Wine

Bottle Rock: Napa Festival's Attempt To Combine Food, Wine, and Music Falls Short

It seems like a good idea on paper: Throw a music festival in wine country where guests can go wine-tasting and sample some of the region's best restaurants in between musical acts. That was the focus of Bottle Rock, a new festival thrown in a park in downtown Napa that combines stadium-filling rock ... More >>

Matchmaking At The 2013 Oyster Wine Competition

Every year I look forward to judging the Pacific Coast Oyster Wine Competition put on by Taylor Shellfish Farms and oyster expert Jon Rowley. The setup is simple: through an extensive selection process, Rowley and a team of preliminary judges comb through 124 California, Oregon, and Washington wines ... More >>

Cocktail Culture: Evolving Beyond Beards and Suspenders Into Something Weirder Still

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

Drink 2013: Wine Listings

Drink of the Week: Know Your Sparkling Wine

The end of the year brings many things: family, parties, and lots of sparkling wine. While we love cocktails, it's this time of year we simply give in to any and all excuses for bubbly. It's like wine that got bedazzled. While our mental image of sparkling wine mostly stays fixed on Champagne, the ... More >>

Good For the Wallet, Good for the Glass: Talking Holiday Wines With Bi-Rite's Trac Le

There are fine wines. And then there are the ones to bust out on a near-daily basis: end of the day. Your widescreen TV is glowing. Maybe your friends are headed over. Or you decided to cozy up with that furry pet of yours... all relevant cases for a glass or two of decent and not overpriced wine. T ... More >>

The Wine Detective: Maureen Downey Reveals Forged Bottles

Wine and Dine

Wine and Dine

Joie de Vine

George Estates RRV Pinot: A $40 Pinot Worth Searching For

We're always on the lookout for great wines at the $40 and under price point, and Pinot Noir, with its continued popularity and finicky farming, is often hard to find at the caliber we want that economically. So it's all the more sad when we find one and then learn it's sold out for direct order. S ... More >>

BBQ & Wine: Pairings for Your Holiday Grilling

A mid-week 4th of July timing either means you'll have a lot of mid-week BBQ days, or almost none at all. So we'll suggest some wines from our recent tastings to cover you from a quick prep on the light side to a heavy-weight overnight marinade big meat bonanza. Light Pick - For a light BBQ leanin ... More >>

Gary Farrell's New Wines: Pinot Noir and Chardonnay from Russian River

Early high-end wine efforts in Napa focused on Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay while Sonoma experimented with Chardonnay and Zinfandel. Around 1970 a few visionaries planted Pinot Noir in Russian River's cooler regions. Gary Farrell was one of them. Many assumed great pinot noir couldn't be produ ... More >>

Sommelier Q & A with Urban Tavern's Steve Kleinfeld

Steve Kleinfeld C.S., General Manager of Urban Tavern, has built a wine list focused on wines with a sustainable focus to serve his mix of local and hotel guests. We have five questions for Sommeliers, and we hit him with them -- and then we can't resist dishing a bit below about his answers. Stev ... More >>

Top Sommelier Tips with Gabriele Originario of La Mar

Sommeliers spend all day with wine, and are a great resource for new finds. They're the "friend on the inside" that can help you suss out the best values on their wine lists. With that in mind, we've come up with a short suite of questions that we're posing to some of our favorite area sommeliers to ... More >>

San Francisco's 10 Best Wine Lists

San Francisco is one of the best places in the world to drink young wines, particularly those with attitude, from many different places. Sommeliers here are passionate and their wine lists reflect it. We don't have many older wines on lists because restaurants turn over so quickly that they don't ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Pine Ridge's $9.99 Crowd Pleaser/Polarizer

Pine Ridge is one of those Napa brands that people have collected and saved since before Napa wines became the rage across the 1% that actually have cellars to store wine in. The producer brought French thinking and balance to California wine making, producing great wines that became greater with ti ... More >>

A16 Wine Club: How to Leverage the Experts

When I first started learning about wine, one of the first things I did was sign up for a wine club. The idea of monthly deliveries of high-quality wines from regions around the world appealed to me as something like having a personal trainer waiting for you at the gym: you're paying the bill wheth ... More >>

Wine of the Week: La Sirena's Moscato Azul and Syrah Santa Ynez

​ Heidi Barrett's family has been making wine in Napa long before the valley became a world-renowned wine destination. Barrett is one of Napa's rock-star winemakers, best known for bringing in perfect scores from some critics for her work at Screaming Eagle. If you don't care about Napa, or rock ... More >>

Drink: Buying Wine: Finding Great Bottles and Advice in S.F.

