If you're purchasing a sparkling wine this holiday season, it's easy to keep it local. After all, some of the finest American choices are produced in our own backyard. Following is a list of my top-ten local sparkling wine choices. Half of these wineries are set in Carneros, an area that covers parts of both Sonoma and Napa Valley that is perfectly suited for Pinot Noir and Chardonnay grape growing (the two varietals most commonly used for sparkling wines). The other half are located in other parts of Napa, Sonoma and the Anderson Valleys.

As you'll see, some of these wineries are large and well-known, while others may not be as familiar to you. While creating this list I tried to include a variety of vintners, from multi-nationally owned estates to smaller family-owned wineries. When the information was available, I've included Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast ratings, as well as any major prizes won. For comparison's sake, you'll also find the least expensive bottle from each vintner listed. These are officially priced between $20 - $30, but I've seen many in stores for around $15. Obviously more expensive varieties are also available if your budget allows.

So keep it festive and local this New Year's Eve, but most of all, stay safe.

Note: I'm avoiding using the term "champagne" as it's only allowed for French wines made in the Champagne region. All the wines below are produced in the same way that champagne is created -- by inducing the in-bottle secondary fermentation of the wine to effect carbonation.

Sonoma

Gloria Ferrer
Gloria Ferrer is a standard-bearer for California sparkling wines. According to Wine Spectator, “Gloria Ferrer reliably produces some of California's best sparkling wines.” I had some on Christmas day and can attest to its festiveness. The Sonoma Brut, which is dominated by Pinot Noir, has a 90 2009 Wine Spectator ranking and is priced around $20.

Domaine Carneros
Established in 1987 by Champagne Tattinger, Domaine Carneros is an organic certified winery. They focus on making three traditional styles of sparkling wine: Brut, Brut Rosé and Blanc de Blancs. With consistent rankings in the 90s from both Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast, Domaine Carneros provides reliably excellent sparkling wines. Their 2006 Brut Cuvée Sparkling Wine made from Pinot Noir and Chardonnay gets a 91 Wine Spectator ranking and costs $26 a bottle.

Iron Horse
A small family-owned winery, Iron Horse has been producing sparkling wines for over 30 years. Wine & Spirits Magazine named them Sparkling Winery of the Year nine times and their wines have been served in the White House since Reagan first had it served to Gorbachev. Their Classic Brut, which is 3/4 Pinot Noir and 1/4 Chardonnay, sells for a little over $30 a bottle with typical Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast ratings in the 90s.

J Vineyards & Winery
I like this winery for a few different reasons. The first (and biased) reason is that it is owned and run by a woman (Judy Jordan), which seems like a rarity in the wine industry. They are also dedicated to sustainable farming practices. And, because taste does matter, it's good to note their Brut Rose was the Sparkling Sweepstakes Winner at the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition earlier this year. Their J Cuvée 20 Brut NV sells for $20 a bottle.

Schug Carneros Estate
Founded in 1980, Schug is a family-owned winery. They are dedicated to sustainable winemaking practices, finding the most environmentally friendly and efficient way of growing the grapes, and creating habitats for various bird species (which I really love). Their Rouge de Noirs Sparkling Pinot is $30 a bottle.

Napa

Domaine Chandon
If you're looking for something distinctly French, Domaine Chandon is a great local choice. Founded in 1973 by Moët -– the champagne winery -– it was the first French-owned sparkling wine venture in the United States. Consistently ranked in the 90s by both Wine Enthusiast and Wine Spectator, Domaine Chandon provides a classic sparkling wine choice. The Brut Classic, which has a 90 point Wine Enthusiast 2009 ranking, is priced at about $20.

Mumm Napa
Located in Rutherford along the Silverado Trail in the Napa Valley, and started by the French G.H. Mumm company (one of the largest champagne producers in the world), Mumm Napa is one of the largest local sparkling wine producers. Their Brut Prestige, priced at about $20, ranks 89 for Wine Spectator and 90 for Wine Enthusiast.

Schramsberg Vineyards
Located in Calistoga, Schrambsberg Vineyards is the oldest sparkling wine vineyard in California and is also a certified Napa Green winery. Consistently ranking well for both Wine Spectator and Wine Enthusiast, Schrambsberg is a great local choice. A bottle of Mirabelle multi-vintage brut costs a bit over $20.

Anderson Valley

Scharffenberger Cellars
Scharffenberger Cellars is one of the largest sparkling wine producer in the Anderson Valley. With a history that includes being previously owned by John Scharffenberger of Scharffenberger chocolate fame. Scharffenberger Non Vintage Brut received a gold medal from the San Francisco Chronicle Wine Competition earlier this year. Their Brut is 2/3 Pinot Noir and 1/3 Chardonnay grapes and sells for just under $20 a bottle.

