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Have an amazing evening and above all - drink some great wine and champagne!
2008 promises to be an exciting year for The Cru so stay tuned!
To begin with I will be releasing a new look Cru in the next two weeks - it's going to a lot easy to navigate around and hopefully it will make finding your favourite South African wine that much easier and more enjoyable!
Until then have a great evening and enjoy the chosen Pouza!
It’s time for a break. Back with updates from 20th November, and who knows - maybe the Autumn issue will also be out before the clock strikes December! a holiday time
So the topic came up today in the Twitter-sphere - Adwords, social networks (Facebook in particular), and their success (or lack thereof). I think its been talked about in the blogosphere or in conversations at various tech conferences but its worth repeating.
For all intents and purposes, it boils down to what Adwords was intended for and the way it works versus the evolution of the web today.
A few years back (eons in Internet time), the Internet was a super efficient way to find things - information, places, stuff to buy, etc. etc. etc. Google came along with a great way to search through HUGE amounts of data, create Google PageRank to make “authorities”, and basically try to get you results that most closely meet what you’re looking thus avoiding a huge number of porn links when searching on children’s bedtime stories.
The algorithm they devised was evolutionary (not revolutionary, one of the most overused terms in high tech) and it worked extremely well. As time went on, since the dominant behavior on the Internet was “searching”, using the information gathered and the search algorithm Google created they devised an ultra -efficient way to advertise. They already knew that you were searching (because Google is a search engine after all) and they knew what you were searching for and therefore Google could simply place paid ads next to your search result that would turn up sponsors who had stuff related to your search. This was brilliant in its simplicity because it was (and this is the key) ADDITIVE to your current behavior. VALUE ADD - simple, straight forward, and very very effective.
Google later expanded this to allow you or I to put ads on our site that would reflect something related to the information on the page upon which you placed the ads. Again, effective, but not as clearly value add because people on your site may not have necessarily been in “search mode”. They may just have been reading out of interest. But since the Internet was still basically viewed as a giant repository for information and “stuff” that you sifted through, “search mode” is what people generally were still in and it masked the few times people weren’t in “search mode”.
Now, with the advent (or rise) of social media, behaviors are changing. “Search mode” is still a dominant behavior but not what it once was. See, social media (blogs, networks, Twitter, etc. etc.) make the Internet more and more a place to “socialize”. Behavior changes from “searching for something” to “killing time” or “marketing” or “making connections”. Lets call this “hanging out” mode.
Now if you’re on a social network, you most certainly are not in a “search mode”. So then, what happens if Google indexes my Profile page and serves up an Ad related to the content there? The answer? Who the hell cares!
Why is that? Because if I’m on Facebook or OpenWine Consortium or any other social network, I’m probably not “Searching” but doing some sort of “socializing” (BS’ing, networking, hooking up, whatever) - I’m in “hang out” mode. Indexing my page and serving up ads related to keywords and content is NOT additive to the social media experience or the current behavior so this ad will be ignored. Even blogs, which are chock full of information, don’t see much return on Adwords because while they do typically report or inform they, more often then not, are sparking conversation or continuing conversation. Unless the blog is specifically reviewing something, in which case a few ads on where to buy that something may work, contextual ads are ineffective. This inefficiency in the original model was masked by the fact that predominant behavior was searching. Now with the behavior being socializing, Adwords and the searching optimization are only slightly more useful than putting up a static add.
Even Google admits that it hasn’t solved the social network advertising/monetizing behavior.
Net-net: Save your money. Buying keywords is NOT social media marketing.
Now, Google is looking to create a sort of “FriendRank”, in a recent patent application. They call it “Network Node Ad Targeting” and they intend to use a person’s social map to determine the number and quality of connections they have (and therefore their influence) and pay those influencers to allow advertisers the serve ads to their friends. Interesting, but we’ll see how it plays out. I’m sure they’ll be takers, but I’ll be awefully pissed if a friend or other contact is the source of ads I recieve! Still not a value-add unless the friend somehow has the ability to control the ads that get served and influence what goes to our friends (i.e. some sort recommendation and reputation system). Reading this patent, I don’t think it cuts it at all.
