One recent bright evening in San Francisco, The Lady and I had the opportunity to head below the border, as in below the Equator…to
Argentina! A new wine label is set to drop on our half of the Earth called
Espiritu de Argentina. Combining the efforts of the US-based
Cecchetti Racke,
Espiritu de Chile and Argentine winery
Bodega Monte Real, it will feature a full line of affordable and Argentine wines. Lady and I met in front of the resto Destino, where we would have the lucky opportunity of getting a sneak peak at these quaffable wines paired with a one-time 7 course small plates meal, all courtesy of
Balzac Communications.
While bouncing around Twitter one day, I was turned on to a new-fangled wine search engine site by the incomparable Lisa Adams Walter (Twitter). She directed me to GoBYO (Twitter), a wine search engine that might revolutionize the Bring Your Own Bottle searches in your local restaurants, taking out the calling and questions surrounding the corkage policy at restaurants around the country. It is a very user-friendly website that is already exhaustively detailed about wine, corkage and restaurant information in now, 10 metro areas in the US. Devon Segel (Twitter), along with her family and the DiningInfo team launched this effort two years ago and it is continuing to build up at a rapid pace.
Now let's continue the 5 Questions series and learn a bit more about Devon and GoBYO!
Last April Fool's day, I received what seemed to be a nicely written, yet rather surprisingly nifty wine event invite in my inbox asking if I'd like to meet with Laurent Sauvage, winemaker for the leading family of wines from the
Languedoc in the South of
France,
Robert Skalli Wines. We were to meet with Laurent at
CAV, the outstanding wine bar and restaurant along Market in the
Opera District of San Francisco (and part-owned by none other than
Doug Cook (
Twitter), founder of
Able Grape).
Corkage fees have been controversial for as long as they have been around. I admit, I have been distressed numerous times in the past at having to pay a corkage fee on wine that I already own. It's similar to the feeling I get when I have a fee to withdraw my own money from a bank! Yet, with friends all over the food and wine industry, I also get a lot of great perspectives on the topic.
After getting both of our outfits squared away, we decided to start the celebration of the end of 2008 with a stop at one of our favorite local steakhouses and cocktail bar,
Moresi's Chophouse in Clayton, CA. Moresi's is housed in were two historic 1800's era buildings, now combined, in the long-standing rural enclave of Clayton, CA.
Ed Moresi, longtime proprieter of the outstanding family dining and sports bar establishment
Ed's Mudville Grill (check out the amazing collection of sports memorabilia!) son Dom and the rest of the Moresi clan have created a wonderful stop within the small, comfortable downtown of Clayton.