Roederer Estate
Set in the Anderson Valley, Roederer Estates is the California branch of the French company Champagne Louis Roederer, which has been making champagne for over 200 years. In 2009, Wine Spectator Magazine gave their Brut NV a Recommended – Top Wine ranking. It sells for about $20 a bottle.

It's almost New Years Eve, and you know what that means -- a lot of folks will be getting their drink on. If you have a gluten sensitivity, it doesn't mean you need to miss the revelry. A lot of hard alcohol is naturally gluten-free, and for those not into hitting the hard stuff, there are quite a lot of companies making gluten-free beer and cider.

Gluten-Free Liquor Selection
Most hard alcohols don't contain gluten, so if you prefer to make mixed drinks, you're in luck! Here is a list of alcohols that are generally gluten-free and safe to consume if you have a gluten sensitivity. Note: Product recipes can and do change, and some brands may add caramel coloring to their liquors, which may contain gluten. Be sure to check the label before imbibing! Only you can be responsible for your gluten intake.

• Absinthe
• Bourbon
• Brandy
• Cognac
• Gin
• Grand Marnier
• Grenadine
• Jägermeister
• Kahlua
• Mead
• Ouzo
• Rum
• Sherry
• Southern Comfort
• Tequila
• Triple Sec
• Vermouth
• Vodka
• Whisky

Gluten-Free Champagne
The traditional drink of the evening for New Years Eve is Champagne or sparkling white wine, but is it gluten-free? Traditionally, sparkling wines are not made with any gluten-y ingredients, so it is usually safe to consume. As with any food or beverage, you should still check with a manufacturer before buying a bottle to double-check that they haven't added any non-standard ingredients to their product.

Gluten-Free Beer
A great default drink if you're just looking to have a mellow night is beer. Anyone with a gluten sensitivity will tell you that beer is a sore point -- until recently, gluten-free beer options were few and far between. These days, there are almost too many varieties to count! Here are a few of the best gluten-free beers, at least a few of which you should be able to find in most large natural grocery stores:

• Green's
• New Grist
• Redbridge
• O'Brien
• Glutaner
• Bard's
• Rampano Valley
• Mission Amber

Gluten-Free Cider
Cider is a lot of people's drink of choice, since it's sweet and relatively low alcohol. Standard ciders often contain caramel coloring or other gluten-y additives, so it's important to check the label before drinking cider. The following brands are know to contain no gluten products, and have proven safe to drink in the past:

• Ace Cider
• Blackthorn
• Blue Mountain
• Cider Jack
• Fox Barrel
• Magner's
• Newton's Folly
• Original Sin
• Spire Mountain
• Strongbow
• Woodchuck Granny Smith
• Wyder's

Where Can You Buy Gluten-Free Beer and Cider?
Here in the Bay Area, we're lucky enough to be surrounded by shops that provide a huge selection of gluten-free products. Here are a handful of places you'll find a variety of gluten-free alcohol beverages. When you shop, be sure to let the manager know you appreciate the fact that they stock gluten-free products!

The Wine Mine
5427 Telegraph Ave, Ste D1
Oakland, CA 94609
(510) 547-9463

Mollie Stone's Market
Mollie Stone's supermarket has eight locations around the bay, and each location carries a good selection of gluten-free beer and cider.

Whole Foods Market
With locations all around the Bay Area, there is probably a Whole Foods near you.

Take Care!
No matter what you're drinking, don't forget to take care of yourself by eating a big meal early in the evening and drinking lots of water throughout the night. And if you wake up with the obligatory hangover on New Years Day, there are always hangover cures to help through.

Happy New Year!

Twilight, True Blood, and Vampire Diaries are just three of the newest examples of how vampires refuse to go dustily into that good night. And they're also why I found myself researching and writing VampireSmarts ("The Question & Answer Game that makes learning about Vampires before dating them easy & fun!") and digging up some of the wildest information about vampires a few years ago.

According to Rosemary Ellen Guiley's book The Complete Vampire Companion, there is some guy named Damien Vanian who is living la vida muerte in London. Damien Vanian, aside from having a name that's the undead equivalent of Amelia Bedelia, is supposedly "London's most famous living vampire." I didn't learn a whole lot about the guy, but I did learn that he came up with a blood substitute recipe.

There Will NOT Be Blood*

1 part tomato juice
1 part orange juice

Additional tasting notes on this recipe are that you should drink this cocktail warm -- ideally 98.6°F, because that's body temperature. Also, Vanian believes this effectively mimics both the taste and appearance of clotting blood, so you get all the blood bang without the worries of coming down with the Black Plague. Oh, yeah, that's another fun fact I learned when researching vampires: don't drink human blood. Not only can it be bubbling with bacteria and diseases, it might also act as an emetic.

