There are a couple of importers whose wines are so trustworthy that I will buy them regardless of what’s in the bottle. Kermit Lynch, of course, for French wine, and Ole Imports and Patrick Mata for Spanish wine.

Mata’s passion for Spanish wine is famous, and his palate is exceptional. Which is why I trust Ole implicitly. Otherwise, a wine like the Zestos would raise all sorts of red flags. It’s a white wine from a region in Spain best known for red wine, and the red wine doesn’t have all that great a reputation. Its color is different, sort of off-yellow, and it’s made with a grape, the malvar, that is obscure even for those of us who appreciate obscure. Malvar, grown only in that part of Spain, is not even listed in the incredibly comprehensive Winegrape Glossary.

My faith, not surprisingly, was rewarded. The Zestos ($10, purchased, available at Central Market) is unique, though it had some similarity to the Gascon wines I like, including a little white grapiness. It is simple, but definitely Spanish in style — less fruit than the Gascon wines (some lemon, maybe) with a stone fruit pit kind of finish. One tasting note described the finish as bitter almonds, and that works, too.

Drink this chilled on its own or with a any week night dinner that calls for white wine. It’s a candidate for the 2013 $10 Hall of Fame, and is highly recommended. Just don’t expect it to taste like something you’ve tried before.

The swanky Hotel InterContinental – home to sold-out New Year’s parties and other North Dallas nightlife – is unveiling a new club lounge and luxury suites this week.

ForrestPerkins architecture firm renovated the 15th floor, which now features six specialty bi-level suites, corridors and an udpated Club InterContinental with a VIP lounge. It’s all an extension of last year’s renovation on the grand lobby, restaurant and meeting areas. Last summer, the five-star hotel opened Q de Cheval, a part-French, part-Texan-inspired cuisine.

The struggling shopping center at Prestonwood and Belt Line is about to get a do-over. The area will be demolished this spring to make way for a new movie theater and a couple of restaurants.

LOOK Cinemas is bringing in an 11-screen, 1,900-seat stadium-seating theater, which will be accompanied by Nick & Sam’s Grill on one side and Coal Vines on the other side. It is all scheduled to be up and running by the end of 2012.

“We had been looking at that spot for over a year,” says Tom Stephenson, president of LOOK Cinemas. “We had been looking in North Dallas for the past four years. We’ve always thought there was a big hole between NorthPark and the Dallas North Tollway.”

You can see renderings of the fancy new set-up over at D Magazine‘s SideDish blog.

But wait a minute. The developers at Village on the Parkway just down the street at Belt Line and the Tollway recently announced plans to include a 12-screen movie theater as part of that center’s redevelopment. Construction won’t start until the summer of 2013, though.

“Our theater is already going to be open long before they start on that one,” Stephenson says. “I don’t think they will keep it in their plans. We don’t need two movie theaters that close to each other.”

He says the new Whole Foods will be enough to help revitalize the Village on the Parkway, and that the two shopping centers will complement each other. No word yet from the Village guys on how this will affect their redevelopment.

The Prestonwood Studio Movie Grill closed in August 2010. A few other businesses will be relocated nearby. Stephenson says the new theater and restaurant complex will include family-friendly areas as well as 21-and-up lounges. Nick and Sam’s Grill is an upscale steak and seafood house. Coal Vines is a more casual pizza and wine bar. Both concepts come from Dallas restaurateur Joe Palladino.

It seems that everywhere you look in Far North Dallas, there is some kind of redevelopment going on. We know that Valley View mall is coming down as soon as someone buys it. We still don’t know what’s in store for that area. Some are expecting another type of Uptown. But we can guess that it probably won’t include a movie theater.

It’s not easy finding cheap cabernet sauvignon that tastes like cabernet sauvignon. Too many of them are fruity and sticky, without the heft and tannins that cabernet is supposed to have — call them cabernet lite. Or, if they taste like cabernet, they cost at least $20, and that’s not the point of what we do here.

How rare are these wines? I have only written about a half dozen or so cabernets in this space in the past year — hardly a proportion that compares to cabernet’s popularity. It’s the most sold red wine, and second overall in popularity to chardonnay.

The other irony? That many cabernets that do are well made and inexpensive are produced by the huge mutinationals that get so much criticism from the wine world, like the Columbia-Crest that appeared here in February. The Edna Valley ($15, sample, widely available), part of the E&J Gallo empire, fits into the same mold. In this, it’s another reminder that tasting the wine is always a good thing to do before deciding if you like it — something, sadly, that even I ometimes forget.

The Edna Valley is top notch inexpensive California cabernet. It’s less fruity than similar wines, even though it’s from Paso Robles, where fruity is part of the winemaking style. Still, there is a nice a dose of what may be boysenberry, as well as almost silky tannins and a chalky, grippy finish. Given those adjectives, you can probably tell that I really liked the finish. Serve this with red meat, especially as the weather warms up and it’s backyard barbecue time.

Attention animal activists and those intolerant to diary products: A new vegan restaurant, Loving Hut, just had its soft opening at the southwest corner of Belt Line and Midway in Addison.

It’s a franchise with locations all over. It’s actually the fastest-growing international vegan chain with more than 120 branches worldwide. This is the first one in Dallas. We could definitely use a meat-free, dairy-free establishment in our neck of the woods.

The menu is mostly Asian fare with a some Americanized burgers sandwiches thrown in. Entrees are about $8-$10 each. The restaurant encourages a “noble, plant-based diet” as the “only way to a sustainable planet.”

It’s hard to resist the coconut blueberry pancakes at Vitality House that weigh in at just 413 calories or the chicken Parmesan at 490 calories.

Where do I begin to praise the Trocard ($10, purchased, available at Spec’s)? Cheap wine does not get much better than this:

• It’s a previous vintage, and it’s still yummy.

• Classic white Bordeaux, made with sauvignon blanc. That means not much fruit and certainly none of that New World grapefruit stuff. That’s something one doesn’t see enough anymore because too many French producers are on a misguided quest to make their wine taste like it came from somewhere else.

• Clean, crisp, grassy and fresh. Just enough of everything to make it stand out, from aroma to finish, but not too much of anything. And only 12 1/2 percent alcohol.

• A simple wine that proves the adage that simple does not have to mean inadequate.

Serve this chilled on its own, or with almost anything that goes with white wine, whether seafood, chicken. or salads. And it’s probably a good match with an uncomplicated cream-style sauce (chicken fried steak or chicken pot pie, for example). Highly recommended and almost certainly in the 2013 $10 Hall of Fame.

La Zaranda focuses on coastal cuisine prepared on a special grill, from which the restaurant’s name derives.

Popular fashion retailer H&M opens at the Galleria.

One of the few remaining obstacles facing Texas wine is that too many consumers think it’s not any good — even though they’ve never tasted it.

On the first Wednesday of every month, Straw Hat Pizza hosts a fundraiser for Northwood Hills Elementary, donating 15 percent of all sales from dine-in, carry-out and delivery orders.

The new Mexican seafood spot at Belt Line and the Tollway La Zaranda is named for the special grill used to prepare the fish – the “zaranda.” Chef Antonio Marquez shows us how it works. Read the full story in our April 2012 issue.