Its website indicates “YellowBrix Restaurant strives to be the epicurean restaurant of choice for the community of Carlsbad.” If our inaugural visit is any indication, it’s a wonderful community gathering space that would be right at home anywhere. Initially they launched as a unique coffeehouse, but toward the end of their first year they decided to offer more to the community of Carlsbad, transitioning into the full service restaurant it is today. Some eight decades later (2011) owners Dan and Barbara Remplel began the conversion to a commercial restaurant with the goal of preserving the historic integrity of this stately home. Yellow Brix does indeed have an impressive wine list…and the edifice is constructed of yellow bricks, an architecturally beautiful and historic yellow-brick home built in 1928. Of course, different winemaking techniques will affect the final alcohol content, which is why Brix is interesting to us inquisitive wine explorers.” It’s very scientific, much like molecular gastronomy principles where techniques from chemistry and physics are used to transform the textures of food into innovative eating experiences. Each gram of sugar that’s fermented will turn into about a 1/2 gram of alcohol. “Brix (☋x) is a way to measure the potential alcohol content of a wine before it’s made by determining the sugar level in grapes. It’s not as complicated as Stephen Hawkings gravitational singularity theorems as Wine Folly explains below. Could there possibly be a grape-pressing method involving the use of bricks? And does the restaurant’s name Yellow Brix portend something about the color of bricks used in the grape-pressing process? It finally dawned on me that the key might not be in the pronunciation “bricks,” but in the spelling “brix.” As it turns out, when our neighbors were using the term “brix,” they were talking about a way to measure grapes to determine how much alcohol a wine will have. What the heck could “bricks” possibly have to do with wine, I wondered. Terms such as “tannin,” “body,” “terroir” and “brix” were interspersed with conversations about the day’s activities. Obviously “grape nuts” (yes, that’s a synonym for oenophile), they were speaking what seemed to be Klingon as they raised their glasses to their lips and sipped in a manner that was both studious and appreciative. Fortunately the couple on the table to our left bailed me out.

Bricks as in yet another of my jump shots bouncing off the rim? Too embarrassing. Bricks as a foundation for success? Too boring.

Being singularly passionate about one of these epicurean pursuits doesn’t necessarily mean you’re conversant in the vernacular of another.Ĭase in point, as we were enjoying our al fresco dining experience at the Yellow Brix patio in Carlsbad, I contemplated what theme to wrap my review around. The commonality among the three is their pursuit of sensual pleasures, an indulgence of the senses.

Most of us need a universal translator to understand what they’re saying when they’re waxing eruditely about their passions. Gastronomes (people with sensitive and discriminating culinary tastes), cerevisaphiles (aficionados of beers and ales) and oenophiles (connoisseurs of wines) have a vernacular of their own.

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