After a few days in the rarified air of Marfa, Texas, I have had a few moments to do a little navel gazing. Take this one or leave it, as it applies to you. Or doesn?t. That being said, don?t we all have, at one time or another, moments where we look around our environment and notice the world that we have landed in and ask ourselves if this is what we intended to do?
Mind you, this isn?t a crisis post. I?m not telegraphing back to home base that I won?t be returning. Well, maybe a part of me won?t ever be back. But every time I get on the wine trail a part of me is left behind and a newer segment grows in its place.
One of the fascinating aspects of being in Marfa during the run up to the Chinati Foundation annual hoe-down, is this congregating of intellectual and artistic energy that appears to have broken away from the bubble of the everyday reality we all seem to get trapped in. The Dow drops to 8500? Where is the wine for the governor?s dinner? 159,000 jobs lost? An installation for an artist is previewing in the desert today. The G7 is meeting in emergency session with the IMF? Artist Eugene Binder on the main street is moving his three vintage Porsche Speedsters out of his gallery so he can make room for the folks coming to town.
After a visit to a handful of accounts ( El Cheapo, Pizza Foundation and the Thunderbird Lounge) we headed out to Alpine, Marathon and Midland. In Marfa I had been invited to ?curate? a wine list for one of the local patrons, who also are big wine fans. They are also looking at a property in Montalcino to invest in, land and a winery. The wine trail winds and turns and points towards many destinations.
This week I had a Carbonara that folks anywhere would be proud of. Pizza that merited a second piece. Restaurants like Cochineal and Maiya's, with a passion for food and wine. And saw a love for Italian wine from the artists and intellectuals of a small west Texas town that I could only wish larger urban areas would aspire to. Go figure.
Maybe it is something about the confluence of a zone that attracts art and intellect that also is amenable to things Italian? I know this to be the case all over Italy, maybe Marfa is a vortex that squeezes a drop of Italy onto the canvas and exposes the native energy to the ancient? Or maybe I am just a kook?
Lesson learned this week: Do what you love, even if you don?t sometimes know why you do it or even what it is.
Repeat as needed. Repeat as needed. Repeat as needed.
The 2006 edition of Bruno Tait's Ball Buster is true to form. Like Barack Obama, it's a velvet glove on an iron fist. This I verified on the night of the third Presidential debate of 2008, by drinking the third bottle to date.
Mind you, writing about it is not as easy as drinking it. It's so smooth on the surface, you get carried away, as if the Bush years are a thing of the past. If I were on death row, I would request as many glasses of Tait Ball Buster as I could get, as a prelude to the lethal injection that would be the ultimate anti-climax. I imagine a last supper of long-suffering Shiraz grapes, basket pressed to my lips before I turn blue.
Robert Parker's Jay Miller, a true hedonist of a reviewer, sees the virtue in Ball Buster '06, to the tune of 92 points. I first tasted Ball Buster 2005, drawn to the name. It was quite good; the 2006 seems even better, but that's probably just my eternal optimism getting the best of me.
Fact is, Bruno says this year's blend is 78% Shiraz, 12% Cabernet Sauvignon and 10% Merlot. The iron fist manifests itself by way of the alcohol level that soars into the stratosphere without a trace of ethanol in the nose. The velvet glove is the cloak of the grape skins preserved from the vineyard into the glass.
Tait Ball Buster 2006 is deep dark purple ruby, as expected. You get aromas of loganberry, expresso, cedar and forest. Lush jammy red-to-black fruit, vanilla, then chocolate emerge, at first sweetly on the edges of the tongue. The finish is dusty dry with soft astringency on the center of the tongue.
Pine Ridge Chenin Blanc Viognier expresses the very irrational exuberance that got us into this economic mess. But it didn't, it just tastes that way. Like Sarah Palin, it's fresh, attractive and uncluttered, but alas, it's well crafted.
This alternative white wine blend will connect and resonate with most any white wine drinker. It tastes like perfectionism in a bottle. It comes out of left field but has the power to bring people together. I've tasted this wine in previous vintages, always found it to be pleasant, but this vintage really grabbed me.
