It’s easy to win!

1. Tell your friends about Drink Me

2. Get them to sign up for our email list (top right of this page)

We will choose 6 new email addresses and they will win a pair of tickets to one of the events (and bring you)!
The more friends you tell, the more chances you have to win.

Good luck. We’ll see you there.

SFChefs 2010 presented by Visa Signature®, is a food and wine event celebrating the unique flavor, diversity and bounty of Northern California. The main tasting tent will be in Union Square, where chefs, wine makers and distillers will offer an exploration of taste featuring local products. Classes and seminars will offer interactive opportunities for the public to participate with local farmers, ranchers, chefs, winemakers, distillers, media, luminaries, authors, vintners, mixologists and culinary experts in an entertaining forum.

http://www.sfchefsfoodwine.com/

Tasting white wine is a two-part ritual for me because I decided a long time ago that most times we drink our white wines way too cold. In fact, no one has ever been able to give me a valid reason for chilling white wine at all, other than to make it more refreshing. But, you know what? If I’m drinking a glass of Alsace reisling in December, in New Jersey, during a blizzard, I don’t want it to be refreshing…I want it to taste good. Truth is, when you serve white wine at room temperature, it reveals much more of its personality to you…you don’t have to dig as hard to unearth its aromas and nuances because they’ll pretty much slap you upside the head. So now when I taste a white wine, I first serve it at room temperature (between 65° and 70°) and take some notes. Then I chill it a bit, taste it a second time and take some more notes. And as it turns out, most of the note taking occurs BEFORE the wine is chilled…there just ain’t too much more to discover once the wine has cooled down. It’s kinda like the wine is naked at first, boldly and unabashedly revealing itself to you, and then, once chilled, it has put on its flannel PJs…you gotta do a whole lot more searching at that point, to get to the good stuff.

The move that always makes me cringe, though? Ice cubes. There have been times when I’ve gone to someone’s house, been offered something to drink, and asked for a glass of white wine. At that point the host or hostess will apologize for forgetting to chill the white wine, and ask if I would like some ice in it. Now listen, I understand putting ice in a glass of scotch…sometimes people actually WANT it to get watered down; they WANT to dilute it. But why in hell would you want to dilute your wine? Most white wine is delicate enough as it is. Bathing it in slowly melting ice cubes that have the subtle taste of 2-year-old frozen venison, bagged peas and tater tots will just about kill it. So I inevitably wrestle the glass out of their hand before they plop those funky ice cubes in.

The colder a wine, the less aromatic it will appear. If aroma is something we want to experience in a white wine, then it begs the question…why chill it? If I buy a bottle of wine for its flavor, why would I numb those very flavors? Now, of course, we’ve all been handed the occasional plonk at parties, in which case you WANT it damn near iced over…the aroma of red plastic cups and bad chardonnay is forever etched in all of our minds, I’m sure. But nonetheless, I’ll take my steaks rare, my broccoli steamed, and my white wine at room temperature, please. Why? BECAUSE I WANT TO TASTE IT, NOT KILL IT. I’ll leave the well-done leather, the boiled green mush and the arctic whites to those who like things “the old-fashioned way”—better to forge your own rules than be bound by someone else’s.

Imagine getting a huge discount on wine next week when Spencer and Daniels Wine outlet, a hidden gem of a wine shop on Polk St., does their first ever 20% off case sale (June 28th-July 5th) . This eclectic Wine Shop is notorious for getting rock bottom wine prices.  They once sold two buck chuck at 99 cents and a week later brought in a truck load of rare Chilean and Argentinean wines at 40% off.  And, Starting next week, their craziness continues when they will be giving 20% off any mix and match 12 bottle cases just in time for your July 4th weekend. Keep in mind that SnD carries several bottles of $1.99 wine. So, 20% off of 12 bottles of $1.99 wine makes your $20 spot go really far. Stock your wine racks full for once! Oh, and did I mention their wine is really delicious?  www.spenceranddaniels.com

Spencer and Daniels Wine Outlet
1541 Polk Street
San Francisco, CA 94109
415-345-1637
www.spenceranddaniels.com

We’re offering you a special discount on all your tickets to the festivities this weekend!

Drink Me Magazine and Pinot Days have partnered to offer our mailing list members a 10% discount on all of the festival’s spectacular events. Just enter the discount code DRINKMESF10 when ordering tickets from the Pinot Days web site and you will receive an immediate 10% discount on all events. This year’s Pinot Days Grand Festival is on Sunday, June 27th from 1-5pm at the Festival Pavilion in the Fort Mason Center, San Francisco.

