colonel Pomp’s Tavern features period photos of the 1930s, but the bar area itself is that old, so you’ll step back in time.  Also, the scene from Rainman was filmed in that very place, for an even richer taste of history.  Colonel Pomp’s features a good number of Greater Cincinnati’s very best craft beers on tap, which visitors love to try.

Hit the tavern on a Thursday or Friday in June, and you’ll be treated to live music from an assortment of talents featuring boogie woogie, acoustic Americana rock, jazz, blues and more.

Our suggestion at Key magazine is go there and experience Colonel Pomp’s as a great hot spot, but get yourself a table inside or out at the bocci bar, and have a meal too, lunch or dinner.  We mentioned red sauce because Pompilios features some of the best red-sauce dishes in an area with a lot of very good Italian eateries.  Pompilios has a slew of Taste of Cincinnati winners on their menu, so ask your server about the blue ribbon dishes.  Also, the place has been voted into the Italian Restaurant Hall of Fame.

Cosmo’s is Hot Spot for eats, bar, entertainment

Many visitors to Greater Cincinnati ask Key magazine for a better-than-bar-food place to eat—so, they want good food—but with the energy and action of a hot bar scene. We have the place for you—Cosmo’s on Main Street in MainStrasse Village, Covington (Northern Kentucky, just five blocks across the bridge over the Ohio River).

Cosmo’s Amanda Collins, bartender and one of the friendly faces of this hot spot, will tell you: “The food is really very good—way better than bar food.”
She enthusiastically cited the parmesan cream pasta as an example. “The pasta is mixed with sautéed vegetables and tossed in our parmesan cream sauce, which you can have as is, or you can add blackened or grilled chicken or grouper” if you want protein as well. Collins gave equally high marks to the Cajun cream pasta, with a sauté of peppers, tomatoes and onions, with a Cajun lemon cream sauce, and the options of chicken or fish, grilled or blackened. Both are hearty, hefty entrée dishes, and both reasonably priced.

Looking over the menu, you’ll find lots of comfort food that goes good with the many draft beers and a back bar mixed drinks available. The comfort food includes dishes such as pub-style fish & chips. Also, there is a sizeable list of burgers, including a crowd favorite called the Santa Fe burger. All burgers are _-pounders, and the Santa Fe includes a black-bean and corn salsa to accompany the burger fixins.

While there are plenty of bar-style appetizers, also there are items such as the spinach & artichoke dip, and chicken and cheese quesadillas. And the menu includes salads, pizzas, calzones, sandwiches and wraps, along with entrée dishes—all tasty and better than your average bar bill of fare, according to Collins.