Expect perfumed aromas of melon, pear, grapefruit and cold blossoms, plus overtones of sweet spice. On the tongue, bright acidity gives it a mouth-watering crisp edge. The finish, like Sarah Palin, gives a wink of sweetness, but the overall effect is palate-cleansing. Robert Parker himself rated this one 90 points, a real bragging point for an under-$15 USA-made white wine.
Oktoberfest! I must confess that October has found me drinking more beer. Maybe it's Oktoberfest, or maybe I'm turning into a beer advocate. My paying job has me promoting brews, so I have a vested interest in gaining first hand experience. Research must involve all the senses. Yeah, that's it.
Not knowing much about beer, I stumbled onto a couple of good ones right off the bat. First, Duvel Belgian Strong Pale Ale. If you've tried it, you know about that amazing head. If you haven't tried it, and you're not dead yet, go get a bottle, chill, and pour it into a glass. The head defies gravity. It's like what I hoped whipped cream would be when I first learned of it, but it never was. Lightly bitter, unlike the hop-head brews that gather the limelight, beautifully crisp, like a champagne, refreshing and smooth, Duvel is the creme de la creme, literally and figuratively. It's not the latest thing, but no one appears to have improved on it. Expect to pay about $3-$4 a bottle (330 ml.). Alcohol content: 8.5%.
And then there's Dogfish Head Punkin Ale. 'Tis the season, and unlike the imitation over-hyped or over-hopped brews that pretend to convey the harvest, Dogfish really does. The color is beautiful, somewhere between a new minted copper penny and an October sunset. The aromas are complex, hinting at sweet baking spices and pumpkin, but also conveying lots of malt and even some hops. The flavor is a bribe that could make you do most anything.
Expect to pay about $8.99 for a 4-pack of 12 ounce bottles. Alcohol content: 7%. Don't miss out!
By way of a "plug", I recently installed high-proof beer sections into Frugal MacDoogal's web sites for Nashville and Fort Mill, SC (Charlotte, NC area). These sections combine my original bottle photos with a pinch of clever programming, some worthy graphics, and information from all over the place. So far, Frugal's is getting good results from this effort.
I pruned the roses a few days ago, hence the slightly clichéd photo. . . This is a very pretty wine, though there is little that is unique or remarkable. Stems, freshly turned earth and rosewood, silken to begin before building in texture, shape and power. Very clean and correct, this is perhaps a little too proper.
October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month and Fat Bastard wines are doing their part to cure this disease by donating 25 cents for every bottle sold in restaurants and retail stores, up to $75,000. This is the sixth year the company has run this program and to date, they have donated more than $250,000 to breast cancer research.
During October, Fat Bastard wines will be easy to spot on the shelf. They'll have a pink ribbon necker with an attached pin for consumers to wear. Fat Bastard's wine collection includes Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc, Rose, Pinot Noir, Shiraz, Merlot, and Cabernet Sauvignon.
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There is definitely wine in India, but who exactly is drinking it? I have tasted pretty much all of the local, at least grape, wine I can find, which was pretty easy, as that is a population of about three producers. I ran across fruit wines being sold up in the foothills of the Himalayans, but I didn't have a chance to try it, and I don't usually count it as wine, at least for the scope of this blog.
The most amazing thing about wine, at least this far from Delhi (I am up north in the large city of Chandigarh) is people's perceptions of it. They, at least the locals I have met, do not know exactly what wine is. They assume it is a sort of whiskey, and a high priced one at that.
When I had a chance to share wine with them they were delighted with the taste, although to be fair I started them off with a slightly sweet white. This is a beginner wine for many people, and it was well received here, and went nicely with the local foods.
People here drink whiskey, and they drink it with nibbles before a meal. Drinking wine with the dinner was not something they had ever thought of doing. In fact drinking wine at all was something they had not thought of doing.
Almost every block there is a store that sells liquor and beer, and while the signs say they have wine, none actually do. Only a few stores carry wine at all, and their selection is very small.