I should note that since my primary source was published about 16 years ago, I have no idea if this guy is still living (or still living-dead, as it were), so if this concoction makes you vomit, don't blame me.

(*Trademark me. Damien-Banana-Fanna-Fo-Vanian did not come up with that cool-ass name.)

Now, if you're totally grossed out by that drink, but still feel the need to ape the vampiric lifestyle, consider stocking your bar with these delicious blood-like beverages:

• Clamato, cranberry, and pomegranate juice: those health-improving antioxidents are very important, even to vampires.
• Red wine: try a bottle of something from Vampire Vineyards. Because it means "blood of Jove," I'm sad they no longer make a Sangiovese.
• Mineral water: helps thin out the tomato-based drinks and brings a little sparkle back into your life.
• Bloody Mary mix: duh.

San Francisco's Board of Supervisors is considering imposing a fee on alcoholic beverages, which would go to pay for programs associated with alcohol abuse. But critics say the fee would burden businesses in already tough economic times.

Host: Michael Krasny

Guests:

• John Avalos, member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors
• Rich Higgins, brewmaster at Social Kitchen And Brewery and president of the San Francisco Brewers Guild

Furthur playing at the Lands End Stage Saturday evening

The Outside Lands festival that took place in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park August 14th and 15th was dedicated to integrating local food, wine, music, and art to create two days of entertainment, indulgence and education.

A Taste of the Bay Area, Wine Lands and Eco Lands provided festival goers with the opportunity to experience quality food from Bay Area restaurants, California wines from some obscure local wineries, and lessons on urban farming and sustainability...all in between music sets that took place on four separate stages.

The area now known as Golden Gate Park used to be referred to as the "Outside Lands" back in the Gold Rush era, "a great sand waste" that was not legally part of the city of San Francisco until 1866. By 1860 the park had been transformed into a recreational space for citizens to enjoy. This festival reclaims the name and celebrates the social value that the park environment contributes to life in an urban area.

This slideshow features some of the festivities from Saturday August 14th.

There's nothing like the "Bauer Bump."

Blogs, Tweets, Yelp write-ups, email newsletters, check-ins on Foursquare-- the new social-media options may be the shiniest, coolest toys on the block right now, as evidenced by the full house attending The Future of Food Media, one of several industry seminars presented as part of SF Chefs 2010.

But after a 90 minute discussion between Oracle corporate chef Robbie Lewis, Yelp executive Ruggy Joesten, Marlowe owner Anna Weinberg, PR specialist Andrew Freeman, and moderator Paolo Lucchesi of San Francisco Chronicle's Inside Scoop SF, it came down to this: A great review from Michael Bauer, the Chronicle's longtime head restaurant critic, is still the golden ticket that every restaurant dreams of, the one sure-fire way to guarantee a full house for months to come.

For the longtime print writers, editors, and public-relations folks in the audience (as well as, presumably, Bauer himself, who was seated unobtrusively near the back of the room), it was satisfying to hear Anna Weinberg, owner of Marlowe, insist that Bauer's dubbing their lamb-laced bacon cheeseburger the best in the city had an instant, and huge, impact on her business.

(And that burger was no accident; Weinberg and her chef Jennifer Puccio did loads of food trend research before opening, looking for what local diners really get passionate about. Which turned out to be, unsurprisingly, pizza and burgers.)

For all that Yelp's Joesten had to say about his company's proprietary, scam-searching algorithm for rating and ranking user reviews, a smart professional critic whose palate and judgment you trust is still a more reliable guide than a blogger hoping for perks and freebies, or an anonymous poster with any number of axes to grind.

And there's the other bonus: good writing! Among all the long-winded digressions about data mining and statistical analytics (which got many of the industry types and interested foodies fidgeting in their seats and yes, probably checking their tweets), no one mentioned the enjoyment value of professional criticism until the closing minutes, when audience member Jan Newberry, food editor of San Francisco magazine, noted that no one goes to Yelp for the prose, whereas good criticism is also good writing--entertaining, informative, able to put a restaurant, its chef, and its scene into a social, gastronomic, and cultural context.

(As a former restaurant critic for both the Bay Guardian and San Francisco magazine, I was often asked how I "got paid to eat." My response? I didn't get paid to eat, I got paid to write. Eating was just what I happened to write about.)

Still, there was lots to say about how a restaurant, or a chef, can build a community and a brand through judicious use of Twitter, blogs, Yelp, and more.

As Weinberg noted, "It's a free 24 hour a day focus group. Looking on places like Yelp, you can start to see trends. If 10 posts in a week tell you the soup isn't so great or the bartender was rude, you know that maybe it's time to get a better soup, or a better bartender."

Said Lewis, "You can use to engage your customers, start a direct dialogue with guests, ask for feedback rather than it getting blasted all over the internet. It can be great for customer touch-back, especially when they've given you positive comments. Thanking someone for a positive post builds loyalty instantly."