We all know how amazing the experience of our Grand Festival is for those who love Pinot Noir. If you enjoy the Grand Festival, please also consider attending one of our other events (Focus Tastings, Winemaker Dinners, Russian River Valley Pinot Day Tour) scheduled for the week prior to Sunday’s Grand Festival, as we think that these events are not only unique, but they embody the essence of what makes the pinot noir industry so captivating.In this, our 6th year, we will again showcase over 200 producers of Pinot Noir from California, Oregon, New Zealand, Germany and Burgundy. The Grand Festival is the single largest tasting of Pinot Noir on the planet, and it is difficult to find a better time for the price; $60 covers entry to the event and a complimentary Burgundy-style glass you may take home.  So mark your calendar!

www.pinotdays.com

by Sonia Meyer

“If you mix yellow and blue together, you get green,” explained Matt Cain, founder and president of Yellow+Blue Wines, when I asked him at San Francisco’s Millennium Restaurant where the name of his wine came from. Millennium, like the winery, is dedicated to sustainable, organic farming methods that have a minimal impact on the environment — the perfect place for a special Yellow+Blue wine pairing dinner.

Yellow+Blue Wines are more than an eyebrow-raiser when it comes to packaging, because a lot of careful consideration went into the “boxy” appearance. They designed it to be as earth friendly as possible.

We started with Yellow+Blue’s 09’ Sauvignon Blanc from Chile. It’s paired with chilled asparagus and English pea soup. Truly a match made in heaven. If I had to describe it in one word, it would be “fresh.” The wine was floral, tannic, easy to dr ink, and well balanced, with a great mouth feel. Another glass? Don’t mind if I do.

Next was the 09’ Torrontes from Cafayate, Argentina, paired with chickpeas and almond-crusted oyster mushrooms. The Torrontes brought out rich nutty and coconut spices in the dish.

The third course was a mushroom duxelle roulade paired with the 08’ Malbec from San Juan, Argentina. The richness of the wine embraced the buttery, flaky pastry, and the dark-fruit component of the wine brought out the sweetness of the sun-dried tomatoes.

For the grand finale, I had Millennium’s infamous chocolate almond midnight cake was rich and creamy, just like the Malbec I was chasing it down with. The pairing was an exceptional combination.

Perhaps the best thing about Yellow+Blue is that you never can tell when the box is empty. How much is left remains a mystery, so you never have that awkward moment of taking the last glass!

by Lindsay Moss

“It’s hard to be Georgian,” Diana, a young mother in her twenties, said to me on several occasions. And indeed, it is hard to be Georgian.

After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the country erupted in internal and external political disputes. It’s been bombed and occupied and couped all over.  I couldn’t disagree with her statement, although I thought she was just being a little over-emotional the day I met her, as she was completely drunk. I had somehow ended up dining with her at an upscale restaurant overlooking Vake park in the wooded hills of Tbilisi. Someone in the background was playing lute and accordion, and the table was decorated in typical Georgian style: way too much food, a large family, vodka, and numerous pitchers of cloudy, honey-colored homemade wine. Not to mention the random guy at the next table periodically insisting on dispatching long, slurry toasts to us.

Diana took another tiny glass of vodka in her fingertips as the host, her father in-law, stood up once more to give a toast of his own..“To our parents,” he began. It was one of many invitations to drink and—having arrived late in the evening—I had to catch up. I was about a litre-and-a-half of wine behind the other guests, but the pitchers were emptying quickly with each “cheers”; it’s tradition to seal each little speech by downing your entire cup—or occasionally, large animal horn—of wine.

“So I’ll see you next weekend? For khinkali?” I verified. I had somehow in her inebriated state recruited her as my cooking teacher; I wanted to learn how to make my favorite Georgian food: a meat dumping that gushes with rich, salty broth upon first bite. One week later, I found myself in her mother’s Soviet block apartment amid the rather barren outskirts of the city, and as we were grinding coriander and fatty hunks of raw pork, I heard it again:

“It’s hard to be Georgian…” This was in reference to her brother’s sudden call to arms during the last South Ossetia conflict in the summer of 2008. She was deathly afraid he wouldn’t return, but now he was studying viticulture at university.

I had come to learn quickly that wine was an integral part of being Georgian, and not in the same abstract way that the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria have somehow worked themselves into our national identity. Everybody’s grandfather or dad makes wine, the recipe passing through each generation. Every bazaar boasts a collection of vendors selling their product out of giant plastic jugs or used 2-litre Coke bottles.

