ShareBecause it’s one of San Francisco’s greatest restaurants with a wine list full of trophies, we made reservations at Michael Mina to celebrate a big promotion. Five hours and more than four bottles of fine wine later, the four of us were feeling fully lubricated and nearly insolvent.
My notes for your vicarious pleasure:

ShareYou’d think that Tablas Creek’s remote location, more than a half hour’s drive into the oak-dotted hills from Paso Robles, would deter people. But no. In fact as we drove up, a stretch limo was disgorging a leesy troop of bachelorette-partiers; I worried they might be examples of the wine tasters gone wild phenomenon. Indeed, [...]

ShareDear Wine Girl:
I am going to Calistoga in Napa Valley with a friend at the end of the month. We are going to taste white wines because neither of us knows anything about them. We are staying at Solage on the Silverado Trail, and I was wondering if you had any good ideas for whites [...]

ShareBy spousal order, I’ve had to limit my membership in wine clubs to two. So after an excruciating process of elimination, I came up with a pair of desert-island wineries. I didn’t pick them because they make my favorite or most prized wine. (That’s what mailing lists are for, and thankfully Alice didn’t say anything [...]

ShareThe only cult cabernet I buy every year is Shafer’s Hillside Select — I love drinking it, and it’s the only example of this rarified category I can afford. Not that it’s cheap. But compared to Screaming Eagle at $500 or Harlan Estate at $350 per bottle, a $200 Hillside Select is a bargain. Plus, [...]

ShareA reader alerted me to the recent triumph at the California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition of the $1.99 per bottle 2005 Chardonnay made by Charles Shaw, affectionately known as Two Buck Chuck. The wine has already made a name for itself and Fred Franzia (head of Bronco Wines, which owns the label) by proving [...]

ShareA light golden-hued, ever so slightly green liquid is in my glass. If a color could be lively, this one would be — the wine looks like it’s about to rush forward with energy and flavor. Green apples and honeysuckle on the nose, but the real attraction of this wine is the way it tastes [...]

ShareAn important lesson from the age of food-and-wine enlightenment is that when a recipe called for wine, it does not mean the stuff they sell in supermarkets as “cooking wine.” Nor does it mean some half-consumed bottle that’s been in your fridge (or worse in your cabinet over the stove) for a year. Wine [...]

ShareIn my mind, there’s only one thing wrong with a week’s vacation in the Caribbean, and that’s the price of a good bottle of wine. Not to mention the availability. In every store and on every wine list in San Pedro, Belize, you’ll see wines from nearly every continent, but only the most industrial, inexpensive [...]

ShareThe last time I drank a Muscadet, it should have been under an auspicious star, since I was in Half Moon Bay, California, at the Ritz Carlton.
Because it was my birthday and I really needed some pampering, Alice and I splurged. Let me just say, it was a weekend of service mishaps, and the experience [...]