agxo3

so we are all lurkers now hehe

 

Cheers, bro, let's see each other again when the vineyards bloom.

busy, busy, busy.......

making beer-braised short ribs for dinner tonight while watching the oscars. got it browned and the veggies cooked down, now it's in the oven for aouple of hors.

having a nz pinot with it - zebra. hopefully it will go well!

TC made beef adobo with gata for dinner the other night. The question - what to drink with dinner?

Then I remembered a Vouvray I picked up a few months ago. Vouvray is made with chenin blanc grapes, and tends towards the softer style, with good acidity for a backbone and great fruit up front. Not sweet at all, but very light and refreshing. Aciditiy to stand up to the vinegar in the adobo and cut through the fatty gata and beef fat.

Et viola! Magic!

Now THAT was a flash of serendipity.....

In behalf of all the winos here, missing or not, we also greet you a Happy Christmas and a meaningful and more God-blessed New Year.

 

Cheers!

The Rubicon was great! I found a rally nice vinho verde to go with the tapas. My daughter found an Italian bubbly - creamy, smooth, a hint of yeast, some brioche and a bit of nuttiness. We closed out with a 2000 Rubicon Cask cab. Great smooth tannins, and fruit coming forward for great balance.

Lots of leftovers. Just finished off the jamon iberico with some olives, then a small slice of pannetone. For dinner, the ribs from the prime rib, deep fried to a crisp. Kinda like tadyang but with the seasoning from my sea salt, fresh horseradish, rosemary and thyme crust. Mmmmm - can't wait. I'll open some kind of red with it - maybe a syrah? That should stand up to the flavors and the tannins should cut right through the fatty beef.

I hope you all had a great Christmas. And all the best for the coning year! And may all your wine be yummy!

Hopefully I will get to visit Manila some time in the year - my high school buddies have been talking about an end of year trip so maybe that will be it!

My last chance to post before Christmas - daughter arrives this afternoon from LA. Wife on holiday until the New Year. Xmas in a few days, wife's bday right behind that, then it's the New Year! Haven't done any shopping yet. House is still a mess, and work is (as usual) in turmoil. But, what the heck, I woke up this morning so it's a good day, eh?

XMas dinner will center around my usual prime rib but we'll be doing the Spanish theme this year. Tapas to start, maybe some gazpacho shots, a bit of jamon iberico (a TINY bit! At $160/lb a little bit better go a LONG way!), pan e tomate, dates stuffed with almonds and wrapped in bacon....

And to start, maybe a bubbly of some sort, then a 1997 Rubicon (second best of the decade - I still think the '95 was the best). I'll follow with either a 2004 Pennino zin (also from Rubicon - now Inglenook) or maybe the '98 Fenestra syrah I've been saving. It'll be downhill from there. For New Years? Who knows??? I'll decide when I get there.

In the mean time, Merry Christmas to all! I hope you all have a good 2012. Maybe I will get to visit next year AFTER my product ships in April!

Bods, Masi, Storm, the missing Miss Lips, I will be thinking of you all when I sip that Rubicon!

Opened at 2008 Wood Family Zinfandel tonight for dinner.

One word - OMG!!

Loads of ripe red fruit - succulent cherries, bright raspberries, juicy strawberries. A hint of smoke. At touch of white pepper. And a finish that lasted for minutes. Smooth tannins for great structure.

I KNEW there was a reason I picked up a half case.........

Would like to report the existence of a white merlot from New Kent vinyards of Virginia.

If it's a typically sickly-sweet white made from red grapes, I'll pass. But if it's a true white (or light rose, dry and with a hint of the red flavors - some bright red berries, for example), then I'd give it a try.

Sutter Creek and Beringer white zins and white merlots have given whites/light roses made from red grapes a really bad reputation - and for those wines, deservedly so!

I was at a college buddies reunion two nights ago and there was this wine which we failed to uncork because they stored it in a cooler, plus the wine opener was inadequate. Good thing. When I looked at the label it was an Israeli wine 2004 vintage at that. No varietal. Just a plain red. Spared us some puckering faces hehe.