That is not surprising given that most of the people in India I have met have no idea what wine is. The few restaurants that have wine listed have "both kinds" red and white, and nothing more descriptive than that.
The wines made in India are not bad, but they are very expensive. In a country where a hair cut cost $1.50 a $12 bottle of wine is an investment that few consider worth the risk.
It is changing. The ultra rich are drinking the big name labels, as they always do. The middle classes are ordering Dominos pizzas in their Levi jeans over their cell phones, and sooner or later they are going to start equating wine with their lifestyles.
Once India gets a taste for wine, watch out, there is a huge potential market here, if you are very, very patient, or very, very proactive.
I picked up a nice bottle of good cheap wine: Purple Moon Shiraz from Trader Joe’s. This wine, made in Manteca California, was a pretty typical Shiraz with an atypical price tag. For only $3.99, this turned out to be one of many fantastic selections I made at Trader Joe’s.
I enjoyed this Shiraz with some Trader Joe’s Mild Fresh Salsa… boy! What a match!
It was dark plum in color and lots of fruit, the “dry Shiraz” fans that sampled this wine with me loved it. I enjoyed it at a perfect 54 degrees F, so that may have enhanced my enjoyment of this cheap wine. Now, when I usually write a post I research it on the internet. Aside from some web-spam, this cheap wine didn’t show up at all. Well, I feel this wine deserves some more publicity, so here it is!
Would buy again, without doubt. Stay tuned for my full tribute to Trader Joe’s (and Charles Shaw AKA Two-Buck Chuck)!
Has anyone else tried this? Has anyone been able to get it from places other than Trader Joe’s? Rating: 8/10 Price: $3.99 Place of purchase:Trader Joe’s
I'm on the road for work, which means that I'm reading The Wall Street Journal. This paper is everywhere business travelers are: in lounges, planes, and hotels. I don't subscribe at home, but as it's Friday and the paper was outside my door, I turned to the "Tastings" column written by Dorothy J. Gaiter and John Brecher to read what two of my favorite wine critics had to say. (photo by filtran)
Essentially, they said that expensive wine was so five minutes ago. And then they made a surprising recommendation for this year's "holiday gift pick."
It's not expensive. It's not hard to get. But it will leave you wondering if America's expensive wine habits are on the brink of changing--for the better. What do I think? For my thoughts on their story, click over to Serious Grape, my weekly column on the excellent food site Serious Eats, and get all the details.
Today is my anniversary and Kipp and I have a babysitter so we are going out tonight. I'll make up for no blog today by posting one for Thursday!! Cheers!
The wine world is chock full of gadgets these days and this is one of the funniest I have seen in such a while. A physician by trade, Patrick Farrell claims that he has an invention that will improve the quality of a wine simply by pouring wine into a glass. Let me explain?
He has created a device that will fit around the neck of a bottle that uses magnets to enhance the wine.
Farrell started out tying magnets to the neck of a bottle at the urging of business acquaintances who were distributing magnets to try to improve water quality. At the time, he thought the chance magnets would work on wine was ?about the same as seeing pigs fly.? But, he says, ?I took the thing home, put it on a bottle of shiraz from Australia and was shocked to see it made it taste smoother and fruitier. So then I went down to my cellar and I got a bottle of Bordeaux from the Medoc and it made it taste softer and fruitier.? Eventually, he came up with a molded plastic device that looks like a regular non-drip pourer and has an air hole to speed up oxygenation. That intensifies the effect of the wizard and differentiates it from other magnetic devices on the market such as The Wine Clip, which clasps around the bottle neck, says Farrell. Um?magnets?? I guessing the pourer at the top actually aerates the wine and that?s what softens the wine as opposed to the magnets. But let?s see what the critics have to say.
?Testimonials are irrelevant. Tastings are not proof,? says Ball, a professor at Cleveland State University, and ?amateur wine snob,? who says magnetic fields aren?t strong enough to change the shape of tannins. ?All that magnetic field is doing is separating you from your money,? says Ball, who won?t be trying the Bev Wizard any time soon. Awesome! At $30 for the gadget you?re better off buying a $5 corkscrew and a $25 bottle of wine!!