I started to wonder where I’d gotten off thinking that winemaking and consumption was reserved for those with a small cash reserve and an aptitude for science; the stuff in the Coke bottles is good.

And why shouldn’t it be? Georgians did, after all, invent/discover winemaking and grape cultivation nearly 8000 to 7000 years ago. Still, winemakers pride themselves on their numerous indigenous varietals, the country’s reputation in the USSR (and post-USSR) as the best wine producers in the region (which Stalin attested to on numerous occasions), and the long tradition of “Georgian technology” winemaking.

“Georgian wine is alive,” a tour guide in Kakheti once poeticized in the country’s most famous and productive region of winemaking, a valley below the towering, snow-capped peaks of the South Caucasus. He was referring to the raw nutrients of the grapes and their biproducts present in the final, non-filtered product. The traditional “Georgian technology” process goes something like this: You get a big amphora, bury it in the ground, seal in your grape juice and skins with layers of mud and sand and glass, and then let it ferment a few months. Though the process has worked well for a few millennia now, most of Grandpa’s tasty “bathtub” wine is made in glass jars and small tanks in his garage or tool shed—only a few die-hards make it the traditional way.

Diana’s brother, meanwhile, is studying European technology of viticulture, and there is never a shortage of jobs on the market, although business slowed when Russia placed an embargo on their wines. Luckily there’s demand elsewhere and from within—it was common to witness a single person taking down several litres themselves in one evening.

“How many Americans do you know who can drink three litres of wine in one night?” Diana’s brother asked.

“Not many,” I answered. This wasn’t the first time this question had been posed.

by Sonia Meyer

Mendocino County wineries and winemakers have been practicing sustainable and organic wine-growing techniques long before reusable grocery bags and corn-based utensils became popular. The Taste of Mendocino, hosted by the Mendocino Winegrape and Wine Commission (http://www.truemendocinowine.com), was nothing shy of an elegant, intimate collaboration of a growing community of wine producers, all with one purpose: to make great, natural wine.

Fifty-eight passionate vintners poured wines exclusively for the trade and media.  The attendees not only experienced great wine, but they also learned about the importance of organic, biodynamic, sustainable production processes—and the much larger impact these “new” methods have had on the environment and our physical health.

As winemaker Kristy Charles from Foursight Wines explained, the California North Coast is “an optimal climate for growing organic wines.” It was only “natural” for Mendocino wine makers to leave the juice as pure as the fresh-picked grapes.

I began my Mendocino wine experience with bubbles, of course. Roederer Estate’s 2002 L’Ermitage is worth mentioning. It’s a light, refreshing sparkler that would brighten any ordinary fish dinner. Another notable pour was Scharffenberger Cellar’s delicate Rosé. With its light tongue and subtle fruit finish, it’s great for any occasion.

Moving on to the whites, I found that Maple Creek produces a unique, sweet Symphony (a hybrid of Muscat and Granache), and Husch Vineyards makes a delightfully clean and acidic Sauvignon Blanc.

Finishing off with the reds, I enjoyed sipping Edmeades Perli Vineyards’ Zinfandel. This full-bodied Zinfandel was a perfect balance of tangy and sweet flavors. Although there has been a lot of concern about the Mendocino County fires affecting wine, there was only one I tried that had a subtly smoky taste. Critics would say that the smoky taste is a defect, although I like to see the silver lining in things. Barra of Mendocino’s Sangiovese, though smoky, might just be the ideal BBQ accompaniment—and proof that Mendocino County wine is truly natural.

By Jessica Furui, Sake Sommelier - Ozumo, SF

Water keeps such a holy place in sake making. And for centuries, brewers didn’t exactly know what it was about the water that made good sake. They just knew that good water made good sake. Only after scientific advancements did they realize that water high in potassium, potash, calcium and magnesium was holier than water without the proper presence of these elements. These minerals provide the necessary nutrients for excellent propagation of koji (Aspergillus oryzae), the mold responsible for converting starch to sugar. These minerals also promote a strong and robust shubo, the yeast starter. These two steps are vital to the rest of the fermentation process. Ultimately, the delicate balance of minerals in water can either make or break your sake.

In the 1840s Yamamura Tazaemon owned two breweries separated by a few miles in Kobe. He brewed the same rice, the same brewing techniques and what he thought was the same water and the sake consistently tasted different. What he didn’t know was that there was a huge expanse of ground water nearly 50 meters below the surface of the Uozaki brewery that had been gently filtered by calcium deposits. Once he brought the water of Uozaki to the Nishinomiya brewery he knew he had found the source of superiority: the water.

