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"Wine"
ST. HELENA, Calif.
When wine tasting in Napa Valley, it’s all about the wine (doh) and the experience. Over the years, wineries have created modern tasting rooms with a view, some filled with an art gallery, or increasingly a chef curated food pairing menu.
With all these tasting rooms vying for visitors, it takes […]
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NAPA, Calif.
Over the last year, the Culinary Institute of America has slowly been unveiling the amenities of its new massive showcase to the culinary arts in Napa. I’m talking about Copia, the former center created by Robert Mondavi that opened in 2001 but never could make a go of it and closed seven […]
The popular neighborhood bar and cafe, Bar Underwood in Oakland, is no more. And new owner Christopher Parks wants to make that perfectly clear.
In fact, he’s gone through the trouble of renaming the space on 41st Street off Broadway as Bar 41 and starting from scratch with its online presence.
Parks […]
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SANTA ROSA, Calif.
One of the things I’ve been trying to do all these years of living in the San Francisco Bay Area is to experience lavender season in wine country. Today I crossed that off my list when I visited Matanzas Creek Winery in Sonoma County.
Matanzas is known not just for its […]
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The strip of 40th Street off Broadway continues to grow, and the same block that draws crowds regularly because of the mac and cheese restaurant Homeroom has now blossomed with a few novelty stores, including the boutique wine shop Oakland Yard.
Opened late last year by partners Daniel Schmidt and Jonathan Davis, the […]
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ST. HELENA, Calif.
Fire pits adjacent to grape vines at a vineyard? It must be time for Heritage Fire by Cochon 555.
This annual food event brings together 50 chefs cooking more than 3,500 pounds of whole animals, from pigs to ducks to cows, to create tasting dishes served with wine in […]
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On my bus ride home that travels on Grand Avenue, I noticed awhile back the relatively new wine store Bay Grape, and I always thought it was interesting to see the small wine shop considering there’s also a wine shop/wine bar called Ordinaire just a few blocks away on the same street.
It seems Oakland […]
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The story: The Barrel Room opened as a cozy wine bar and retail shop inside the Fitzgerald Hotel in San Francisco’s Tenderloin, and expanded into a food program when it opened a restaurant in Oakland’s Rockridge neighborhood with the concept of a regional menu changing every quarter. Earlier this year co-owners Sarah Trubnick and Carolyn Johnson […]
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SANTA ROSA, Calif.
When in Sonoma wine country, you expect rolling hills. Check. You expect fine wine. Check. You expect Dungeness crab. Say what?
Last weekend, it wasn’t the wine that drew me to Sonoma but the promise of crab. A few months ago I signed up for a pruning seminar and crab feed put […]
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SANTA ROSA, Calif.
It’s a busy time in wine country as the annual crush begins at many wineries. In fact, the crush — the harvesting of grapes and crushing into juice to turn into wine — probably started last month for some and will continue for the next few weeks, depending on the region.
Last Saturday, […]
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PERTH, Australia
Australia is world famous for its wine, with several notable wine regions such as Hudson Valley, Yarra Valley and Margaret River. During my stay at Perth, I visited one of the often bypassed but long-in-history wine region known as Swan Valley.
What’s nice about Swan Valley is that it’s less than an […]
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ST. HELENA, Calif.
Napa Valley draws thousands of visitors every year, and wineries have to think of different ways to attract wine lovers to stop in, taste some wine, and maybe buy a bottle or case, or two.
One of the newest spectacles off the historic Highway 29 cutting through the heart of the […]
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HEALDSBURG, Calif.
Getting my Christmas shopping done early, I escaped from the big city’s holiday hustle and bustle and spent a day last weekend exploring the quaint downtown Healdsburg.
It’s been more than a decade since I’ve visited this small town in Sonoma County, and it has definitely blossomed with several new chic boutiques, […]
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When I was talking about San Francisco classics making their way to this side of the bay, District wine bar was another clear example that came to mind.
A cozy, South of Market wine bar serving up wine flights and small bites near the AT&T ballpark in the city, District duplicated itself last year […]
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