According to Lewis, customers love to get a glimpse "behind the velvet rope," and hearing that the sommelier is really jazzed about a new Cab or that the pastry chef is doing something fantastic with the season's first pluots can galvanize these would-be insiders into showing up that very night.

But how much transparency is too much?

Said Lucchesi, to much laughter from the audience, "You know, Eric Ripert of Le Bernardin in NYC just started tweeting. Now, he's James Bond suave, with an olive-oil French accent, probably one of the world's most respected chefs. But his tweets read like a 12-year-old girl is writing them!"

The Mayor was a no-show to the Grand Tent's grand ribbon-cutting shortly after the panel concluded, but that didn't stop the crowd from oohing over the dramatic sabering of a magnum of Domaine Chandon, or the star-studded posse of chefs and restauranteurs clustered around the thick orange ribbon. And with a scissor and a snip, the crowd surged forward to check out Friday's main event, "Hog in the Fog," a food-and-cocktail walk-around under a big white tent in Union Square.

It helped to like pork in all its myriad forms, since besides the figs, grapes, and Cowgirl Creamery cheeses offered at the CUESA table, there was almost nothing for vegetarians, save a lot of tasty cocktails. Table after table offered pork cured, pork braised, pork shredded, or pork confit'd.

No pork crudo was in evidence, but there were plenty of jiggly slices of "head and hoof" terrine topped with pickled mustard seeds. (Made by Chris Cosentino of Incanto, as if you had to ask).

Poggio's Peter McNee laid out a lavish spread of salume, all made from a single pig, including sliced "pigstrami," mortadella, chocolate-brown "bloodella," and more, plus poached cotechino sausage over lentils (a classic Bolognese pairing) and fermented summer sausage on sauerkraut.

Homer Simpson would have been in heaven ("Porkchops and bacon, my two favorite animals!") but after the sixth or seventh porky bite, the octopus tentacles made by A16's Liza Shaw starting looking mighty good.

Nicolette Manescalchi, Liza Shaw and Ross Wunderlich

Why octopus? "Well, I love squid, octopus, all that stuff." said Shaw. Sometimes you have to choose between cooking for the people or cooking for chefs. Today, I decided to cook for the chefs. The people will follow!"

And her octopus tentacles on a stick, with slippery onion and a vivid, herby green-tomato salsa verde, were double-plus good.

You could wash down all that pork with many different cocktails, as long as your taste ran to tart, dry, and spicy. San Francisco bartenders continue to love their bitters, from the aromatic bitters (made from cinnamon, allspice, cardamom, and cassia) in the Rye Buck (Wild Turkey, house-made ginger syrup, lime) from Rye to the orange bitters in the cayenne sugar-rimmed Smoking Gun (Combier orange liqueur, Hennessey Black cognac, smoked peach puree) from Otis.

Everything seemed to have lemon or lime, ginger or cinnamon, plus a dash of herbal/anise flavor, in the form of Chartreuse, Herbsaint, or absinthe. Acknowledging that bartenders have their groupies and their name-brand just like chefs, each bar table had a board announcing the bartender's name and his (yes, they were all male) liquor of choice above the table.

The next morning, it was time for the Anolon Chef Challenge: Restaurant Family Feud (Delfina vs. Spruce), hosted by the Food Network's Aida Mollenkamp and judged by Jan Newberry, Steffan Terje (Perbacco, Barbacco) and Chronicle editor Miriam Morgan. The same conference room was now a Top Chef-style kitchen, with portable cooktop (but no running water), myriad bottles of wine and olive oil, and both a secret ingredient and a mystery basket of seasonal produce, courtesy of CUESA.

The secret ingredient? Local sustainable seafood, including Monterey Bay squid, sardines, and sole. The produce basket had just about everything you could find at Ferry Plaza: tomatoes of all sizes and colors, new potatoes, corn, herbs, figs, nectarines, melons, plums, onions, leeks, and more. The challenge? Three courses, one hour, two chefs on each team.

Mark Sullivan from Spruce

As you might imagine, chefs know how to focus, and halfway through their allotted time, you could hone a Wusthof knife off the single-minded attention beaming down from Delfina's Craig Stoll and Anthony Strong and Spruce's Mark Sullivan and Ben Cohn.

Craig Stoll from Delfina

They had little time or energy for chit-chat, which left Mollenkamp to carry the show, without TV's benefit of tomato-chopping close-ups or suspense-building commercial breaks. But the judges did chime in here and there, as when Mollenkamp asked Terje about his favorite summer produce.

"Summer is hard for me," Terje admitted. "It's like culinary ADD. Winter is more forgiving. Now, when something hits the market, you have to be ready for it right away."

