Peter Eastlake, Vintage Berkeley

Small scale wineries seem to be the the hot thing this year. Whether the wine was produced on an organic farm in Sonoma’s Dry Creek Valley or in an industrial warehouse in Berkeley, these adventurous winemakers are getting some well-deserved attention for their interesting wines. Not all limited production wines are great, or affordable, but many are. This year I tried several very good California small lot wines for under twenty bucks including: Sherman and Hooker's white blend Shebang, Long Meadow Ranch Sauvignon Blanc on tap, Navarro's Edelzwicker and Pinot Noir from Mendocino, a Tempranillo from Bokisch Vineyards in Lodi and a Rose from Berkeley’s Donkey and Goat.

Just how small is small is up for debate, I tend to think under one thousand cases. It seems the designation is determined not just by a number but by a certain kind of style: a more hands on, focused and often natural approach to winemaking. For more recommendations on holiday wines and bubbles, I paid a visit to two local experts.

Peter Eastlake is co-owner of Vintage Berkeley, a wine shop that focuses on small production wines -- most under $25. This year the small wines promoter is thinking big. "I am really into magnums. To me they capture celebration, boldness, going big. Their size makes them look prohibitive but when you multiply a bottle times two, it's not that different. I think they are great for hosting and gifting," says Eastlake. I was shown a Kermit Lynch Cotes Du Rhone for $26 and a Zin made by the organic Santa Cruz producer, Alfaro Family Vineyards for $45.

Eastlake, whose stores are in North Berkeley, Elmwood and Albany coordinated this year's Wine Lands as part of Outside Lands. At the big San Francisco music and food event he showcased some of his favorite local, small scale producers including Wind Gap and Rajat Parr’s Sandhi wines. For this holiday Eastlake recommends wines from Lou Preston, a Sonoma legend who uses organic grapes from Dry Creek. "I really like L. Preston, a proprietary Rhone Blend. It's an organic estate grown wine that goes for $25.” Eastlake also carries Madam Preston ($24). I personally love this wine which is a blend of Roussanne, Grenache Blanc and Marsanne.

Lou Preston white and red

Since no holiday season is complete without popping the cork on a good bubbly, Eastlake recommends Domaine Taille aux Loups, Jacky Blot, Brut "Triple Zero" ($25) “It is an incredible sparkling Chenin Blanc from Montlouis, Vouvray. "His sparkling has quince, and stones. It’s dry, savory stuff," says Eastlake.

Champagne and sparkling wine may be the most popular holiday booze but Ian Becker, the wine director at Arlequin Wine Merchant in San Francisco, thinks that bubbles are one of the most misunderstood wines. “They are more flexible than people think and have so many pairing possibilities. I have had champagne with rib eye steak," says Becker.

Ian Becker, Arlequin Wine Merchant

One of Becker’s favorite small champagne producers is Jacquesson. He featured the Jacquesson Cuvee 734 at the store’s annual champagne tasting event. This one was $63. "It has dry herbal aromatics that are quite appealing,” says Becker. Becker also recommends an affordable French sparkler, “Francois Chidaine makes a dry and compelling sparkling Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley that is high in acidity and has a lot of pairing possibilities." At Becker's shop the sparkler is less than $22.

If you have heard of Natural Wine Week, Becker is the guy behind it. Some of his favorite winemakers are experimenting with native yeasts and bottling without fining or filtration. For the holidays, Becker suggests, "pick up a Pinot Blanc from Lioco ($23), it's a very dry Chardonnay alternative." If you are in the market for a red, Becker recommends a Cab Franc from Broc Cellars ($22). With only one hundred cases produced, you better hurry. In addition to a more natural style of wine, both of these winemakers picked up on other trends from this year including lower oak and alcohol levels. Want more holiday drink ideas? Try our festive cocktail tips!

How does San Francisco’s 600 tons of compostable waste become a nutrient-rich material that improves the quality of our local wines? Watch QUEST's Science on the SPOT story, Dark Matter: Inside the Compost Cycle to hear from agronomist Bob Shaffer, Northern California’s “compost guy,” and learn about the composting process.

Wine Lands 2011.
All Photos: Wendy Goodfriend

In the hit song, "California One," indie rock band, "The Decemberists," pay homage to the grape with the line, "Take a long drown with me of California wine." The fact that the band appreciates a good bottle of wine makes sense once you find out every member carries a Zagat iPhone app for culinary guidance on long road trips. This band appears right at home at a festival like Outside Lands where food and wine vendors seem to share top billing with the music line up.

Decemberists at Outside Lands 2011. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

Outside Lands gourmet fare is a far cry from rock concerts of yesteryear where the best one could hope for was a warm draft beer and a lousy hot dog. Beer might have a history with young people and big, outdoor events but this weekend micro-brews took a back seat to local, small lot wineries. By late Saturday afternoon the line was more than fifteen people deep as I waited for a taste of 2009 Mendocino Pinot Noir from Navarro. As usual, Navarro did not disappoint. While in line I overheard the following conversation, "That is such a butterball, you should really check out Wind Gap, their wines are so balanced." Am I at a rock concert?

Wind Gap wine booth at Wine Lands. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

The idea of Wine Lands, which has now grown to thirty artisanal wineries and one hundred wines all under one big open-air tent, is the brainchild of Peter Eastlake. Eastlake is co-owner of Vintage Berkeley, a wine shop that focuses on small production wines -- most under twenty five dollars. Eastlake believes that wine and, well, nearly everything go together. He even had some favorite pairings for this year’s music line up.

Peter Eastlake. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

Phish:

For Phish, give me something lunar, hippie and refreshing for all that spinning, scooping and dumping. Bonny Doon's biodynamic spaceship adorned 2010 Vin Gris de Cigare all the way.

Erykah Badu:

When Erykah Badu sings, people listen. She’s a strong woman with a vocal range that can howl, scream, screech and make you cry. There is one wine for her show, and it rhymes with pink bubbles, Gloria Ferrer Blanc De Noirs.

The Roots:

These Philly boys are so versatile, funky and flat out likeable. Our man in Sebastopol, bass player Les Claypool, is pouring his spicy GSM blend called Purple Pachyderm.

Phish at Outside Lands 2011. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

Oh, let's not forget the other star of the show, the food. This year's Outside Lands included more than fifty local restaurants and food trucks and asked Eastlake for a couple of suggestions for pairings. For the Mac and Cheese from Oakland's Homeroom, Eastlake recommends a California Chardonnay like Hess Collection, Hirsch Estate for a special treat or Lioco's 2010 Sonoma County on tap.

I thought I was going to stump him when I asked about the very popular Fabulous Frickle Brothers fried pickles. Without blinking, Eastlake said, "It's a little known fact that deep fried pickled gherkins are only found in two places in the world -- Tennessee and Germany's Mosel River. Summer of Riesling. If you don't like Riesling, try the Riesling."

Fabulous Frickle Brothers' Frickles. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

Paul Grieco, owner of Terroir wine bar in New York, is on tour. He is traveling around the country in a Winnebago preaching the gospel of Riesling. Grieco wants people to know Riesling is lots of things including, not always sweet. Says Grieco, who even has a Riesling tattoo along his forearm, "Riesling is the best grape in the world." I tried the 2009 Toni Jost and liked it a lot.

Press Conference at Outside Lands 2011. Damien Kulash of OK Go, Thomas McNaughton - Salumeria by flour + water, Sommelier Paul Grieco - Summer of Riesling tour. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend.

Although Eastlake curated all of the wines under the tent, star sommelier Rajat Parr picked a few for the VIP tents including: Kermit Lynch's Bandol Rose, Qupe's Syrah and Navarro's Pinot Noir. Parr was also pouring his own brand at Wine Lands.

Sandhi wine booth at Wine Lands. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

Sandhi Wines is a boutique winery focusing on the grapes of Santa Barbara. Parr makes a Chardonnay and a Pinot Noir. The Pinot is elegant, complex and superb. Parr uses only native yeasts in his wines, part of a trend toward a more natural way of making wines. Taking this effort several steps further is Natural Process Alliance which also had a booth at Wine Lands.

NPA is minimalist winemaking which, briefly, includes: Sustainable vineyard management, organic grapes, native yeasts and very little to no added sulfur. NPA delivers natural wine in reusable stainless steel canisters to restaurants and wine bars within a one hundred mile radius of their Santa Rosa cellar. Like kegs, NPA stays clear of corks and heavy glass bottles. I tried the 2010 Chalk Hill Pinot Gris. It was not my favorite but I appreciated the unique, flavorful taste.

Kermit Lynch booth at Wine Lands. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

I thought it was kind of cool to see legendary importer Kermit Lynch hosting a booth at Wine Lands. This was their first foray into the world of big outdoor events and would probably do it again in an effort to attract a new generation of drinkers. My favorite Kermit Lynch Wine that day was a 2010 Bandol Terebrune Rose. I found it spicy and herbaceous.

Chris Hall, VP & GM of Long Meadow Ranch at Wine Lands. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

The big winner for me at Wine Lands this year was wine on tap from Long Meadow Ranch. Besides, being eco-friendly and less pricy, the wine tastes just as good as if it was in a bottle. I tried Long Meadow’s 2010 Sauvignon Blanc, poured through a stainless steel tap. It was vibrant and crisp with a little of what seemed like effervescence. I thought it must be the keg but, no, that’s their Sauvignon Blanc. Delicious. Personally, I think the keg is a winner but winemakers are still trying to decouple it from the image of frat parties. Maybe hip, rock musicians can help lead the way. Rumor has it band members from MGMT were seen hanging out at the Long Meadow booth sipping on a 2009 draft Cabernet blend.

MGMT at Outside Lands 2011. Photo by Wendy Goodfriend

Related posts:
• Outside Lands: A First Timer's Take on an Eco-Friendly Gourmet Music Festival
• Outside Lands Recap 2011 at KQED Arts
• Guide to Outside Lands 2011 at KQED Arts

Looks like beer but it's wine. Photo credit: Karen Hester

The first time I heard the term "East Bay Wineries" I immediately thought of Livermore Valley home to dozens of wineries including Wente and Concannon. I wasn’t aware of the nearly twenty urban wineries that dot the industrial west side of Berkeley and Oakland. As it turns out, one of the best ways to explore the growing East Bay wine scene is by bike. So, one recent hot summer Saturday, I met up with some friends in the Temescal neighborhood of Oakland. We pumped up our tires, donned backpacks to carry our bounty of wine bottles and set off on a twenty mile ride through Oakland.

Steve Shaffer with Urban Legends mascot, Sunshine

Urban Legend
Our first stop: Urban Legend Cellars, one of three wineries in the Jack London Square area. Steve and Marilee Shaffer own and make the wine at this mom and pop cellar and it all happens in the company of their pit bull, Sunshine.

We bellied up to the tasting bar just as they were opening their doors. For five dollars you can run through at least a half dozen tastings and the fee is waived if you make a purchase. I loved these wines -- crisp, acidic, good food wines with not a lot of barrel overtones. Some of my favorites included: a 2010 Rosato di Barbera from Clarksburg ($18); a 2009 Rhone style blend of reds called Lolapalooza from Amador County ($26) and a 2009 Uptown from Mendocino County ($20/liter).

Now there are a couple of cool things about this last wine. First, it's sold by the liter in a refillable bottle and second, it's named after a neighborhood in Oakland. Each harvest, Steve and Marilee pick a local Oakland 'hood to feature. Next year visitors can expect a West Oakland Wine. "What will that taste like?" I asked. "The wine will likely be a spicy blend of Petite Syrah and Zinfandel, sort of capturing that Brown Sugar Kitchen food renaissance of the neighborhood," Marilee told me over the wail of a passing Amtrak train. A scientist by training, she explained her wine making philosophy and answered my friends' many questions which included "how do you spit properly" since we were all two-wheeled designated drivers that day. Needless to say, we could have stayed at Urban Legend all day but we had other city cellars to discover. We bought a couple bottles and headed off to the farmers market a few blocks away.

Irish Monkey Cellars. Photo: Karen Hester

Irish Monkey
After fueling up on ceviche and tamales from a food truck, we peddled off along the Oakland harbor between the estuary and I-880 freeway down towards the High Street Bridge. We were looking for Irish Monkey Cellars which is easy to miss as it’s located in an industrial park tucked back behind Embarcadero Cove. A banner hanging from a chain link fence gave us a clue we were near. We parked our bikes against the warehouse wall and went into the rather small, but elegant, darkened tasting room where we found the winemaker, Bob Lynch. He was quite chatty and shared the story behind the winery's name. Six years ago he and his wife Loreta coined the name "Irish Monkey." Bob's background is Irish and he wields a unique sense of humor. We started out with a 2008 Torrontes ($12), the grapes sourced from Lodi. That was followed up with a Contra Costa Viognier and then we moved on to their reds, many award winning. My favorite was a 2009 one hundred percent Napa Merlot ($24). I liked the diversity of varietals and local vineyards from which Irish Monkey sources. We were eager to get back into the sun so we thanked our host and headed out over the High Street Bridge to Alameda.

