Encinitas, Calif.

It was de ja vu when we walked into the bistro Tastes just after Christmas while visiting the California coast north of San Diego.

A scant year ago, on the eve of 2007, we discovered a high-concept dining spot in North Naples, Fla., called Naples Tomato. It successfully combines authentic Italian fare in the dining room with a retail gourmet food space out front and … even an adjacent wine tasting lounge. The lounge was notable for self-service wines-by-glass accessible by inserting a pre-paid “member’s card” into a corresponding slot above a given selection. There were dozens from which to choose.

Chicago

Decorated chef Shawn McClain now is more dominant in Chicago than ever with a trio of restaurants. The latest, Custom House, was our dinner destination this week when author and journalist Bruce Schoenfeld arrived in town from his bunker in Boulder, Colo. I was in some knowledgable company, so I listened, savored and sipped for the most part as an evening of conversation — mostly about Spanish wine — unfolded amid the buzz of Custom House, a comfortable, contemporary room adjoining the city’s financial district.

Also at the table was Brian Duncan, wine director at another superb Chicago eatery, Bin 36, and Denver-based Spanish importer Steve Miles. Steve is an independent operator now but was a key player with Eric Solomon’s European Cellars import operations for more than a decade.

Our two-week summer adventure through Russia and Italy’s sublime Tuscany was a dining odyssey marked by several memorable menus and wine lists, some described in earlier Vintelligence posts. By the time it was over in mid-August, the beginning of the trip — a brief stay in London — was more or less overshadowed.

Unless you are a business traveler with a benevolent accounting department, London is not an obvious choice these days. It is easily one of the world’s most expensive cities, a reality only magnified for American visitors because the British pound-U.S. dollar exchange rate is about 2-to-1. But London is a great city (the Olympic Games host in 2012), nonetheless, and a perfect starting point on the way to the European continent and beyond.

A couple of highlights from the notebook: