Vineyards and Winemakers

Drink 2013: Small Batch is the Second Coming of Local Wine

Wine Harvest Day Tripping in Sonoma County

Harvest time in wine country is quickly approaching and it's time to start making plans to head up north to "help" -- drink wine -- with this year's harvest. While you may be thinking about Napa Valley with its sleek tasting rooms and celebrity chefs, unassuming and rustic Sonoma has just as much to ... More >>

Bottles Up

Wine and Dine

Wine and Dine

Francis Ford Coppola and Corey Beck on the Winemakers That Inspire Them

SFoodie's Ben Narasin interviewed Francis Ford Coppola and his winemaker Corey Beck, for a he-said/he-said view of what making wine for and with the big man is all about. Thanks for talking with us. How active are you in the wine-making process, or the direction of that process? Coppola: I partic ... More >>

In Pursuit of Balance: Celebrate the California Wines That Get Amount of Alcohol Right

​At most gathering of wine-folk, talk eventually turns to the topic of high-alcohol wines. Personally, I'm not too opinionated on the matter just so long as the alcohol is in balance as an element of the wine. But that balance is harder to achieve as the alcohol content climbs higher. If a fr ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Shake Ridge Red

​In Champagne, most big-name "houses" buy their grapes from multiple growers and blend them to achieve consistency -- Veuve is Veuve whenever you drink it. But if you talk to Somms in the city, you'll most likely find that they favor grower-producers, those wine makers who grow their grapes. Latel ... More >>

Meet Our Masterminds: Eric Cohen and Eliane Lima

The economy sucks, but we don't care -- the Bay Area is home to artists so talented they deserve to take over the world. That's why the Masterminds grants are given to three local and emerging artists who need that little push to become even more awesome. SF Weekly has narrowed down the potential w ... More >>

J Rosé's New Clear Bottle Helps Holidays Sparkle

Holiday party e-vites are filling our inboxs, and the calendar is already looking like a mostly completed crossword puzzle with lots of full boxes and only inconvenient white space. All those parties means hostess gifts, or, if you are the host or hostess, the gift of expectation -- the expectation ... More >>

America's Cup: Booze and Boating Unite!

Wine and yachts -- an American traditionWine and yachts go together like PBR and fixies. So you knew this was coming. The organizers of the forthcoming America's Cup and Napa Valley Vintners today announced that Napa will be the "Official Wine Region of the 34th America's Cup." Those toting in forei ... More >>

California Vintners Infusing Wine with Pot

Wharman/FlickrApparently, it's an easy match with California's other favorite mood altering crop. In a Gourmet Live article last week, Matthew Kronsberg let the Internet in on a little secret that California wine geeks have known for a while: A few of our winemakers are tossing a few ounces of bud ... More >>

Joanna Karlinsky and Popups Take Over Food at the Winemakers' Speakeasy

Joanna Karlinsky/FacebookJoanna Karlinsky, in her Meetinghouse days.​Joanna Karlinsky, former chef-owner of Pacific Heights' much-loved Meetinghouse, has been looking for a permanent venue since closing up Sweet Jo's, her cafe in the Presidio JCC, last year. For the past two months, she's been ser ... More >>

Tolosa Shows What Chardonnay Smells Like Without Oak

​Earlier this year I attended a fascinating seminar, led by a perfumer, at Tolosa Winery in San Luis Obispo County. Over the course of several mentally exhausting hours, we learned by blind-whiffing essential oils exactly what many of the descriptors we use all the time smell like. For examp ... More >>

Family Winemakers Show Offers More Wine Than You Can Handle

Foodgal.com​Family Winemakers of California Tasting Where: Fort Mason Center When: Sunday, Aug. 21, 3-6 p.m. Cost: $65 advance, $75 at the door We can drink a lot of wine, but we find the Family Winemakers of California annual tasting overwhelming, in a good way. There's always about 50 times ... More >>

Drink Oakland Wine at the Urban Wine Xperience

Michelle Locke/Palate PressUrban Legend Cellars is one of more than 20 wineries that make wine in Oakland​East Bay Vintners' Alliance 6th Annual Urban Wine Xperience Where: Jack London Pavilion, 1 Broadway, Oakland When: Saturday, Aug. 6, 2-5 p.m. Cost: $40 A lot of wine is consumed in San Fr ... More >>

Pop-Up Wine Special: Only for SFoodie Readers

Cameron Hughes, the man, and Cameron Hughes, the wines​Planning to write about pairing wine with roast chicken, I went back through months of tasting notes looking for the right Chardonnay: Great flavor, great price. It turned out to be a Chilean Chardonnay imported by San Francisco negociant ... More >>

Napa Winemaker Came from Sports Illustrated for Kids

This is another little extra for this week's review of Bar Tartine in the print edition: an interview with the man who made one of the most impressive wines on the restaurant's very interesting wine list. Liza GershmanDan Petroski​When I called Dan Petroski to ask him how he managed to make M ... More >>

Dogpatch WineWorks Replaces Crushpad

​Since Crushpad left San Francisco last year for Wine Country, folks wanting to make their own wine in town have had to go it alone -- which, in most cases, meant not making wine. And ripe smells in the Dogpatch neighborhood unfortunately haven't been coming from fermenting grapes. But now, t ... More >>