Riding along Alameda. Photo: Karen Hester

We peddled across Alameda over to Shoreline Drive where we hung a right and rode up past Crown Beach and the throng of sunbathers. If we were on an organized East Bay winery bike tour, this is where we would stop to eat our specially prepared picnic lunch. Owner Jon Zalon’s trips, and his wife's lunches, get rave reviews. But we were a motley crew, armed only with fruit bars and a curiosity for the upcoming wineries housed at the decommissioned naval air station at the tip of Alameda.

Looking for Rock Wall Wine Company. Photo: Karen Hester

Rock Wall Wine Company
It was hard to believe we were going to find a winery somewhere in this vast old military base full of old airplane hangars, barracks and officer's clubs. But we had been finding wineries all day tucked behind chain link fences and graffiti strewn walls. We eventually found the Rock Wall Wine Company which provides production space and a tasting bar for more than a half dozen wineries. This is a top of the line tasting bar with expansive views of the Bay Bridge and two city skylines. Rock Wall has a little outdoor patio where on nice days customers can sit at tables and enjoy drinking wine accompanied by small plates cuisine. For our tasting they started us off with a Rock Wall sparkling which was one of my favorites. I also enjoyed the 2009 Rock Wall Zinfandel Reserve from Sonoma. This spicy Zin, which goes for $30 a bottle, was a gold medal winner at the California State Fair this year. Unfortunately, none of my wines included tastings of the other wineries that use the space.

Tasting at Rock Wall Wine Company. Photo: Karen Hester

The celebratory mood of our Rock Wall visit was probably enhanced by the fact that it was getting later in the afternoon and we were swallowing most of our tastings now. We tried to squeeze in one more stop, Rosenblum Cellars, one of the largest wineries in the East Bay. But as we approached the winery, we heard "all aboard" coming from the ferry dock below. Rosenblum would have to wait for another time. On the five minute ferry ride back to Jack London Square we agreed to visit the winery one warm Sunday afternoon for their "Music on the Deck" series. I did come back, the next week, to check out Dasche Cellars on 6th Street in the Jack London Square neighborhood. If you like bone dry wines, this urban cellar is for you. I bought a bottle of excellent 2008 Todd Brothers Ranch Zinfandel ($32). If you are curious about East Bay wines and you want to experience as many as possible in just one trip, you're in luck. On Saturday, August 6, The East Bay Vintners Alliance is hosting the 6th Annual Urban Wine Experience. Over twenty cellars will be pouring their wines along with local food purveyors serving food. Come forth and taste urban wines! And for those that won't be spitting, BART is just a few blocks away.

6th Annual Urban Wine Experience
Saturday, August 6, 2011
2-5 p.m.
Jack London Pavilion
One Broadway
Oakland, CA 94607
Early Bird Rate (until 8/1): $40, After Aug 1: $60, $10 designated driver
Advance tickets: East Bay Vintners
Facebook: East Bay Vintners

Wow, how times have changed. It wasn't that long ago when 'wine and apps' meant a glass of dry rose and brie before dinner. Now there are over 450 wine applications to check out for the iPhone. That's six times as many wine apps as were available for the iPhone last year. There are apps for wine reviews, food pairing, wine journaling, games, interacting with other vinophiles, apps to buy a drink for a friend or to find a winery. There are a lot of choices unless you have an Android or a Blackberry, then you already know you are much more limited.

My first download was Hello Vino, a good choice for the wine app newbie. This very popular, free application, is available for the iPhone and Android. Hello Vino bills itself as an app for the wine aisle, offering pairings, reviews and more.

The next thing I knew, I had downloaded a dozen apps but my excitement fizzled fast. Some of the apps got buggy on me and I often couldn't find the information I wanted. For example, I searched for a dry, zingy Verdicchio that I had recently at a nearby restaurant. Drync could tell me the price but not where I could get the wine. Snooth's free version came back with four stores, including one in New York and one in Amsterdam. Thinking I might be missing something I called on a guy who knows a lot about wine apps -- Paul Mabray, founder of Vintank. Vintank is a digital think tank for the wine industry. I asked Mabray why am I having such a hard time searching for a bottle of wine?