This really promises to be a cool event. I hope to see some of you there.
Seven North Carolina breweries - including all five from Buncombe County - are teaming up this month to host a Slow Food beer-tasting event at the downtown Asheville Brewing Company, 77 Coxe Ave. Slow Food is an international group that works to preserve food traditions and sustainable agriculture. Proceeds from the beer tasting will be used to send local delegates to the Slow Food Terra Madre gathering, Oct. 26-30 in Turin, Italy. The tasting, at 5 p.m. Aug. 27, will feature beers each from Asheville Brewing, Highland Brewing, Pisgah Brewing, French Broad Brewing, Green Man Brewing (all from the Asheville area) Catawba Brewing of Glen Alpine and Foothills Brewing of Winston-Salem. Each brewery will have at least two beers at the event, and Asheville Brewing will likely serve all of their ales, said brewmaster Doug Riley. Beers will be served in four-ounce samples, and the evening includes pizza. Tickets are $20, on sale now at Asheville Brewing and its sister operation, Asheville Pizza and Brewing, 675 Merrimon Ave. http://www.citizen-times.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060809/NEWS01/60809012/1119
So, things have been really hectic at work and with dial up access only (and limited at that) blogging is very difficult. Anywho I am not giving up on it, just lagging behind. I expect the next post to be on Sunday unless the heavens open up and smile upon me. Tomorrow I am going to a Highland Beer dinner at Ganache so I'll post the deets then. Lay-tah!! Cheers!
The wrong Acorn has been in the news lately. The tiny Sonoma winery called Acorn was news to me as I tasted the wines for the first time at the first (annual we hope) Wine Bloggers Conference held in Santa Rosa last weekend. Betsy and Bill Nachbaur’s Acorn Winery is very good news indeed.
In a California wine world dominated by squeaky clean, but personality-free wines, the wines of Acorn are packed with personality. Producing wines exclusively from their estate vineyard in the Russian River they once again challenge conventional wisdom on so called “warm” climate varieties. In the cool Russian River Valley, which is known for its pinot noir, the Acorn Vineyard is planted with syrah, zinfandel, sangiovese, petite sirah and other varieties that aren’t usually associated with pinot territory. It seems zinfandel and syrah like a little fog too.
Acorn is doing some things that seem cutting edge in the new world, but actually go back to the very first wines. They are co-fermenting field blends instead of picking and fermenting each variety separately. There is no doubt that varieties that are co-fermented together have different characteristics than a wine made from those same varieties made separately then blended. The chemistry that takes place during co-fermentation is just different.
For example, their 2005 Heritage Vines Zinfandel (1005 cases) is 78% zinfandel, 10% alicante bouschet, 10% petite syrah and the remaining 2% includes carignane, trousseau, sangiovese, petit bouschet, negrette, syrah, muscat noir, cinsault and grenache. All of these varieties were harvested and fermented together. The wine is rich, but with a firm backbone of tannin and acid and loaded with layers of flavors and aromas like coffee, chocolate, porcini and deep ripe blackberries. The 2005 Sangiovese (1022 cases) is easily one of the most interesting New World examples of this variety I’ve tasted. Produced from 98% sangiovese (7 different clones), 1 % canaiolo and 1% mammolo, which is a blend I wish more Tuscan wineries would use instead of overwhelming their sangiovese with the strong varietal character of cabernet sauvignon. This is a decidedly robust, California style wine, but like their Zinfandel it has the zesty backbone to carry the heft. It is interesting to note that while these wines come from an Acorn they are blessedly not over-oaked. They are also not overpriced running around $30 a bottle.
All of the Acorn wines have just the right touch of what I call a rustic character. While being very well made they have just a bit of wildness or sauvage, as the French call it. Rustic does not mean brett or other wine faults, but means that the character of the varieties and vineyard really show through in the wine and are not polished away leaving only artificially gleaming simple fruit flavors. With this edge of wildness, the wines of Acorn are not only delicious, but interesting, which is just the way I like them.
Acorn may be small, but they’re making some mighty fine wines.