Delfina dishes

The final menus? For Delfina, handmade tonarelli pasta with sardines, fennel, grapes, capers, and toasted breadcrumbs, followed by an impromptu toss of charred peppers, anchovies, and poached squid with pureed and diced tomatoes, lemon, capers and olives, and finally rolled sole poached with fish fumet, white wine, and herbs over tomatoes stewed in tomato juice and camomile tea.

Spruce dishes

For Spruce, the meal began with a clear tomato-water gazpacho with diced tomatoes and mint, followed by seared sardine over a pork-and-tomato broth with peppers and smoked paprika, then poached sole and squid with leeks, potatoes, and a basil pistou.

The winner? By just the smallest of margins, Delfina. The audience cheered, the chefs toasted each other with well-deserved beers, and the audience, tantalized by unbearably delicious aromas (but no tastes) during the past two hours, headed to the Grand Tent for another chef-and-cocktail go-round.

Jean-Charles Boisset, Cy Musiker, Leslie Sbrocco

Food & Wine This Week
Leslie Sbrocco and guests: Cy Musiker, KQED Radio & Bay Area Bites blogger and Jean-Charles Boisset, wine visionary; look at "green" trends in wine. Wineries are using updated packaging techniques and re-vamping traditional methods for serving and storing wine that bypass bottles completely and go straight to the barrel. By using modern versions of old techniques, the wine industry is joining the food movement to become more eco-friendly and sustainable.

Guests:
Cy Musiker, KQED Radio and Bay Area Bites blogger
Jean-Charles Boisset, wine visionary, President of Boisset Family Estates

Related Post: Wine on Tap

Chris Pastena drawing a glass at Chop Bar

Americans are so darn rigid about wine. For instance, we used to know that good wine was French or Italian, but California made nothing but schlock.

Then we warmed to California wine, but knew that wine poured out of a tap at a bar was nothing but schlock. (Anheuser Busch used to sell wine on tap in the 1970s, and it wasn't very good.)

Think again.

Wine on tap is sweeping into restaurants and bars around the Bay Area because... well, let Gus Vahlkamp explain it. He's the wine director for Out the Door in San Francisco (Charles Phan's new mini-chain).

"There are really three reasons. It's better to reuse than recycle, our recycling has been reduced by at least half. Also it's cost effective, because the producers aren't adding on the cost of the bottle, the cork, the carton and the transportation it comes in. I'm able to buy these wines at 25 percent off the wholesale bottle cost. And third, because these wines have not been bottled, I can go to the winery, create my own custom blend, and pour a wine that no one else in the country is going to have."

So it's greener than bottles, and cheaper. And Vahlkamp and other restaurateurs are passing the savings on to customers. Out The Door sells a crisp, fresh 2009 Sonoma Sauvignon Blanc for $4.50 a glass. At Chop Bar in Oakland near Jack London Square, co-owner Chris Pastena (formerly of Coda) sells a Frogs Leap 2008 Zinfandel on tap for $12 a glass, when it might go for $16 or $18 out of a bottle.

The tap setup at Chop Bar

And the wine always tastes fresh. Most restaurants pour their wine-by-the-glass selections out of bottles that sit for days, often long after the contents inside have staled. But restaurants with tap systems use an inert gas like argon or nitrogen to push the wine through the lines. That gas also protects the wine for weeks against oxidation. (Wineries blanket their wines with the same gases for the same reason when they store their wines in tanks.)

"What's funny about keg wine is it's an old idea made new again," says Matt Licklider, co-owner of Lioco Wine in Santa Rosa, one of Out The Door's chief suppliers.

"My partners and I were inspired in creating our wine by our experience in Europe," Licklider says. "We loved this idea that there was no ceremony about wine in Europe. You can take an empty jug to lots of regional coops in France and fill it up for pennies an ounce. So even when we wrote the business plan, we had always talked about alternative packaging."

There's also a big locavore angle to this tap wine boom. Vahlkamp picks his wine up in a van every few weeks from wineries in Carneros and Sonoma. At Chop Bar, Pastena buys a few kegs of wine, once a month, from JC Cellars, a winery just down the block really, from the restaurant. "I can promise you, Pastena says, "there's no carbon emissions when we truck those kegs over here on a hand cart." The wine in those kegs is JC Cellars Daily Ration, a rich California red blend for just $6 a glass that goes well with The Chop Bar's Niman Ranch Burger.

Michael Ouellette with a sample

There are a few big technical questions left to resolve before this boom in tap wine goes global. Different restaurants and different wineries use different keg systems, and often have their kegs custom built, and only a few wineries own equipment to efficiently fill the kegs. Michael Ouellette of Vintap, the former wine director for Mustards in St. Helena, now drives all over the North Coast, basically hand bottling kegs at choice wineries like Steltzner in Stags Leap and Oakville Ranch Vineyards. Ouellette says he's designing a bottling truck to automate the process. Rudy Von Strasser at Von Strasser Winery sells Ouellette a dynamite Diamond Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon for sale on tap, but he says he hates the hassle factor. And when I talked to Vahlkamp at the Out The Door on Bush Street, he was exhausted and grubby from his keg road trip. He washes the kegs himself by hand. And you thought being a sommelier was a glamour job.