"The best app for finding wine accurately is Wine-Locator. Unfortunately, they don't have a large amount of brands supporting their platform. The problem is very simple, imagine synchronizing all the inventory of all the stores that carry wine with their myriad of different inventory systems as well as how they enter wine into those systems (calling it everything from RMCS2008 to Robert Mondavi Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon 2008). The problem has too much inertia."

If you are trying to navigate your way through the dizzying array of wine apps, you should know, Vintank has done the hard work for us. They have tested, rated, and even categorized, 452 wine apps for the iPhone. Check out this super cool wheel chart with Vintank's top 26 apps. If 26 is still too much, then maybe it's enough to just know what's on Mabray's phone. I pinned him down to his top picks.

PAUL MABRAY'S TOP FIVE APPS

CORKBIN

Mabray: "This is an easy journaling concept. I will never write a tasting note, it's just not in me but I do want to know what I had with dinner last night."
Editor's note: This 99-cent application is available for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad and Android.

DAILY GRAPE

Mabry: "Gary Vaynerchuk's daily reviews are very educational and everybody loves Gary."
Editor's note: This free app is only available for iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad.

DRYNC

Mabry: "With the $4.99 version, you can have access to ten databases including WineZap and Snooth."
Editor's note: The New York Times, Vintank and Mashable all rate Drync one of the top wine apps. It's also available for Android and as a free version.

SOCIAL GRAPES

Mabry: "I am just starting to check this one out. It has the best interface I've seen."
Editor's note: Social grapes is free and compatible with iPhone, iPod touch and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.

NATDECANTS

Mabry: "Nat Decants is one of Vintank's favorites. She has a good database for her barcode reader and she is on several different platforms."
Editor's note: Canadian wine sommelier, Natalie Maclean wins the multi-platform award. It is free and available for iPhone, iPod touch, iPad, Blackberry and Android.

NEXT GEN APPS
The holy grail of wine apps is image recognition. Think of being able to take a picture of a wine bottle and instantly find stores where the wine can be purchased. Snooth Pro and Tesco Wine Finder have image recognition built in. It just doesn't work that well. Mabray says, "The technology is probably 3 to 5 years off." In the meantime, barcodes are the most successful right now. Retailers use them to manage inventory. But consumers can use their iPhone 3GS or 4, with certain wine apps, to scan the barcode and use it to get more information, like reviews. "The downside is that barcodes don't distinguish vintage to vintage and they sometimes are skewed by the curvature of the bottle," says Mabray.

Photo by: rKrov

And then there are QR codes (Quick Response), several Bay Area Bites readers have written in about these. They are those funky squares with little dots on some wine bottles. QR codes are two dimensional bar codes. Consumers can use a smart phone with a QR app to scan the code and find out more details, maybe even see a video, about the bottle of wine they are considering. They are endemic in Japan and I've seen then on wine bottles from Portugal and Spain. But, to be honest, I went to three local wine stores and could not find one bottle with a QR code. There are just not many wineries using them. According to Mabray, "Major suppliers tend to use them on the neckers. The biggest challenge is not the app technology, it's again, about the data on the back end. We have a huge problem in the wine industry with data. We are working on it. It's the biggest obstacle to wine succeeding digitally."

Wine glass photo by Dave Dugdale

Tweet and Taste
Recently, Twitter co-hosted a nationwide wine tasting tweet-up. The event blended the virtual and the actual as people chimed in from Twitter headquarters in San Francisco and across the country from wine stores in cities such as Chicago and in Washington DC. Other Twitterers, like me, followed along, online, salivating at the tasting descriptions, "the Sauvignon Blanc tastes like liquified summer" said one Twitter visitor. Tweet-ups like this one, which was also hosted by Hanh Family Wineries, are frequent online events. They are the perfect use of social media: one part mixer, one part marketing.