Josiah Baldivino, Lead Sommelier of Michael Mina, Dishes About Wine

​SFoodie's Ben Narasin sat down with Josiah Baldivino, Lead Sommelier of Michael Mina, to talk about wine. You moved here from NYC, so what differences do you see between how people order wine on the left coast versus the right? People order a lot more local things out here, and they're quick to ... 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: Imbibe Federalist Dueling Pistols in Honor of Aaron Burr

There's a new wine sheriff in Zin town, and its name is Dueling Pistols. Corny, I know, but the label alone could have you looking for a gun fight. Dueling Pistols is a new wine, first vintage, from a new project, The Federalist, which itself is only in its second vintage. The Federalist is Terla ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Blue Plate Chenin Blanc Is Worth Getting to Know

Each wine region of France is home to a variety of grape used in wines bearing that region's name. From Vouvray comes chenin blanc. If you're a dessert wine-enthusiast, you probably know that chenin makes for exceptionally sweet wines, including Quarts des Charmes from the Loire, which are among the ... More >>

La Paulée: Try Great Burgundy on a Budget -- or Drop Four Grand on It

​Wether you have $4,000 or $95 to spend on your Burgundy education, La Paulée has an option for you. You probably can't go further toward an extreme Burgundy education and experience than through a ticket ($4,000) to La Paulée de San Francisco's Legends Dinner at the Napa Valley Reserve. ... 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 >>

Winos of the World Unite at Pinot Noir Summit

No, but it may rain wine at the Pinot Noir Summit.​What: 10th Pinot Noir Summit Where: Hilton Financial District When: Saturday, Feb. 25, 1:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m. Cost: $130 for an all day ticket, $85 for the Grand Awards Tasting and Ceremony. The rundown: Hang out with wine lovers and ABC ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Waterstone Merlot and Cabernet

Sometimes you have to go a long way to find a local wine. For this week's wine(s), we turned to Canada. Actually, Canada came to us in the form of our friend Dups, and his iPhone image of a Waterstone Cabernet. He asked if we knew it. We didn't . He liked it, we tried it, and now here we are. Wa ... More >>

What's White Burgundy like? Find Out for Less with Gary Farrell

The View From Gary Farrell​According to William "Rusty" Gaffney, M.D., aka The Prince of Pinot, "Some consider Gary Farrell the father of Russian River Valley Pinot Noir." While Gary himself has long ago left the vineyard, the fog-shrouded winery he built with Bill Hambrecht is still producing pr ... More >>

Wine(s) of the Week: Riesling

​If you've followed Jay McInerney's move from chronicler of a generation to scribe of that generation's current obsession, wine, you may have seen his 2012 resolution to "Drink more Riesling." His insight that "every wine merchant and sommelier you encounter will think you're cool if you ask for ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Tuck Beckstoffer's 2009 Melee

​If you aren't a wine geek, you may not recognize the name Tuck Beckstoffer. Beckstoffer's family owns a variety of premium vineyards and has historically sold fruit to some of Napa Valley's best. Their TO Kalon vineyard is so sought after, and of such exceptional quality, that it is often credite ... More >>

Wine of the Week: Mercury Rising Bordeaux-Style Tastes Pricier Than it Costs

"Exceptional value-per-dollar ratio" is how Cinnabar, or at least their publicist, promotes their wines. Based on our tasting of their 2008 California Mercury Rising "Bordeaux-style" wine, we see substance in the statement. ​ We taste wines blind-ish. We don't brown bag and mix them up to confus ... 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 >>

Tyler Florence's New Recipe: Wine

If you're a writer trying to land a book deal, there's a good chance you'll learn you need "a platform." That's publisher-speak for a following via Web, Twitter, TV, radio, or whatever. The more well known you are to start, the more likely a publisher will be to invest itself in making you better k ... More >>

This Thursday: Arlequin's Beaujolais Bash!