"That's one of the challenges we're facing," says Licklider. We need a keg wine summit, to work out all the complexities in it."

Michael Ouellette's Vintap samples

Still one of the first and most successful restaurants to serve wine on tap, Two Urban Licks, makes it work all way across the country in Atlanta, with 42 wines, half white, half red.

And imagine a day when it's as easy to get a great local wine on tap for cheap, as it is to get a great local beer. Who says the future's not all it's cracked up to be.

A few more Bay Area restaurants serving wine on tap:
Salt House
Delfina
Frances
Ironside
Coda
Annabelle's Bar & Bistro
Tavern at Lark Creek
Residual Sugar Wine Bar

Cy Musiker will be discussing "green" trends in wine on Food & Wine This Week with Leslie Sbrocco, wine expert and host of Check, Please! Bay Area and Jean-Charles Boisset, wine innovator and President of Boisset Family Estates.
Watch Friday 6/25 at 8pm on KQED 9HD.

Welcome to National Rosé Month! Or so it seems, to scan the wine section of any newspaper in June. Wine writers treat rosés like Emily Post treats white shoes: dusted off for Memorial Day, retired on Labor Day, perfect for summer but verboten from September to May. Even as they tout the growing popularity of rosés among both consumers and winemakers, the once-a-year rosé roundups rarely appear in any month but this one, making drinking pink synonymous with the reappearance of Speedos on Dolores Beach and speedboats on Clear Lake: a drink for vacationland and summer shares, poured poolside, lakeside, out on the deckside.

And with good reason, frankly: while a good rosé is worth drinking any day of the year, there's no denying that their strawberry hues and Jolly Rancher bouquets are best enhanced by long, sunshiny afternoons that postpone the twilight until deep in the evening. Like a summer romance, these are wines of instant enchantment, capturing the bliss of a moment. There's just something kissable about a rosé, something that makes you want to pucker up, put the glass to your lips, and laugh.

Fresh, light, a little racy, with a jazzy red-fruit profile that dips from strawberries to cherries to thirst-quenching watermelon: that's your typical Mediterranean-ready rosé, and the type I like best for my summer sipping. For one like this, look no further than Domaine de la Fouquette's Cuvee Rosée d'Aurore ($16.50), made in Provence from a blend of 65% grenache, 35% cinsault, and 5% rolle grapes. Pale salmon in the glass, it balances its watermelon bounce with a smooth white-linen crispness that keeps it fresh and pleasing from sip to sip.

Jeff Diamond, owner of Farmstead Cheeses and Wines in Montclair and Alameda, drinks rosé at home all year round. 85% of the time, if I come home and my wife's got a glass in her hand, it's going to be a rosé," says Jeff, pointing out her particular favorite, the Domaine de la Mordorée Tavel ($28). Tavel, of course, is an A.O.C. region in southern France where nothing but rose is made, and the grapes for this wine are not just grown in Tavel but grown biodynamically by what Diamond dubs "the best Rhône producer on the planet." The end result? A supple, meaty rosé, nearly magenta, that's a smooth, suave dinner-party companion to grilled lamb or salmon. It's a rosé to convert even the hardiest of red-wine drinkers. "In our house, we probably go through 7 or 8 cases a year of this," notes Diamond. (More for weekday drinking is the Domaine de la Mordoree's Cotes du Rhône: light and balanced, a very nice food wine, and at $18, ten dollars further down the splurge scale.)

"For the stores, we stock up on rosés for the summer, but we sell them all year around. It's exceedingly versatile; it goes with all the things whites go with, and some of the things reds go with," especially anything that teeters between salty and sweet, like ham. The shop's selection can range from a dozen up to 20 different varieties, generally all European-made. Right now, the best-seller is Domaine Sorin Terra Amata another grenache-dominated, good-value blend from the Côtes de Provence.

At Heart wine bar on Valencia, the menu offers not just one but two pink sparklers. Trying strenuously to veer away from its Sex & the City implications, the writeup for Wilfrid Rousse Chinon Rose de Saignée warns "Call it blush and get smacked. And it's DRY." For the German Gilabert Rose Cava, it's "Champagne-Snobbery+Girliness=Rose Cava."

And while I wouldn't agree that only snobbery stands between real French Champagne and Spanish Cava, if you're going to drink pink bubbles in a place that serves their wine in jam jars, you might as well stick to cava.