With visits to several breweries over my 10 years of sake madness, each time the owner has made a point to show me their water source. Visiting Kamoizumi in Saijo, Hiroshima, Kazuhiro san and I climbed into his circa 1990, red, convertible Mazda Miata for a short ride up the mountain. With the wind in may hair and the smell of the leaves in the air, we came to a sweet little shrine next to a small, humble spring near the side of the road, the source of their water supply. They pumped the water all the way down to the brewery. Even townspeople would come and fill up buckets from the well to take home.

Moss covered ceilings and water droplets glistening from specks of light are the mysterious surroundings of a spring essential to Sawanoi brewery in rural Tokyo. Located several meters from the entrance, this little cave is cold, damp and musty. A great place for pristine water! The brewery is located literally right smack dab next to Tamagawa River, but they don’t use that water because the mineral content is too inconsistent.

Yoshida-san from Tedorigawa brewery in Ishikawa prefecture told me that they believe the water from their well takes about 100 years to get there. He says that it takes that long for the snow from nearby Hakusan Mountain to melt off and seep into the ground water. From the pre-fermentation steps like washing, soaking and steaming, plus all the water used in fermentation, the final product is about 70 per cent water. Here’s a few mind-boggling numbers for you to chew on: if we estimate a very small brewery using about 800 kg of rice in one tank, we then must estimate it takes about 30 times the rice (in weight) of water that is needed for that batch.

With all the great, mineral-perfect water in the sake world, you can bet your bottle there’s bad water too. The presence of iron will discolor the sake and negatively affect the flavor and taste. Another bad boy of water is manganese. It reacts with ultraviolet rays to cloud any lovely, clear sake. Don’t confuse this with nigori, or cloudy sake. Nigori is cloudy due to the residual sake lees left in the final product, not because it is damaged goods. Even left out for just a few hours, or under intense lighting, sake brewed with manganese-laced water has no chance.

The discovery of what they termed Miyamizu, shrine water, catapulted the brewers of the Nada region into sake heaven. They quickly learned the water there could support a vigorous fermentation, creating clean, solid sakes, perfect for the palate of Tokyo. To this day, about one third of all sake produced in the world comes from the Nada region, southwest of Tokyo, six hours by the famous bullet train. They are mainly large-scale productions from what the industry calls O-te, Big Hand. These breweries operate all year round, producing millions of liters a year; a far cry from smaller, regional producers focused mostly on quality and simplicity rather than quantity.

Like Catholics and wine, Shinto monks once brewed sake. Shintoism, a combination of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism meaning “the way of the gods,” is the indigenous religion of the Japanese archipelago. Appearing first around the sixth century, the Shinto religion was essential in many parts of modern day Japan, including different types of fermentation. It seems as though these monks had quite a good time making and drinking sake, because in 1420 the military stepped in an made these activities illegal for them. Just like moonshine here in the states, Big Brother has to get a piece of the pie, so the Japanese governing body started to tax sake. At this point private individuals, mostly wealthy landowners, started making the “water of the gods.” With the privatization of sake production, the government could tax away to their hearts delight.

Sake’s place in the world of Shinto is as apparent today as in was centuries ago. Used along with salt and water, sake is important in purification rites. On the third day of the New Year, sake is traditionally taken to purify the body and spirit. O-miki, holy sake brewed by monks, is consumed at the shrine to bless you with the gods.

Other uses of holy sake find their place in traditional Shinto weddingse But i a beautiful set of three shallow, wide, red-lacquered bowls, sa is poured into all three as they sit atop each othe,the smallest of the three at the top. The bride and groom drink three times from each bowl. Three being an auspicious number in Japan, three times three, even more holy. My hubby says that we will do the Sansankudo ceremony for our wedding when we move to Japan. I guess I can wait.

Another ceremony central to Shinto, kagami biraki, is used when opening a new business, at the start of sporting events, and often at weddings. Translating to “opening the mirror,” the top of a sake cask is hit with a wooden mallet, to reveal the sake below. It is then shared with those present to celebrate and bring prosperity. My personal favorite custom, Tsukimisake, is sake enjoyed under the beauty of a full moon, usually in fall under the harvest moon. Families make special food and lay out to enjoy the beauty of the moonshine. It is said that if a maiden drinks sake in which the moon has been reflected, she will become pregnant.