​What: Beaujolais Bash! Where: Arlequin Wine Merchants When: Thurs., November 17, 6-8 p.m. Cost: $25 The rundown: If there's one wine to love, it's Beaujolais, and that's not just because it's the most fun to say. This week, you have the rare and exciting opportunity to taste bottlings fr ... More >>

Quivira Makes Jam, Not Just Jammy Wines

​Wines are often described as "jammy," but how often can you buy jam and wine from the same producer? Dry Creek Valley producer Quivira will sell you both, and some honey from the estate as well, with the help of some goats, bees, and manure-filled bull horns. The goats mow the lawn, the bee ... More >>

Pre-Auction Wine Tastings: The Best Deal in Wine

​ The only sure way to develop your palate for wine is to taste more. When you get the chance to taste older, rarer, or more expensive wines than you might normally dink, take it. That opportunity presents itself this Thursday at San Francisco Wine Center during the Wine Gavel pre-auction tastin ... 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 >>

Piccino Wine List Seeks Balance, Naturally

White wine made from Pinot Noir​When I first looked over Piccino's leftist-wine-geek wine list, I assumed it was compiled by a follower of the natural wine movement. Only seven of the 42 wines on the list are from California, and most are from winemakers associated with natural wine: Lioco, ... More >>

Ten Things I'd Like To Tell People Who Don't Read Wine Stories

Grez Neuville/Trip Advisor​I was tasting wine at my desk at 11 a.m. when a coworker asked why. Because I hadn't had time earlier, I said; it's best to taste early in the day when your palate is fresh. That wasn't what he was getting at. He drinks wine, but never considered tasting as a separa ... More >>

Santa Julia Torrontes: Like Drinking Fresh Flowers

​Argentina is working hard on marketing Malbec as its signature grape, but I prefer Torrontes. For one thing, unlike Malbec, which was imported from France, Torrontes may actually be indigenous to Argentina. People used to believe it was the same as a grape of the same name in Spain's Galicia ... 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 >>

Twenty-Five Lusk Serves 6-Course Champagne/Strawberry Menu

Seared diver scallop with foie gras torchon and grilled strawberries​SFoodie is willing to put ourselves on the line for you. So when we heard Twenty-Five Lusk is offering a 6-course Champagne and strawberry themed menu for $90 -- $60 food, $30 wine pairings -- through Blackboard Eats, we ran ... More >>

The Less You Spend, the More Interesting Fifth Floor's Wines Are

Amy Goldberger in the Fifth Floor wine room​There might be no better sign of where San Francisco's fine dining scene is in 2011 than the wine list at Fifth Floor. It's a pricey hotel restaurant, reviewed today by our restaurant critic Jonathan Kauffman. Yet the list is currently managed by wi ... More >>

New California Law Gives Brewery Tasting Rooms a Break

Jason HenryDrake's Barrel House in San Leandro was built expensively under the old law​You walk into a brewery tasting room and order a sample. The beer is delicious, but you can't help noticing that the brewery doesn't have washable tile flooring and the cashier isn't far from the dishwasher. ... 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 >>

Bar Tartine Wine List: If It's Porn, It's European Porn

Alex Fox​This week we ran our first wine list review to accompany Jonathan Kauffman's restaurant review in the print edition of SF Weekly. Jonathan likes to offer people a little extra flavor on the web, so I decided to do that too by dropping by Bar Tartine on a Friday morning to taste wine w ... More >>

Bring Wine to Mission Chinese Food (But Which Wines?)

Mission Chinese Food chef-owner Danny Bowien goes through this many chiles pretty fast. ​Mission Chinese Food is a great challenge for wine lovers. It's great, because corkage is only $8. It's a challenge, because some of Danny Bowien's food, like the kung pao corned beef, is so spicy that dri ... More >>