 

Your mention of a granacha steers my memory to a lovable Aussie grenache which I used to import when I was still in the wine business. Such a good-valued great light wine. Too bad there's no grenache here anymore.

No garnacha tonight! We had salmon and artichokes, so the garnacha would not have been a good match. I popped open a vinho verde from Portugal instead. Nice, clean, citrus notes and a hint of green apple in the back. A light fizz just to keep everything lively. Went great with the fish and artichokes.

So what do I have tomorrow to go with the rest of the vinho verde?? Maybe some potato puffs left over from Saturday's lunch at Gregoire in the Gourmet Gulch in Berkeley. A bun and some cheese from the Cheese Board......that will make a nice light dinner after a VERY long day. I have to get up at 430 am and drive to Folsom for a meeting, getting back here at around 9 pm at which point I get on the phone for a2 hour call to India. Ugh.

That's a great thought - Spanish wines for eating light. Really can't afford to eat heavy now, what with that darned cholesterol always creeping up despite all the veggies I eat and scorning red meat. The doctor says it could be the cheese and pasta, but it's not as if I eat those stuff everyday!

Ok maybe I'll visit Barcino's more often now to get those tempranillos. Adieu for now with all those shiraz.

 

Good luck with your diet-prep for the holidays. Will go on another bender next week somewhere in the Middle East. Sure hope I can have some drop of those Israeli wines.

I had some Israeli and some Lebanese wine - thanks, but I'd pass.......

Has a Zichichi 2005 zin tonight. Finished off the bottle.

Last night was duck confit, French onion soup and the zin. Tonight was Spanish chorizo, onion and chanterelle mushroom saute, salad and the zin. With a brioche from the Berkeley cheese board.

And what's for dinner tomorrow? I don't know yet but I have a Spanish garnacha lined up....and I have another duck leg confit that I still need to roast.

Funny this wine business. It's turned the other way around. Winemakers have turned into celebrities themselves, from being complete unknowns before. Like those super chefs today. Glamorous. But I do think that somehow fame has superseded their talents. Bourdain is a good example. He now looks so smug and bored and world-weary in his travel shows, not that he had much talent to begin with. He was just too media-savvy. Hehe.

So now I'm starting to turn back to European wines. Haven't given up on the all the CA wines. Still taking the Rubicon shipments, and Michel-Schlumberger. And Vincent Arroyo. Still waiting for my Retzlaff wines for this year. But I will cut it back next year. Maybe drop Michel-Schlumberger and Retzlaff for a while. All so I can expand my Spanish and Portuguese wine selections. I don't generally do the celebrity winemaker thing except for FFC, and I am happy that with the wines, at least, he's kept the focus on quality. I wish he were';t getting so expensive, though. Don't know how long I can keep it up!

I tried to eat healthy last night - just a salad and a croissant - but I popped open a rioja to go with it. Tempranillo-based, so relatively light and fresh. Lots of red fruit (strawberries, mostly), mild tannins, a bit of smoke (where'd THAT come from?). On tap for tonight, French onion soup, maybe bit of a good rustic bread grilled and rubbed with garlic, tomato and some good sharp cheese grated over it, and finish off the rioja. Holidays coming up and with that, the food frenzy, so I need to lighten up a bit in preparation.....the Spanish wines are great for eating light - they don't need the boldness and density of red meats to balance the acids and tannins that the cabs and syrahs bring to the palate.

ask lang guys which is better 35mm f/1.8 or 50mm f/1.8..... im planning to buy my 3rd lens and looking toward a wide angle fast lens.

First, unless you are using a6x4.5 or larger format, 35mm is not truly "wide" - it's more moderately wider than normal.

What camera are you using? What format is it? APS? 35mm? 4:3? 6x6?

Wide is only a function of focal length, it is a function focal length relative to diagonal measure of the imaging area. A "normal" lens is the lens that projects an image on the sensor/film that has the same perspective as "normal" eyesight. Typically, that has been a focal length that is roughly equivalent to the diagonal of the image area - as measured in millimeters, NOT pixels.

Let's look at 35mm which is 24mm x36mm. The diagonal is 43mm. A "normal" lens would be between 43mm with some latitiude given, so "normal" lenses for 35mm range from 40mm (as in the Leica/Minolta CL/E cameras to 55mm (as in many of the Canons of the 70s and 80s).