Not a New Relationship
The synergy between wine and technology predates the web. Wine billboards, like the CompuServe Wine Forum which started over twenty years ago, served as a way for wine enthusiasts to come together and enjoy their favorite juice. The site is still around in the form of the Wine Lovers Page. In this age of the omnipotent wine critic, more and more people are talking directly to each other about their likes and dislikes and that has been a game changer. Some of the most popular blogs and websites include: Vinography, Dr. Vino, Jamie Goode's blog, Fermentation, Snooth, OpenWineConsortium (a Ning website where you can connect with tons of different people in the industry, bloggers and wineries) and last on this list but not least in my book, Women and Wine, both the popular blog and Facebook site. Really, the list goes on and on and on. Got a favorite wine site? Tells us!

Vaynernation
The Internet has its own sommelier in Gary Vaynerchuk. A Russian Immigrant who helped grow his family's New Jersey wine business, Vaynerchuk has used social media to create a multi-million dollar brand. In 2006 he plunged head first into online video, via YouTube, with a series of very passionate daily wine tastings and reviews. That same year he founded Wine Library TV, joined blogs and forums and began to take advantage of the social web. Ala Tony Robbins, Vaynerchuk has written two books about following your passion (in his case wine and the N.Y. Jets) and appeared on several TV shows such as Oprah, Ellen and The Big Idea. But it’s Vaynerchuk’s daily appearances on the internet, and regular interaction with his fans, via Facebook, Twitter and his blog, that have gained him fame and helped his family’s retail website become such a success. I am loving his new smart phone app. "Daily Grape," is a shorter more nimble version of Wine Library TV.

The Social Winery
Hoping to cash in on the new wine market, several wineries have turned to social media sites to up their sales. St Supery, Wente, Barefoot Wine and Bubbly are among the few out in front. Rick Bakas, head of Bakas Media and past Director of Social Media Marketing at St. Supery Vineyards and Winery, has said that social media can help with sales and wine club retention. Quoting his website, "You have to put faith in knowing your trust will create a tighter bond with consumers, which in turn will lead to sales." And don't think wineries are building Facebook and Twitter accounts only for their millennial consumers, the over forty crowd also uses social media and has more spending power. This realization has prompted Bill Leigon, President of Hahn Family Wines in the Santa Lucia Highlands, to re-focus his marketing efforts more on boomers and the parents of boomers, according to February's Vineyard and Winery Management. If a winery can’t afford to hire it’s own social media director it can go outside. This year, Dry Creek Winery hired Healdsburg-based Social Candy to design and help manage their Facebook fan page. The company creates, video, graphics, and special "Fan Only" Promotions through a Facebook-friendly template system. Murphy-Goode is having some of the most fun with social media. The winery held a 'wine country lifestyle correspondent' contest and launched the blogging career of the very clever and goofy Hardy Wallace.

What’s Next?
If Facebook, blogs and Twitter are the social web tools for today, what’s around the corner? Wine apps is the short answer. The longer answer includes sites with more immersive experiences such as games and animation, interactive store labels and smart corks.

Next post -- a look at the best wine apps.

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.

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.

Stephanie Miller, the assistant vineyard manager at Robert Sinskey Vineyards, pulled back the lid of a knee-high wooden bin and plunged her hand wrist-deep in a thick layer of squashed mulberry-colored grapes. Sweeping them back to reveal the bright purple juice below, she dipped in a glass and held out a taste. A little sweet, a little sharp, the cloudy juice was speckled with bits of grape and froth, buoyant and lively with yeasts and natural sugars.

A couple of years from now, this same stuff will be a suave Napa Valley Pinot Noir. But on this warm morning at the beginning of the 2009 harvest, these grapes are just a day or two off the vine, busily fermenting their way from juice to wine.

Surrounding these wooden bins are the hulking stainless-steel vats more typical of a modern winery, into which most of Sinskey's juice goes. But, as Miller explained, for this small pick, taken from one particular vineyard block that ripened early, letting the grapes ferment the old-fashioned way seemed just fine.

It fits right in with the style of the vineyard, a family-run place where sheep roam as four-footed weed whackers during the winter, munching down the weeds and cover crops before the fruit sets. Around the blocks of grapes are hedgerows and trees dotted with raptor perches and owl boxes, providing habitat for birds and beneficial insects. Hawks soar overhead, keeping hungry eyes on the mice and gophers below. Organic since 2001, the vineyards were certified biodynamic in 2007, following the methods laid out by Austrian philosopher/educator/polymath Rudolf Steiner (1861-1925), under the down-to-earth eye of vineyard manager (and livestock wrangler) Debby Zygielbaum.

