France
Grape of the Night: Attracts the Big Guns with Bordeaux Expert
Jeff Leve, Bordeaux Writer and Facebook friend, sent me an e-mail recently that simply read, “Hi Eve, If you ever have a Bordeaux class or a Rhone class, I’d be willing to speak at either. Let me know. Thanks, Jeff Leve” And that was all it took to send me, and our Grape of the…
Eve Snakes: The Tasting Panel Magazine’s 5th Annual Tasting Panel Tour, and a Vinturi Travel Aerator! (Featuring a selection of Double Gold Winners from The San Francisco International Wine Competition & The San Francisco World Spirits Competition.)
Last Thursday, at Waterloo & City in Culver City, I attempted to sample as many double gold wine and spirit winners I could in about an hour. The time constraint is because I don’t want to deal with the traffic home, and for now, these events occur at lunch and not at the time I…
Rusty Sly: Grape of the Night Does Roussanne Wines
As usual, we had a great turnout for our GOTN, to my surprise as we did our first white wine grape. I was very excited to see that there was a lot of enthusiasm and curiosity from the members of the group that normally would not venture outside of reds, myself included. Though Roussanne grapes…
Michael Perlis presents: Eileen Writes
Our dear friend Eileen Wright, chef extraordinaire, most recently of The Cellar Wine Bar and Restaurant, is now off on a foodie junket to England, I asked her if she wouldn’t mind keeping me apprised of her adventures so I can pass them on to Eve’s Wine 101 readers, giving us all an opportunity to…
Rusty Sly’s Grape of the Night: Life Is A Cabernet Franc (Tonight is the next meeting, details below.)
Once again Grape Of The Night (GOTN) met, divided and conquered a fantastic wine varietal known as Cabernet Franc. I apologize for requesting a wine varietal that was close to nonexistent in our Valley. I was unaware of this and want to thank all of you who raided their cellars to leave a few bottles…
Michael Perlis Discovers: The Garagiste Festival
It was a Friday night at The Cellar. This guy was leaving, and stopped by our table to say goodnight to DiMaggio Washington, owner of The Cellar, who had joined us for dinner. After he left, something about him made me ask DiMaggio who he was. Okay, maybe it was something about me – I’m…
Interesting Facts (Taken from my New World Wine refresher course) via DiMaggio Washington
Phylloxera – Want to sound smart? Throw out this tidbit I stole from class: The grape Phylloxera/aphid/louse succinctly took out all of France’s wine growing when they used our vine cuttings there in the 1850s. Our little bug, that our vines were resistant too, ate their way through French vines. They had to either rip…
Wine Ratings: Wines from my recent wine appreciation class led by The Cellar’s DiMaggio Washington
Part 1: Old world 09 Domaine de la Quilla, Muscadet de Sèvre-et-Maine Sur Lie – Loire Valley, France Color – clear, pale yellow. Aroma – grapefruit, lemon, hints of honeydew. Taste – high acid, lemon, stainless steel, green apples, nice viscosity. Finish – mid length. Conclusion – DiMaggio suggested a pairing of cold seafood salad. …
Rusty Sly on Grape of the Night: Mourvèdre
Mourvèdre The Grape of the Night for the month of May was fantastic. Everyone pulled out all of the stops and brought some terrific examples of a very unique wine known as Mourvèdre. This wine originated in Spain and is also called mataro or monastrell. It is the principal black grape of the five appellations…