Mar 8, 2010
I’m not a huge Champagne person, even at weddings and on other Champagne-appropriate occasions like New Year’s Eve. But something about the Oscars this year made me want to crack open a bottle to watch. Perhaps it was just a desire to hear the clinking of Champagne flutes —...
Feb 23, 2010
I realize that my East Coast–based friends and relatives will mock me for this statement, but this winter’s darkest moment has arrived for me — that moment when the rain just won’t let up and the year’s shortest month suddenly seems interminable. Cozy food and drink are...
Feb 8, 2010
An online wine magazine called Palate Press recently devised a creative way to let oenophiles combine their passion for wine and a desire to help earthquake-ravaged Haiti. In a joint effort with charity-wine blog Brother, Can You Spare a Bottle?, Palate Press publisher David Honig has created a...
Jan 26, 2010
Recently earning raves in my household was a 2007 Merlot from Napa Valley’s Shafer Vineyards. I found the aroma on this wine oh-so-very Napa, evoking cedar and pencil shavings, while my husband noted blackberries and plums. He commented that the Shafer was bright and ripe with great acid...
Jan 11, 2010
The big news in the wine world this week is the announcement of winners in the 2010 San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition. This competition pitted nearly 5,000 wines, hailing from more than 1,500 U.S. wineries, against each other in blind tastings held last week in Sonoma.
The competition...
Dec 29, 2009
I realize now that it was a bit unfair to dangle the prospect of La Villa del Valle’s New Year’s Eve 6-course menu in front of you without a few details about the cuisine, so I checked in with the proprietors. Co-owner Eileen Gregory reports that while the menu is still being...