A "wide" lens if just that - wider than the normal perspective. 35mm on a 35mm film area is a bit wider than normal. Today, "wide" for 35mm would begin at 28mm and get shorter from there - many rectilinear wides are available down to 14mm or so. Beyond that you get curvilinear distortions.

Most DSLRs have a "multiplier" effect of about 1.5x, meaning that a 50mm lens on a DSLR produces the same image as a 75mm lens on a 35mm camera would. Why? Because the sensor is smaller. The image produced by the lens remains the same, but by sensing on a smaller area, the effective image captured is of a smaller zone (at the object plane). This is true of ANY lens you use, so a 105mm lens on a 35mm camera, when used on a typical DSLR would produce an image of the same perspective as a 150mm lens on the same 35mm camera.

So - if you have a typical DSLR whose imaging diagonal is roughly 2/3 the imaging diagonal of a 35mm frame, to get a "normal" perspective, you would need a lens somewhere between 28mm and 35mm, and nothing longer than 28mm would qualify as "wide".

I use a Lumix G2 with a 4:3 sensor - for me "normal" is 20mm, "wide" would be 14mm or less.

As I have told all of you over and over again - it is easy to pick up a camera and push the shutter button. It is much more difficult to produce really good image, despite all the "help" that in-camera SW and Photoshop give you. And it take KNOWLEDGE to do so, otherwise it's luck and what I term "accidental art". So - LEARN THE BASICS. UNDERSTAND WHAT LENSES ARE, AND WHY THEY DO WHAT THEY DO. WHAT IF FOCAL LENGTH? WHAT IS APERTURE? WHAT IS DEPTH OF FIELD AND HOW IS IT RELATED TO APERTURE? WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN APERTURE AND SHUTTER SPEED?

That's just the beginning. Understand what Photoshop does (and does NOT do) for you.

Buying an expensive DSLR does NOT make you a photographer, it simply reduces the amount of money you have in your bank account. Having a camera gives you ONE tool to become one byt you have to learn the tool so you can use it properly.

What leaves a tannic taste in th mouth is when these moneyed guys have no wine sensibility, but just buys a winery for the sheer fad of it. I guess the guys you mentioned do love the stuff, because there's really no big money in wine.

 

Haha I love that joke!

 

It was also mentioned that Curvature is the house wine of the Trump establishments. Not sure if that's good or bad haha.

 

Sad to know about what happened to

Deer Ridge.

The guys I mentioned were the pioneer celebrity winery owners along with Francis Ford Coppola - Fess Parker was in the business for many years before he died, Mario Andretti has owned his winery for over 15 years, BR Cohn for longer than that. But then you have all the new money guys...and the dot-com millionaires who have turned to wine as the new investment vehicle. Well, there's a wine glut. Too many grapes, too much wine being made (some of questionable quality) - two buck Chuck will have some good wines again this year and next. It's turned into a marketer's game, and wine quality seems to be secondary these days. Too bad.

But, signs of hope - Rubicon (Francis Ford Coppola's top end winery - he's owned that since the 80's, I think) has reclaimed the Inglenook name. Inglenook was the original name of the winery and up until the 70's was a well-respected name inthe wine industry. Then the owners sold to a large wine and spirits group (was it Constellation??) and the quality tanked rapidly after that, going from the top of the heap to jug wines in a few years.

FFC bought the property and renamed it Rubicon and started producing the namesake wines, which are now some of the best in the valley (though quite expensive, and getting more so). Now he's bought the name back, and if I heard correctly, is using Inglenook once again. The Captain's Reserve line of wines is going away - will it be replaced by an Inglenook line? We'll see! In the mean time, Thanksgiving is coming up and it will be time to open another Rubicon - perhaps a '97?

agxo:

That's a real mouthwatering tapas dining adventure you had there! Cheers!

Which reminds me to go check out that Spanish resto in GB5, I forgot the name, but it fronts GB2, which has an ongoing

food festival for October, featuring the cuisine of different Spanish regions. I think they're now featuring Galician and Basque food.