I've thought long and hard about this one, but it's time to shut up shop here at The Wine Chicks.
As you all know, I simply don't have the time any longer to post stuff - that's been more than obvious. I also have been focusing so much on certain wines that I rarely taste outside of my own portfolio. And the last thing I want to do is make this site an extension of my day job. I've wanted to keep this open but since I'm pressed for time, I too often just post about a tasting/wine dinner/IPO wine with which I was involved. The quality of my writing has certain suffered and I don't want to keep posting crappy blips just for the sake of posting crappy blips.
So, let's ring in a Chick-free New Year! Who knows? Maybe I'll resurface elsewhere in the not-too-distant future...
I just had a little jaunt across the border into Greece. I got to taste a very nice Greek wine, and I had a not particularly Greek dinner at a very elegant Greek restaurant in Thessaloniki. While I do not often post restaurant reviews, I do have a few words to say on the subject.
For many of us the thought of Greek wine brings up recollections of pine needles and disinfectant. There is a world of Greek wine beyond just Retsina, and while my most recent foray was limited to a wine list it bears pointing out that there is a modern and thriving wine industry in Greece.
The wine list was full of the usual and all to ubiquitous Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon and Merlots that you would expect to find anywhere, except these were all of Greek origin. I didn't explore these transplants to the Hellenic wine scene, opting instead for a more traditional bottle of Asyrtiko .
Speaking of Cabernet Sauvignon's recent emergence in Greece, a recent book by Miles Lambert-Gocs "Desert Island Wines" suggests that Cab may just be tracing back its roots to its ancestral origins in Greece.
I won't do my usual song and dance about how Cab, Merlot and Chard are eroding the once varied landscape of international wines, honest. Suffice it to say that I have yet to go anywhere in my travels that these revered grape varieties, once relegated to France and California, have not been prominent on every wine list.
The Asyrtiko I had was a fun and different white wine indeed. It is hard to even find the descriptors for this wine, since the flavor is above all else, unusual for one used to the classic French varietals. This made the wine that much more interesting to try and to recommend you discover. It may well be that any examples of this grape you find in the US have suffered from the long boat ride, so if your impressions don't jive with mine, consider it an excuse to visit sunny Greece.
The restaurant we ate at was a delightful tourist trap perched high on the top floor of the Electra Palace Hotel. We went for the view, and were well rewarded for our efforts. The view and the wine were our favorite parts of the meal, but we knew this going in, and so were well prepared.
The view and wine were Greek, the food was closer to French than not. It was an ambitious menu, especially for an outdoor venue where night time temperatures never fell below 80. A lighter, more elegant approach would have been more to our taste than the heavy handed dishes we ended up with.
We started with a Crab Napoleon and a "Lobster," Shrimp and Scallop dish in a Parmesan Cream Sauce. The quotes are because it was of course a langoustine and lobster was probably just a translation.
The napoleon was fun, with a rich cream sauce in with the crab and pastry, but there was also a slightly sour cream sauce around the sides of the plate that went well with the roe it was decorated with, but clashed with the main sauce. The pastry itself was a bit soggy and even a touch musty tasting. The downside of being a few feet away from the sea. Had the pastry been made fresh it would have been more impressive.
The langoustine et al. was really flavorful, in a heavy tarragon cream sauce, but it became a chore in that heat to eat more than a few bites. The presentation was delightful, albeit hard to eat, with heads and shells intact.
We chose our main courses to accompany the wine, and ended up with Swordfish with Tomatoes and Capers, and an Escallop of Pork in a Mint cream sauce.
The swordfish was terribly overcooked and more reminiscent of tuna from a can than a fresh steak should be. But then it isn't like they pulled the swordfish from the bay we were overlooking. It was disappointing and dry.
The Pork to was cooked to death, but this may be due to the reflex to over cook pork that many restaurants have. It turned this potentially lovely dish into shoe leather. Missing too was the mint flavor. There seemed to be flakes of a dried herb in the sauce, but the mint flavo, if any was subtle even for my usually discering palate.
