Archive for ‘March, 2011’

9 results.
Mar08

Is Cupcake the next Yellow Tail?

on March 8th, 2011 at 4:35 pm

A report about a list called Top 30 Momentum Table Wine Brands caught my attention yesterday. Wines & Vines ran the story on the Symphony IRI Group study, which ranks the wines with the most increase in sales in 2010 that consumers buy in places such as grocery and drug stores.

Cupcake Vineyards, a relatively new wine brand, rose to the top of the 2010 chart. It’s owned by The Wine Group and boasts a winery in California’s Monterey County. You’ve probably seen it in your grocery store’s wine aisle. Expect to see more of it.

 Comment 
Mar14

Chance encounter with K Viognier

on March 14th, 2011 at 2:38 pm

I love chance encounters, especially the kind that leads you to something else. That’s the case for me, from a recent dinner at Kin Shop in New York City. The restaurant’s top toque is indeed a Top Chef: Harold Dieterle, the winner from the show’s first season. The menu features Thai-inspired dishes, so the wine list offers choices that pair nicely with the food. The bottle that caught my attention was the K Vintners Viognier. I recognized the name, and that the winemaker was Food & Wine magazine’s Winemaker of the Year in 2009.

Good Viognier is hard to find, and I wasn’t completely sure about one from Washington State. But the wine was wonderful. Honeyed and floral, with stone fruits and minerality. I added it to my list of favorite wines. I also love the label, graphic and bold and distressed. Could that be a reflection of the winemaker himself?

 Comment 
Mar15

Discovering the scentsational world of Boadicea The Victorious

on March 15th, 2011 at 6:01 pm

They say you find love when you’re not looking for it. For me, this couldn’t be truer. I was not looking for a new perfume. But I was seduced, smitten. What first caught my attention was the the beautiful bottles, each with a pewter medallion and cap that has a different etched design, reminding me very much of the intricate carvings at the Alhambra in Granada, Spain. It’s like a sculpture or an interesting piece of jewelry. I started going through the bottles, sniffing all, and spritzing the ones I liked. Then I found it. A mesmerizing aroma that spoke to me. I had to have it. I’d never heard of the line, but so what. Adventuress from Boadicea the Victorious is my new fragrant love. It’s a soul stirring scent.

 Comment 
Mar16

Do you know any woman who has just 17 pairs of shoes?

on March 16th, 2011 at 4:08 pm

A poll about women and shoes is making its way around the internet. Conducted by ShopSmart (published by Consumer Reports), it finds that the average woman owns 17 pairs of shoes. Just 17?? They didn’t talk to me or most of the women I know. The survey also goes on to say that on average women buy only three pairs of shoes a year and spend about $49 per pair. Guess they didn’t poll any Carrie Bradshaws.

 Comment 
Mar18

Grant Achatz Life, on the Line

on March 18th, 2011 at 5:31 pm

Grant Achatz is on a book tour. Last night he was at Omnivore Books in San Francisco. An intimate setting for 40 of us who snapped up tickets to meet Achatz and hear a reading from his book. Omnivore books is a tiny, one room book shop lined with shelves holding an exceptionally curated selection of books about one subject, cooking and food. Any foodie worth his or her sous vide or lobster foam knows by now about Grant Achatz, chef owner of Alinea in Chicago. For those who don’t know, he’s a protoge of Thomas Keller (French Laundry) and Ferran Adria (El Bulli), and has become famous for his innovative take on molecular gastronomy.

 Comment 
Mar23

Viognier, A Crowd-pleasing Wine

on March 23rd, 2011 at 5:36 pm

Last week my cookbook club as a group went for lunch at Wayfare Tavern in San Francisco. It’s one of several new restaurants opened by celeb chef Tyler Florence in the Bay Area in the past year. We had to wait a long time to even get a reservation, but perseverance pays off.

 Comment 
Mar25

Oh No You Didn’t…You Brought a Boxed Wine?

on March 25th, 2011 at 5:17 pm

Oh yes I did. I brought a boxed wine to a recent gathering of my cookbook club. A few weeks earlier an odd-shaped box arrived on my door step. Super heavy for the size of the box. What in the world could it be? A box of wine. Sure, why not. Hmmmm.

The octagonally-shaped box holds three liters of wine, which is equal to four 750 ml bottles. No wonder it was so heavy.

This is the latest model I’ve seen in modern day boxed wines. I know, boxed wine has an image problem, but it’s been more for what’s inside the box (usually plonk) than the box itself.

 Comment 
Mar28

A Must See – Balenciaga and Spain

on March 28th, 2011 at 8:53 pm

This weekend, the Balenciaga and Spain retrospective opened at the De Young Museum in San Francisco. Cristobal Balenciaga, a Spanish designer, was based in Paris, although clearly influenced by the art and culture of Spain. It’s worth the trip to the De Young to see it, from now until July 4, 2011. Even Anna Wintour came to San Francisco to pay homage.

 Comment 
Mar30

Birth of a Wine Culture in America

on March 30th, 2011 at 6:05 pm

The French have it, the Italians have it, but does America really have a wine culture all its own? You bet we do. It took awhile for this to develop, but in 2010, for the first time ever, we Americans drank more wine than the French. Quite an accomplishment.

How did we get here? How has wine become a part of our culture? That’s the focus of How Wine Became Modern: Design + Wine 1976 to Now, a current exhibit at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.

 Comment 

Switch to our mobile site