 

The American lady golfer, Cristie Kerr was here for the weekend. The paper described her as a wine connoisseur. Quite surprising. What was more surprising was when it was mentioned that she also owns Curvature Wines, but I'm not familiar with it.

She seems to be quite the self-promoter......certainly not shy!

Haven't heard of Curvature before and will look it up. Owning a winery seems to be the latest fad among the newly-moneyed sports and entertainment celebrities. Seems like EVERYONE is buying vineyards. Mario Andretti and Fess Parker, the Smothers Brothers, BR Cohn......you've heard the old joke - how do you make a small fortune? Start with a big one and buy a winery!

On that note, Deer Ridge in Livermore is no more. He was a great marketer and reasonably decent winemaker, but he couldn't make a go of it, so he sold the facilities. The new owner seems to be a bit snotty. Let's see how long she lasts.

So why not have TWO wines for dinner? A chenin blanc or pinot grigio with the seafood in coconut sauce (or maybe a suvignon blanc if you're doing the seafood Thai-style with a bit of het), then the shiraz with the roast beast.

 

Just stopped by wine.com in Berkeley and picked up a Txacoli and what I hope is a true petillant Vouvray. Then we stopped by the little grocery on 4th and found (to our surprise) some REAL Spanish boquerones and jamon Iberico. I think it might be tapas night for dinner! A fresh loaf of rustic sweet bguette, some good olive oil and tomato to rub on the toast, jamon, boquerones, some soft cheese (brie, but it will do instead of idiazabal), olives.....I should have bought some fino sherry or dry vermouth to go with it! No worries, a copa of bianco will do nicely!

So - just finished dinner. Jamon Iberico on pan con tomate. Boquerones on pan con tomate. And to finish - truffle mousse and brie on a slice of really, really good rustic baguette. To drink, ad wonderful, albeit young, Txacoli.

An amazing combination of simple flavors - the jamon and boquerones took me right back to Madrid - jamon Iberico is ubiquitous. We had boquerones from a couple of places in Madrid (and in Barcelona) and not once were we disappointed. These were fresh, with great olive oil and just the right hit of lemon. At $46/lb they better be good! And the jamon Iberico would have fit right in at any of the tapas bars we visited.

The Txacoli is a young, fresh, wine with a great hit of acidity, citrus-y flavors in the background with a distinct white grape (are you surprised?) base. A bit of fresh pear, a hint of herb (basil????).

I am a happy diner.........

Sayang yung stalks. Maybe I remove them and saute them in garlic.

That reminds me to look for a gruner veltliner. It's available here. I was able to buy one ages ago. I just forgot the brand but Austrian it is. Good for veggies, especially asparagus.

 

Thanks for that mini-refresher on Chianti. I sure could use that information too.

 

We're again drinking wine tonight, Aussie shiraz but we have roast beef to go with it, though

I think it is quite awkward with the seafood in coconut sauce that we're also having hehe.

So why not have TWO wines for dinner? A chenin blanc or pinot grigio with the seafood in coconut sauce (or maybe a suvignon blanc if you're doing the seafood Thai-style with a bit of het), then the shiraz with the roast beast.

Just stopped by wine.com in Berkeley and picked up a Txacoli and what I hope is a true petillant Vouvray. Then we stopped by the little grocery on 4th and found (to our surprise) some REAL Spanish boquerones and jamon Iberico. I think it might be tapas night for dinner! A fresh loaf of rustic sweet bguette, some good olive oil and tomato to rub on the toast, jamon, boquerones, some soft cheese (brie, but it will do instead of idiazabal), olives.....I should have bought some fino sherry or dry vermouth to go with it! No worries, a copa of bianco will do nicely!

I must tell you that I'm a vegetable fancier so I drooled over your listing of those greens and those onions hehe. And I'm such a sucker for cheese. Another confession. I don't have a sweet tooth haha. Meat's okay with me as long as there's wine to wash it down with. But viewed in it's entirety, that dinner of

yours plus the Retzlaff is a total winner!