We paid dearly for the view, but honestly, it was what we were after. Our expectations were met right down to the server that forgot about us for over an hour, but it just gave us that much more time to drink in the view, and the lovely white wine.
I had in the back of my head finding a perfect little out of the way spot for a bit of moussaka and a few dolmas, to see how they compared to my own cooking, but Thessaloniki is a cosmopolitan city catering to tourists and our experience was probably more indicative of the flavor of the city itself.
For more on Thessaloniki and a look at the views, pop on over to our travel blog .
Japan has given many things to the world that I cherish, but few of them have an unofficial holiday that gives me the excuse to celebrate them. But every October first, along with sake lovers all over Japan and around the world, I get to observe Nihonshu no Hi, also known as Sake Day.
Like wine, no one knows exactly when sake first made an appearance. In a similar fashion to grape wine, the knowledge that fermented rice eventually yields an alcoholic beverage was probably discovered in accidental and then later deliberate stages, as innovative and curious folks explored ways of getting drunk.
Sake production and demand is likely to have peaked in Japan the mid 19th century when a law was passed allowing anyone to become a brewer. As many as 30,000 breweries were opened in the year of the law's passing, though that number dwindled as taxes on sake and its raw materials increased through the end of the century.
Despite ups and downs, and not being anywhere near its 19th century production levels, sake is seeing a bit of a renaissance around the world, and that is worth celebrating for any sake lover, at least as much as the stuff itself. More and more excellent sake is leaving Japan and making its way abroad.
All of which means that on October first, you'll not only have something to celebrate but, some really good stuff to celebrate with, should you care to partake in the 3rd Annual Sake day celebration put on by San Francisco's own True Sake store, and Sozai restaurant.
This is not the largest of tastings, but public sake events are so rare, that I am obligated to make not of it for those of my readers who are sake lovers or who are interested in learning more about it.
Held at Fort Mason, Sake Day is an opportunity to taste an assortment of sake, eat some good Japanese food, and listen to a little music in a casual atmosphere. Various tasting stations will be set up that will allow attendees to compare different styles of sake, blind taste some varieties, as well as explore flaws like heat damage.
If you're looking for a way to learn about sake, you'd be hard pressed to find a better occasion to experience a number of them than this little event.
Sake Day Celebration Wednesday, October 1 6:00 PM to 9:00 PM The Golden Gate Room Fort Mason Center San Francisco, CA (map)
Tickets are $85, which gets you a complimentary tasting glass, five different sake friendly dishes, free run of the tasting, and entry into various raffles and prize drawings. Tickets should be purchased in advance online, as the event may sell out.
[07/20/2006, 00:27]
New Board of Directors for Colchagua's Wineries (Chile) and your Route of the Wine
The Association of Colchagua's Vineyards and your Route of the Wine, chose new board of directors integrated by Jose Miguel Viu,Viu Manent Vineyards, Fanor Velasco, Emiliana Vineyards, Andres Turner, Montes Vineyards y Miguel Angel Gonzalez, Estampa Vineyards. In turn it took up office as president of the board of directors Mario Pablo Silva S., Casa Silva Vineyards, who already had occupied the same cargo between the year 2000 and 2003.
Tecnorati
After a few days in the rarified air of Marfa, Texas, I have had a few moments to do a little navel gazing. Take this one or leave it, as it applies to you. Or doesn?t. That being said, don?t we all have, at one time or another, moments where we look around our environment and notice the world that we have landed in and ask ourselves if this is what we intended to do? 
Mind you, this isn?t a crisis post. I?m not telegraphing back to home base that I won?t be returning. Well, maybe a part of me won?t ever be back. But every time I get on the wine trail a part of me is left behind and a newer segment grows in its place.
One of the fascinating aspects of being in Marfa during the run up to the 
This week I had a Carbonara that folks anywhere would be proud of. Pizza that merited a second piece. Restaurants like Cochineal and 
Maybe it is something about the confluence of a zone that attracts art and intellect that also is amenable to things Italian? I know this to be the case all over Italy, maybe Marfa is a vortex that squeezes a drop of Italy onto the canvas and exposes the native energy to the ancient? Or maybe I am just a kook?