A Field Guide to Sustainable and Delicious Dry Farmed Wines

Whole lotta irrigation goin' on in Napa.​Irrigation is plainly a function of the modern world. Though the ancient Romans built spectacular gravity-driven aqueducts, drip irrigation for agriculture was not invented until the late 1960s in Israel, and only in the 1970s did water-bearing pipes a ... More >>

Glen Ellen 2009 Old Vine Zinfandel Proprietor's Reserve

dr_XeNo/FlickrAt last year's ZAP Festival, plenty of old-vine Zin, not enough scandal.​In January, we attended the largest single-variety wine tasting in America: the ZAP Festival at Fort Mason. We sauntered through the pavilions, glass in hand, point-blank asking winemakers how old their "old ... More >>

Big House Unchained Naked 2009 Chardonnay

Big House Wines​The origin of Chardonnay, like that of many grapes, is uncertain. Sources seem to point toward the Middle East, and some believe the variety to be closely related to Muscat. Otherwise, Chardonnay's history is hazy, obscured by the centuries. Its modern history, though, is more co ... More >>

Heartswork Winery WELL REaD 2009 California Red

At $5.99, this is one bottle that defies the common wisdom that no-sulfites-added wines justify a higher price.​A molecule called sulfur dioxide ― aka sulfites, a common preservative ― has become the crux of an ongoing disagreement between two schools of winemakers. Those who vouch for the ... More >>

Tasting Petite Sirah, California's Little Big Wine

Alastair BlandTasting panelists Noah P. and Eleni K. strike a pose with the Petite empties.​It was born in 1880, and four years later came to California. But for another 80, almost nobody knew it. Petite Sirah is one of California's historical vines and among the earliest varieties introduced ... More >>

Look at Art, Then Drink It

bittermelon/FlickrThe Press Club is offering tastes of wines featured in SFMOMA's current exhibit.​How Wine Became Modern, SFMOMA's new exhibit on visual and design evolution in the wine world, is a fascinating look at both the aesthetics and processes of modern American winemaking, tracing th ... More >>

Winemakers Pouring Into S.F. Next Month for Golden Glass

Slow Food San FranciscoThe yearly Slow Food fundraiser attracts a crush of international winemakers.​Clear your calendar, Slow Food-slash-wine geeks: the Golden Glass is due next month. This is the seventh year for the swirl of sustainable grapes and noshes, the primary fundraiser for Slow Foo ... More >>

A Winery ― on Treasure Island? Taste for Yourself This Saturday

Treasure Island WinesWinery tour may include dog.​Treasure Island may sound like the most unlikely place for a winery, but the more you think about it, the location makes sense: cheap warehouse space, bay-cooled climate, easy access to vineyards and drinkers. One of the island's few urban wineries ... More >>

Sunday: Drink Hyper-Local Wines, Donate to Ultra-Local Libraries

JoeyWan/Flickr​Large-scale wine tastings are an odd sort of bacchanal: On one side of the hundreds of tables stand industry reps from around the country, politely pouring tastes and repeating their talking points until they're hoarse. On the other side of the table, the ticket-holders stand three ... More >>

Crushpad Leaving Dogpatch for the Napa Valley

InfodivaMLIS B./YelpThe custom winemaker is gettin' the hell out of Dogpatch.​S.F. wine writer W. Blake Gray dropped the news on his blog yesterday that DIY winemaking company Crushpad is leaving its facility in Dogpatch (2573 Third St. at 22nd St.) for more idyllic surroundings in the Napa Va ... More >>

Drink the Way the Good Lord Intended: Wine Week Celebrates All-Natural Vino

R. LauristonTerroir: Talking up the benefits of natural.​If you're a bit fuzzy on the term "natural wine," you're not alone. Here's a brief explanation, just in time for the San Francisco Natural Wine Week (August 24-30). Natural wine is similar in principle to biodynamic and organic wines, p ... More >>

Dine About Town

Two new books explore wine bootlegging during Prohibition

A Glass of Flowers: Ferry Plaza Pinot Noir Tasting Explores Sonoma's Terroir

jspatchwork via FlickrFlowers Pinot Noir: Where Burgundy meets SonomaFrench winemakers are always talking about terroir, that elusive term that can't really be translated into English, or, for that matter, into American concepts about viticulture. Terroir encompasses all the environmental factors th ... More >>

Wine & Beer Events, April 3-11

Saturday's all about the East Bay.

Wine Bar of the Week: Terroir

Terroir's wines are usually delicious, always interesting, and you won't see most of them elsewhere.

SF Weekly Letters

Voodoo on the Vine

The origins of the increasingly popular Biodynamic wine are steeped in the occult and bad science.

Wine Elites?

Cellar Rat: Week One at Unti Vineyards

Largest Tasting of California Wines in the World!

Music from Big Pink

California Wine-O Efficiency Act

Another San Francisco First: Resident Winemaker Tasting

Transmutation and Transformation at Dinner

The Golden Glass Cometh: Winemaker Dinner At Fifth Floor

Discount Dynasty

After scoring big with "Two Buck Chuck," renegade vintner Fred Franzia once again has Napa Valley's wine burghers in an uproar

The Grapes of Mirth

Jonathan Nossiter's wine documentary is subversive, funny, and humane

Wine Brats

They're young! They're rich! They'll drink anything!