Roasted broccoli is REALLY easy to do - just take the florets, removing the stalks (the stalks get tough and woody, not pleasant at all), and drizzle with olive oil. The good stuff, not the cooking grade oil. Sprinkle some sea salt and fresh cracked black [pepper. A few red pepper flakes if you like it lively. Into the oven set to roast at 375F for a half hour or until you see some caramelization forming. That's it!

While this works with a mid-bodied red, it goes best with a gruner veltliner (an Austrian white that is great with asparagus as well) or a minerally chenin blanc (from the Loire Valley - Sancerre or Vouvray).

I've discovered that making good gazpacho is very, very easy and paired with a light red (tempranillo, of course!) it is a wonderful warm weather meal!

Maybe agxo or masi or the also long-lost floppydrive can better answer your query.

 

Sorry, bro. Sa reds, yan - dyan mo ko tanungin. Locally-available reds ha.

Thanks for dropping by!

The most common Chianti label you see is Ruffino and it's available in many different grades. But you need to note that Chianti refers to the Chianti region in Italy, not a type of grape. Most Chiantis are made from the sangiovese grape, so look for a good Aussie sangiovese and you should be well pleased by that.

Chiantis is a specific area in Tuscany and there are also now what are called Super Tuscans that don't conform to the traditional (and regulated) Chianti or Tuscan blends. They use cabernet sauvignon among other grapes to make big, bold wines. Unfortunately they also tend to be pretty expensive......

Unfortunately it was a Lindemans Shiraz Cab. Fortunately it went down well with those curious foods. Actually we also had some meat. The sushi and ika came much later, when we were winding down haha.

Now that's an idea! Next time I would try to find a verdelho here and pair it with those foods. Another opportunity to bring my friends closer to the magic of wine. So how did that dinner go?

I haven't done that dinner yet! But I will - soon.....I did have a really nice dinner tonight - USDA prime rib eye steak with a really, really nice 2005 Retzlaff cab. Roasted broccoli, sauteed onions, crisped polenta with parmigianno reggiano crumbed over it. And for dessert, chocolate ice cream, whipped cream and a strawberry sauce I just made with fresh strawberries. Now I have to go back to dieting tomorrow!

Birthday greetings to an MIA sister here. We miss you, mama Lips.

 

Cheers!

Happy birthday, Lips!!!

Sure will! Thanks.

 

Looks like I'm getting successful into turning my drinking buddies here to wine. Seems like they've had their fill of beer, finally hehe...now I'm hearing phrases of appreciation when we drink wine. Not the expensive kind, mind you, just good and affordable wines. Last night, had 5 bottles of a tempranillo at Barcino's, with chorizo picantes and manchego and pulpo and jamon serrano on the side. Heaven! The other night 3 bottles of Lindemans with sushi and ika. Great! Not you usual food/wine tandems, but who's complaining haha.

 

Cheers, pre!

I like your tapas and tempranillo combo! Reminds me of tapas bar hopping in Barcelona and Madrid - a pincho of jamon Iberico and a copa of tempranillo, then on to the next bar and the next dish! Stunningly fresh seafood in olive oil and another copa.

But which Lindemann's with ika and sushi? Surely not a shiraz or cab! Wouldn't that be a bit heavy? I can see sushi with a cab franc or a pinot noir, though! I have discovered that there are some whites I enjoy - a good vinho verde from Portugal or verdejo from Spain, for example. Those would be great with sushi! The slight effervescence and tang of a good vinho verde would lift the fresh, clean taste of good ika to new heights. Hmmmm....there's an idea for dinner tonight!

I'll stay a week if it's okay with you haha.

 

Brad Pitt playing Billy Beane raises the stakes! I saw a trailer of Moneyball and it looks interesting. Will watch out for it. I was an Oakland A's fan back in the days when they were winning the World Series, with guys like Reggie Kackson, Gene Tenace, Jim the Catfish Hunter, rollie Fingers. Wow those were the days...

 

Now before we incur the ire of the mods here for being so off-topic hahaha, pare what sort of champagne do they shower themselves with in those clubhouse victory celebrations? Would they still be the expensive ones?

I'd say it depends on the club. From the clips they show when there's something to celebrate, it looks like anything from Cook's or Andre to Krug. Not Dom Perignon or Veuve Cliqout.