Sheep on the farm. Photo by Robert Sinskey

There are many layers to biodynamic farming, but the basic premise involves taking organics one step further to create a holistic, "closed circle" ecosystem whereby all the land's fertility needs can be met on site. Animals provide manure, for example, manure goes into compost, compost goes into soil that then grows grass to feed the animals.

Hence the sheep, and the on-site composting program that transforms a good portion of the winery's spent grape pomace into a rich organic soil booster. That's just the tip of Steiner's philosophy, however. As a philosopher with a mystical Christian bent, Steiner's agricultural experiments in the face of industrial, post-WWI devastation blended time-honored Northern European folk traditions (planting by the phases of the moon, assigning the calendar "root days" and "fruit days" based on planetary movements) with his own personal beliefs in astral energy planes and more.

Walking a path between the grapes, Miller quotes a friend and fellow biodynamic farmer as saying, "You can farm on your knees or on your feet." Meaning that you can follow Steiner's dictates as a spiritual practice or as a practical how-to; either way, the results speak for themselves. Do you have to believe that a cow's horn symbolizes a kind of bridge between the earth and the sun, and that adding manure aged for months inside a buried cow's horn to your compost will energize your plants?

Perhaps, perhaps not. But there's no denying that building an intimacy with every aspect of a piece of land, from the way the wind moves over it to what weeds grow there, builds an awareness that translates into deep knowledge, informed by care and maybe even love.

Grapes on the vine. Photo by Robert Sinskey

Hanging on the cusp of harvest, the grapes are vividly indigo, green-gold, rose amber or plum black. The land itself feels rich with life, from the bees darting in and out of the flowering weeds below to the birds pecking their portion of the harvest from the ends of the rows.

The Zinfandel grapes are almost comically huge, ripe-to-bursting clusters hanging blue-black in the hot early-autumn sunshine. The Pinot Noir berries are smaller and shyer, almost dainty, the Cabernet Sauvignon vines looking straight out of a Claude Chabrol film. Muscat, clear gold, is unmistakable, the juice sugar sweet with a hint of musk. I remember reading a description of a summer morning in Venice as having "light like pink grapes" and these clusters of rosy Pinot Gris turn the simile suddenly clear.

All well and good. But how do the wines taste? After visiting numerous blocks of Sinskey's grapes, growing in the Stag's Leap and Carneros appellations, Miller takes me back to the elegant public tasting room on the Silverado Trail. Here, too, the idea of a self-fufilling ecosystem continues.

Wine is, after all, meant to drunk with food. So there is a small but lovely open kitchen adjoining the tasting room, where house chef Alex Bolduc whips up small complementary palate-teasers to accompany the $20 tasting flights, using produce harvested in the surrounding kitchen garden. The winery also runs special culinary tours ($50 per person, by appointment), in which guests get a guided tour through both the caves and the gardens, followed by a wine, cheese, and charcuterie tasting. It helps, of course, that Sinskey's culinary director is his wife, Maria Helm Sinskey, well-known cookbook author and formerly the highly acclaimed chef of San Francisco's PlumpJack restaurant.

The open kitchen in the tasting room. Photo by Robert Sinskey

The day I visited, Bolduc was simmering a batch of pear butter on the stove, made with green pears harvested from the Sinskeys' backyard. Once finished, it would jarred and sold in the tasting room or used on the menu of one of the winery's popular wine-club dinners, held every few months. While wine-club members get first dibs at reservations, interested diners can always call to see if any seats are available. Upcoming dinners include a Fall Equinox Dinner on Sept. 19th, and a Harvest Dinner on Oct. 24th. The price for six courses accompanied by wine is $175 per person.

In the tasting room, I nibbled a bit of aged gouda dotted with homemade plum jam, alongside a buttery mini-quiche filled with tatsoi, roasted onions, and cream, a moist gougere and some delectable slivers of pizza hot from the wood-burning oven. (Pizza Thursdays, a new development, are not to be missed).

And then there were the wines. I've long been a fan of Sinskey's Vin Gris as a elegant summer cooler. But the pours were more autumnal that day, starting with the Vandal Vineyard Pinot Noir. This parcel gets temperatures some 10 to 15 degrees warmer, bringing out the juicy richness and depth of the fruit, with hints of leather and smoke. "It's a more masculine wine," suggests sales manager Meg Barkley, and I have to agree: it seems to call out for leg of lamb, deep leather armchairs, dark wood paneling and a roaring fire.