Good, often, great water is at the very core of sake production. Luckily Japan has some of the best water in the world, and what better way to use it than to make sake? Being an island nation located on top of a volcanic ring, its mountains have been pushed high into the sky. Due to its location on the globe, it gets to see quite a bit of precipitation. As this water slowly percolates through the hundreds of meters of rock and mineral deposits, it slowly becomes the destiny of many a sake brewer. The next time you go to Japan, make a point of visiting a brewery and you’ll see what I mean. Pride, honor and dedication fueled by great water and insanely great sake.

by Paul Ross, Drink me Travel Editor

Robin Hood’s Friar Tuck had his mead, Belgian Trappists their ale, and the good monks of Hungary’s Pannonhalma Abbey have got their …board meetings!? The abbey has been making wine for nearly a thousand years, yet today, cloistered monks, with their rigorously-scheduled rounds of prayer and study, have “labors” which include sitting in committee with representatives of the country’s third largest bank. This makes them: 1) modern winemakers, and 2) Execu-monks, if your will.

But ‘twas not always thus —

From humble beginnings the early abbey expanded it services to the neighboring community by offering earthly salvation in the form of fortress walls, built to stave off the Ottoman invasions of the 1700 and 1800s. The barrier didn’t work and Turkish rule dominated the next century and a half. But, as far as the winery went, that wasn’t the worst of it. That dubious distinction came with the Communists from the USSR in the mid-twentieth century. Hungarian winemaking traditions were ignored by the occupiers, who insisted on replacing quality with quotas. This situation lead to a product which – when regarded at all in the West – was referred to as “Soviet bloc schlock.”

Those days gone, there are now frequent jazz concerts in the fine restaurant on the abbey grounds, tours of the church, and there is the winery which is one of the most modern in country. Vineyard plantings – ranging from traditional autochthonous grapes to international varietals — are garnering a worldwide following.

Profits from various abbey enterprises (which, in addition to winemaking, include the manufacture of gourmet vinegars, Benedictine liqueurs, lavender products, CDs of Gregorian chants and even an independently produced DVD documentary about monastic life) underwrite education, maintenance of the old buildings and improvements in the winery. It’s pretty much like any other business – except for the players’ philosophy, ethnics, history and pipeline to God.

For me, the question was: would the wines taste as heavenly as the thoughts that surrounded their creation? And I wondered if modernization had diluted the abbey’s hefty heritage.

Pannonhalma Abbey’s 1054 year-old winemaking history (originating with the Romans) leapt forward into modernity during the second millennium with expansion of the vineyards and the construction of a state-of-the-art facility. The winery utilizes a unique vertical technology. Located on a steep hillside, the four story complex consists of three parts: the upper “press house,” where the harvested grapes are received and processed; the middle “wine house,” which is dedicated to white varietals and the bottom “well,” which connects the other two parts and is where aging, storage and wine-tastings take place.

The abbey is especially proud of this gravity-fed processing, which moves the liquid through the entire procedure without the harsh and potentially bruising effects caused by mechanical pumps. The unusual concept was designed with the help of the late and legendary wine-maker Tibor Gal. It’s a well-funded operation which is the envy of many smaller Hungarian wineries who still use older techniques, various sizes of wooden barrels, and much more labor, to produce fewer bottles.

The abbey’s brand (Apatsagi) offers a dozen different varietals and blends, a large selection for one of the smallest of Hungary’s 22 wine-growing regions.

Hungary’s worldwide wine rep is often associated with Slovakian wine, Tokaj. The good ones are much more deserving of attention than their often dismissive reputation of being simple and sweet would suggest. But Pannonhalma Abbey doesn’t make Tokaj. The Benedictine brothers, with their educated nose for marketing, avoid the most obvious choices in their production and opt for a broad palette of wines, starting with traditional Hungarian grapes (such as Rheinreisling and Welschreisling) and encompassing popular international varietals (Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc, etc.). The abbey has won awards at the highly regarded Decanter World Wine Awards and at the Pinot Noir Cup. A partial result is that Apatsagi wines are exported to a dozen countries.

Here in the States, wines from the abbey are just beginning to trickle into the national market. Right now, the emerging best sellers are Tramini (a high alcohol, low acid, flowery and fragrant Gewürtzraminer), Tricollis White (a Reisling-Welschreisling-Gewürtz blend) and their Reislings. And at $12 to $20, the price is right.

And I’m sure the monks will bless you for your purchase.