On Thursday, Feb 11, I took part in the #CaliCabs Community Tasting Tweetup event that was created by St. Supery winery’s resident social media guru, Rick Bakas. The event started at 5 pm PST, with Cabs from Paso Robles south to San Diego tasted from 5-5:30pm. Then Cabs from Monterey to Lodi were up. Finally, at 6-7 pm, northern Calif Cabs. My contributions…Eden Canyon “Jolie” from Paso Robles, and cabs from Livermore Valley, a Retzlaff Vineyards and BoaVentura de Caires. The tweets came fast and furious. At times hard to keep up with the volume. According to Rick, 172 of us on Twitter took part, generating about 2,000 tweets to 1,000,000 followers. Many of the folks were at St. Supery winery, or at Judd’s Hill winery in Napa. I have to say that even though I was in my living room in San Jose, I felt like I was part…
DRINK – One of the most breathtaking wineries ever
There are no vineyards. Instead, wine barrels on the edge of the coast signal that you’re at a winery. Welcome to Pacific Star, on the northern California coast in Mendocino County wine country. Pacific Star is north of the town of Mendocino and Ft. Bragg. While the remote location is remote, Sally Ottoson’s wines are accessible and highly drinkable. Choose from a number of varietals, including a few Italian grapes, such as Barbera and Charbono and Carignane. I highly recommend Barbera with a spicy tomato ciopinno stew. She also makes a lovely Viognier/Rousanne blend. Recently the winery learned that a fault line runs directly under the tasting room and winery, which has been named the Pacific Star fault. Sally made the It’s My Fault blend — Syrah, Charbono and Carignane — in honor of that fact. This is the definition of a destination winery. Plan a visit here with a…
SHOP – Lip color that lasts
While I was judging wine last week for the Mendocino Crab & Wine Days, I was also putting a lip color through its paces. I’ve tried so many lip glosses, lipsticks and stains that claim to last all day. I finally found one that lasts better than any of those. Covergirl makes Outlast, a lip stain that looks like one of those thin magic markers. My shade is 420, “Sassy Mauve,” a plummy stain. It held up pretty well after tasting 48 wines, with countless sips of water in between. My one caveat is that it makes your lips feel dry — but then I haven’t found any last all day lip colors that aren’t dry. Retails for about $8.
DRINK – Mendocino wine
The Mendocino Crab & Wine Days festival is a great event in that you’re eating local Dungeness crab and drinking local Mendocino County wines with it. I tasted many of them as a component of the wine competition for the Crab & Wine Days event. The same five judges in the the crab cake cook-off sipped and spit 48 wine entries. Our mission: choose the wine best paired with pure crab meat. In the blind tasting lineup there were only white wines, except for one sparkling Rose. Lots of Chardonnays were entered, but many were over-oaked or butter bombs. The top three wines were #1 Graziano Chenin Blanc; #2 Navarro Vineyards Gewurztraminer; #3 Yorkville Cellars Sauvignon Blanc. At the public crab and wine tasting, my favorite discoveries were the wines from Toulouse Vineyards, and the wines from Elke Vineyards. I almost don’t want to tell you about Toulouse because he’s…
EAT – Crab, crab and more crab
Last week I was a judge at the Mendocino Crab & Wine Days. For the past 11 years, local chefs have entered their crab cakes in a cook-off to be chosen best of the best. In a separate contest, local wineries enter the bottling they think pairs best with pure crab meat (look for this in a later post). It’s all Dungeness crab, caught locally off the coast of Mendocino. We blind tasted our way (chef, restaurant and ingredients not identified) through 15 crab cakes and awarded scores for taste, presentation and originality. The best cakes really honored the crab — nice chunks of crab meat, simple preparation with no one ingredient overpowering the crab. The judges for the most part were in agreement on which crab cakes worked and which ones didn’t. We preferred the less fussy presentations, and the cakes that had more crab than filler. The winners…
EAT – Snack on This! Fancy Food Show 2010
This post’s title, Snack on This! I have totally borrowed from friend and colleague Mark Oltz. Whenever we were looking for new titles to segments on In Wine Country he’d always throw out “snack on this.” Today’s the last day of the three day Fancy Food show in San Francisco. There are hundreds of food vendors, from all over the country and all over the world. You can spend all day there and eat nothing but cheese — some darn good cheese. I managed to pull myself away from the cheese pavilion to sample other things. Here’s my list of favorites. Everything’s better with bacon. The cured meat was everywhere; lots of jamon Iberico legs being carved up. Bacon makes its way into chocolate at Vosges, in a dark choc bar and in a fantastic bacon caramel toffee. Also saw dried smoked salmon “bacon bits.” Porchetta was on display too. …
EAT DRINK – Dungeness crab
Mmmm – Dungeness crab, fresh and local. Does it get any better than that? Well yes it does, especially with a spot-on wine pairing. In this case you’ve got the crab with its clean flavors and just a little bit of sweetness. A regular Chardonnay esp w/ any oak will overpower the crab. While a Sauvignon Blanc or Riesling are more reliable choices, why not try this? An unoaked Chardonnay. Look for Chards that are fermented and aged in stainless steel tanks. My choice for this evening – Sarah’s Vineyard “Steel Blue” Chardonnay. It’s zippy and bright, and really helps enhance the tasty crab.
EAT – Low country cuisine
Low country is what people call the areas including Savannah, GA, Beaufort and Hilton Head Island, both in South Carolina, all the way up to Charleston. No mountains or hills, just flat (and low) marshes and beaches. During the holidays I got my fill of real BBQ, shrimp and girts and other seafood that low country is known for. The wild Georgia shrimp are so fresh and sweet. Had a standout meal at a fairly new restaurant in Bluffton, South Carolina. Bluffton used to be the speed trap on the way from Atlanta to Hilton Head. Now Bluffton’s becoming a place you want to visit, with local artisan shops and restaurants. If you go, be sure to check out the May River Grill. Panko-crusted fried local oysters, fluffy biscuits served with onion butter – yum! And crab cakes stuffed full of the local blue crab and hardly any filler. The…
SHOP – Wine glasses
Over the holidays I discovered a cool line of wine glasses. Made by Accademia Luigi Bormioli in Italy. This set of six nice and big crystal glasses are the Cabernet / Super Tuscan glasses from the Esperienzi line. The look is really modern, with the graduated base. Guess what I paid? $36 for set of 6. Very reasonable. Like Riedel, there are glasses for specific varietals and stemless glasses too. I have a few Riedel sets at home, so it will be fun to do a tasting between the two (I had to ship the glasses from the store I found them in South Carolina). Will let you know how my taste test turns out once I get the glasses. Oh and the glasses are diswasher safe too.
SHOP – more holiday wine gifts
Have you finished your Christmas shopping? Most of us will wait ’till the last minute. Thought a few more wine gift ideas would be helpful. The hottest wine accessory, gadget…Vinturi. It is a wine aerator that you use while pouring a glass of wine. That means it acts like a mini decanter – it gets air into the wine and opens up bouquet and flavors. It is a two-handed operation. Uncork the wine, hold the Vinturi over the glass and pour. You’ll hear a sucking sound — that’s the wine being aerated. Best for red wines, but can be used for white wines too. I’ve seen wineries use it in their tasting rooms so what you taste is the true wine.Comes with rubber stand and a travel pouch and retails for about $30. You can usually find this at a wine shop, or you can order online. I did my…