A Pinot Noir from the Three Amigos parcel, some 5 to 7 miles away, is quite different, leaner and lighter, with less smoke and more cherry. "This one's my duck wine," says Barkely.

Sinskey only recently started doing single-designation Pinots, and the choice of vineyards changes from year to year, depending on the quality of the fruit.

It's one more part of the winemaking philosophy espoused by owner Rob and his longtime vintner, Jeff Virdig, who has been working with Sinskey since 1991: bring the fruit to its peak, then get out of the way and let the grapes express their own truth.

For information and reservations for upcoming dinners, call 800.869.2030 or 707.944.9090, ext. 119.

It may not be sunny, but it is Memorial Day weekend, and you know what I'm thinking? Pink! Rhubarb and strawberries, shrimp Louie, cherries, pink boxers, and yes, rosé.

Stand up and be counted, pink wine drinkers! Personally, I love it when a date seconds my order of rosé. A person who embraces pink wine is a person who's not afraid to get a little girly. It means he or she is a hey, why not? sort of person, happy to take a little vacation from the hopped-up IPAs and tannin-slugging Cabs to sip on what your aunt Cherrie would call a "swimmin' pool wine."

I have fond associations with rosé--chaise lounges, love, the South of France--but I've found that rosé really cheers anyone up, if they're man (or woman) enough to drink it.

So, what's worth pouring this weekend as you lounge under the patio umbrella? My two faves remain Bonny Doon's Vin Gris de Cigare ($15) and Domaine Tempier's Bandol Rosé ($32). The Bandol 2008 vintage has just arrived at Kermit Lynch in Berkeley; get over there now before they drink it all up. Both these wines are supple and elegant, perfect for a sunny summer lunch with cold salmon and a salad full of flowers.

Over at Bi-Rite Market, assistant wine buyer Sarah Bouldin puts the Robert Sinskey Vin Gris ($22.99) on the top of her list. "We can only get 10 cases at a time, so it goes fast. It's really well balanced, with strawberry fruitiness, a little melon." And then there's the Unti Rosé ($18.99), a biodynamic wine from Mick Unti in Healdsburg. Says Bouldin, "It's lighter than the Sinskey, a little more acidic. We're always happy to get our hands on anything Mick produces; his wines are always delicious, really outstanding."

Rosés are featured right now at the Ferry Plaza Wine Merchant, both as a flight on the tasting menu in the bar as well as in their adjoining shop. Wine buying manager Drea Dedona likes their classic Provencal rosés, of course, but also points out the Botasea Rosato di Palmino ($18), from Santa Barbara, made by winemaker Chrystal Clifton. Actually, it's hard to miss; it looks like strawberry Boone's Farm slapped with a lipstick-pink label. "I know the color's a little scary," Dedona admits, "But it's got great fruit and a little spice," thanks to a 50/30/20 blend of dolcetto, nebbiolo, and barbera grapes. There's also a reason for the pink: part of the purchase price of every bottle goes to support breast cancer research.

Were money no object, though, I'd throw down for the Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé ($80), a fabulously glam and grown-up French Champagne that glows like sunshine on pink marble.

But what if you're looking for a rosé that's more naked Carla Bruni, less Dior-clad Mme Sarkozy? Then you want Jean-Paul Brun's FRV100 ($16.99). Say it like the French do: eff-air-vay-cent. (Get it?) This is Brun's sparkling answer to soda-pop Beaujolais Nouveau: a light, fast-fermented wine with some residual sugar that's a goofy, picnic-perfect good time, not just overhyped grape juice.

From the glittery black label to the fan-dancing fizz inside, this is an unapologetic disco wine, made to get the party started. "It really should have house music pumping out of the bottle," laughs Bouldin. It's also a good way for a girl to drink and have fun without ending the evening as a drunk-dialing hot mess, thanks to an alcohol content that's just 7.5%.

Don't want to drink pink alone? Drop by Piccino on Sunday, May 31st from noon to 9 pm for Dogpatch's own festival of rosés. On the menu: pizzas, salads, a few lovely specials, and lots of rosés, all guaranteed to charm.