Looking for something a little more grown-up? Head over to Maverick and order a glass of Donkey and Goat Grenache Gris Rosé, made by a Berkeley winemaking couple from Mendocino grapes and a delectable match to the Baltimore crab fluffs or the buttermilk fried chicken in black-pepper gravy.

At Piccino, the neighbors in Dogpatch will be toasting Dad by drinking pink for the restaurant's annual rosé fest, on Sunday June 20th from noon-5pm. As always, there will be numerous rosés to try, matched with a pink-friendly menu. (Expect some seafood to go with the usual pizzas, contorni, and salads.)

At Farmstead Cheeses and Wine, there will be a special tastings of rosés at the end of the month, in the Montclair store on June 25 from 5:30-7:30pm and in Alameda on June 26th from 2:30-4:30pm.

Even the posh Bordeaux lovers over at Emeryville's Premier Cru loosen up a little come summertime. But not so much that they lose their European focus. Writes James Gillerman,

Yes, I have had very pleasant rosé wines from Sancerre (pinot noir), from New Zealand, from Napa, from Bordeaux (cabernet sauvignon and merlot primarily), from Marsannay in Burgundy (pinot noir again), but I always seem to return to the wines of Tavel and Bandol, perhaps a few other southern Rhone appellations for the most reliably satisfying examples.

Right now, the shop is offering several roses from the south of France, including Domaine Tempier Bandol Rose '09 ($24.99), the classic rosé lover's rosé. Writes Gillerman, "I like this release vintage after vintage. Consistently one of the best roses out there on the market. Primarily Mourvedre, with a smattering of other grapes thrown in." Also on the shelves are two affordable summer quaffers from Provence's Chateau Paradis, Terre de Provence Rosé ($11.99) and Terres des Anges Rosé ($13.99), both made from a blend of cabernet sauvignon and syrah.

I visited the old Bonny Doon within four months of moving to California. The year was 2002. Tickled at the idea of crashing a tasting room, my then-roommate and I motored through the mountains in a borrowed car, the Doon our destination solely on the strength of a few cheap bottles we'd downed. It was a few days before Halloween, and as we sauntered into the building (It's been long enough that I scarcely remember the exterior), we realized we were not the carousing pranksters, but instead the straight men: Every member of the Bonny Doon tasting room staff was dressed in a costume. I saw a bear, a clown, and a few ghosts in sheets just begging for cardinal-colored stains. A young woman -- a witch -- asked us what we wanted, and we had no idea. We wound up taking home a few selections -- including a lovely Framboise I shipped off to my mother.

Since then, Bonny Doon has moved to Santa Cruz, sold a few of its bank-breaking mainstream labels, and most recently, shifted its focus from winsome, cleverly-marketed table fare to quirky, more rarefied wines made using organically grown grapes (invariably oddball Italian varietals) and biodynamic methods. At the same time, owner Randall Grahm has seen his profile grow, not because of the bottles he's produced, but as a result of his well-publicized literary efforts -- from newsletter manifestos to provocative cartoon ads in widely-read wine magazines and crushing commentaries cloaked in clever wine-y homages to canonical novels and poems. That career, a supple, sturdy vine shooting off his winemaking business's freshly trimmed root, culminated -- at least so far -- in last year's "vinthology" Been Doon So Long, a self-curated collection published by the University of California Press. The title, I assume, is a play on Richard Farina's 1966 novel Been Down So Long, It Looks Like Up to Me, the book Farina was promoting on the very night he died in a motorcycle accident near Monterey.

After my short strange trip to the old tasting room back in 2002, I followed Bonny Doon in the news, and even made a point of buying the company's wines when I could. Already thoroughly charmed by his labels frequently featuring wild, splotched, and puckered caricatures drawn by Ralph Steadman, a favorite artist, I was also taken with Grahm's funny essays, and enamored of the prospect of supporting a good writer by drinking his wine. A few weeks ago, Been Doon So Long won a James Beard Award, and I figured the time had come to reacquaint myself with Grahm's body of work.

The body is the size of a biology textbook, which is probably appropriate considering the subject matter. At the same time, essays so dense, so rife with potentially unfamiliar terms and allusions that require quick references, suit a more portable package, something to be tucked into a jacket pocket, read in installments on public transportation, and marked with folded corners, underlines, and scribbled notes. Instead, the book is huge, heavy, and handsome. It looks good in a case, or on a coffee-table, but actually reading it requires physical effort. It's a little cumbersome to hold up while lying prone in bed. If you fall asleep reading it, you might break your nose, so don't try doing so after reaching the bottom of a bottle of syrah. Instead, you need a strong, straight-backed chair, a cup of coffee, and the warm morning light. Some oenology acumen and a solid background in Western literature doesn't hurt either. I am equipped with the latter, but -- as someone quite comfortable picking out something nice to drink with dinner, yet woefully ignorant of winemaking practices and quite hazy on the cultural worlds and myriad personalities, both human and grape, surrounding them -- plenty of Grahm's jokes (and a few of his key points) swirl above my head like clouds of must. With respect to some of it, like a high school junior trying to make sense of Ulysses, for the first time, perhaps a year or two too soon, I'm happy getting the gist.