Stay a couple of weekends. We'll have fun!

Yes I forgot PLAY MISTY FOR ME. I have a dvd of that which I haven't seen yet. It's just there, hahaha, waiting in my shoebox where all these other films are - the Antonionis, the Fellinis, the Godards.

No time really to have what they call a dvd marathon.

PLAY MISTY is the first directorial job of

Clint Eastwood, and yes it's set in Carmel, where some years in the future a certain Clint bacame it's mayor.

 

Heck where's the wine here? Ok when I get there, let's have some wine at Bridges.

 

Who plays Billy Beane, pare? And I wonder why they would make a picture about him? Why not Billy Martin, or Sparky Anderson? Those were more colorful baseball managers.

 

Cheers, pre!

Yeah, I would have been more interested in Billy Martin. Brad Pitt plays Billy Beane.

Lessee - wine at Bridges, tasting at Rubicon, a tour of Livermore, burnt meat and wine in my back yard, explore Sonoma or Paso Robles......I hope you have more than one weekend!

Sarap!

Pare I would like to make a tour of the city, see the Fisherman's Wharf, see the haunts of the Grateful Dead on Haight-Ashbury, see Filbert St where Steve McQueen chased the baddies in BULLITT, see Mission San Juan where Hitchcock filmed his final scene in VERTIGO, to Bodega Bay where THE BIRDS was shot...pare SF is film heaven. That's where they shot DOCTOR DOOLITTLE, MRS. DOUBTFIRE, BASIC INSTINCT, PRETTY WOMAN, THE TOWERING INFERNO, SUPERMAN, DIRTY HARRY, THE GRADUATE.

 

I think Europe would take a back seat to San Francisco, thinking this way hehe..

The restaurant scene in Mrs. Doubtfire was shot at Bridges in Danville. Still there, it's a very nice restaurant. Been many years since I last had a meal there - maybe it's time to return!

Basic Instinct was shot in the city and in Marin, the Towering Inferno was the Hyatt Embarcadero, Dirty Harry was all over the city but a lot on the docks and in the SoMA and Mission districts. Don't forget Play Misty for Me which was shot in Carmel and Monterey.

There was a film premiere the other night in Oakland - Moneyball (??) the story of Billy Beane who became manager (what they call the head coach in baseball) of the Oakland A's baseball team.

Revisiting Barcelona is a must for me and the family, but that would not be until 2014 at the earliest. It's one of those places that you just have see once again. Once there, I would like to explore the Basque region - Bilbao, San Sebastian and Pamplona. San Sebastian for culinary heaven, Bilbao for the Guggenheim Museum (?), and Pamplona for the running of the bulls haha.

 

Pare nasa bucket list ko ang San Francisco so one day, maybe sooner, we will get to meet in your place over a bottle of Rubicon.

I'd really like to explore Spain's wineries next time we go. I found several that have inns/hotels attached to them, so that might make a good tour. And I really want to go back to both Barcelona and Madrid for the food.

In the mean time, if SF is on your bucket list then by all means come on over! The area is great, not just for wines, but for the food scene and the natural scenery as well! I can think of nothing better than sitting around a campfire in Yosemite enjoying a good bottle and a hot off the fire steak, with Half Dome looming over you and El Capitan over your shoulder.

agxo and storm:

 

Pambihira! Dito nga sa Maynila di tayo magkita, sa US pa tayo mag-eEB!

But stranger things have happened. Who knows? Sa Europe kaya, pare? Lol! When's your next vacation there, and where? hehe

Baka 'di next next year. March punta kami ng Orlando for a high school reunion - cruise to Bahamas. If I can get time, we want to go back to Barcelona/Madrid and explore Spain more but that won't be until the summer.

Dito na lang. I have way too much wine and not enough drinking buddies. I'll take you for the most civilized wine tasting at Rubicon Estates (now called Inglenook - back to the original name form way back when).

Sama ako jan?

of course!

We're usually there in spring, so a red would be better to fight off the cold. But cold or warm, it will always be a pleasure to drink with you.

Deal! Let me know when you'll be here and I will set up a tour of Livermore followed by a bottle or three at my home.