Aside from introducing the reader (who is probably already familiar) to Grahm's general vibe, the book takes two distinct tacks. The first -- palpable in his gleeful parodies -- is the wine world equivalent of a dis record, and a fairly hilarious one at that -- with upstanding luminaries like Robert "Moldavi," disagreeable trends such as "merlotmania," and, of course, the critic Robert Parker looking flimsier than 2010-era 50 Cent. The insults are often no less opaque than those hurled by a derisive rapper, and the effect is equally delicious, though with salvos of double entendre, puns, copious footnotes, and a constant barrage of drunken word-play (For example, and there are thousands, the wine "dick" in "Spenser's Last Case" wields a Gattinara, not a gat), considerably cuter. The formula is consistent and agreeable: Grahm apes the style of a famous author -- Thomas Puncheon, James Juice, or J.D. Salignac, perhaps -- and unloads a lecture cloaked in a madcap, script-flipping of themes in a well-known work by the particular author -- say, "B," "Cheninagin's Wake," or "A Perfect Day for Barberafish." Most of these are as pleasant and drinkable as a $12 bottle of Gruner, if a bit more demanding, and somewhat heavier on the palate. The song and poem parodies that follow are less successful; they seem watered-down, like Grandma's pink zin.

The other side of Been Doon So Long is meditative, serious -- which is to say, witty, somewhat less goofy, and only a touch softer on the tannins. On page two of his introduction, Grahm starts with his own shortcomings. In essence, he wouldn't have had to become the writer and marketing savant he is had his wines been as wonderful as he'd wanted them to be. Words -- with regard to wine -- are where he has made his mark. The success of Bonny Doon and his other labels have kept him a few steps further from the poorhouse than the average grape-stomper, but he has typically been known more for his prose, antics, and stinging satirical flail than for the quality of his wines. Many entries are both amusing and illuminating. In one chapter, he runs through some of Bonny Doon's best pre-Steadman labels, discussing the Jules Verne-influenced scene on Le Cigare Volant and revealing that the label for his muscat was inspired by a trip to a lady's underwear boutique in San Francisco. For me -- again, the non-expert -- Grahm repeatedly uncorks sweet, thoughtful conceits about wine that make me eager to improve my grasp -- not on know-how and scoring systems, but the mystery and magic of wine, to see it as a lovely, boundless parcel to discover and unravel in the same way I've devoured popular music and steeped myself in its history, absorbing its movements and collections of characters, coming to understand first-hand how certain changes and instrumental colors render certain effects on a listener. On page 220, he writes:

"...[R]emember that wine's inmost nature is metaphoric (wine can smell like grapes and cigar boxes), that wine's very essence is linked to mutability and to memory..."

Way back on page seven, Grahm sums it up -- his lot, at least -- as a "soul's journey" toward a better grasp on wine's "animating brilliance, the profound truth of terroir." His discovery of wine was a stumble, not a search, "a happy accident," and now it means much more: "winemaking and the culture of wine provide a unique and powerful language that carries the rich metaphoric suggestion of the sweetness and strangeness of life itself."

Terroir is one of Grahm's central preoccupations, specifically its "Old World" form of expression, when a winemaker attempts to "excavate" the power and potential that already exists within the soil, in the setting, under the sun: "the vineyard itself becomes a sort of mantra or prayer wheel and successive vintages are our reincarnations." At the same time, he's frank about his own efforts. He calls the wines he has made thus far "puppy-dog wines," and wonders if he'll ever be able to discover terroir -- to make a wine that has a taste expressive of its physical place of origin, not jammy, high-fruit, "bimbo" wines that he finds as vacuous and disposable as fast food.

I came away from reading the book thinking of Grahm himself as a product of terroir: the Citroen-driving, tie dye-clad, John Lennon-meets-I.M. Pei glasses-sporting California sage steeped in the post-hippie foment of the very early seventies, soaked in counter-culture and the canon alike, a farmer and an academic. No place but the North-Central coast of California could have birthed Randall Grahm. About a year ago, in a New York Times profile, Grahm described wine also as "a reflection of the human psyche." Writer Eric Asimov went on to speculate: "No doubt 25 years of whimsical, mercurial wines have been a reflection of his own." He's probably right. The wines he has made -- and their labels, and the universe of words he has conjured up around it all -- reflect his character -- and his time, place, and climate. That would make him quite like a grape, one that has doon quite well for itself.