Wine Events: Week of August 9

Sweet Jesus — three (THREE) interesting wine events all on the same day.  What is a wino to do?  How can I clone myself to go to all these events that take place on Wednesday?  Suggestions welcome (Genentech peeps — I’m talking to you).

Now, if you must limit yourself to one wine-related tasting, go to Outside Lands, and hit up their winelands tent.  This is an amazing collection put together by the folks of Solano Cellars / Vintage Berkeley.

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Wed. Aug. 11:  Copain Wine Tasting w/ Wells Guthrie @FPWM (FiDi)

Ferry Plaza Wine Merchants
Ferry Building
San Francisco, CA

4:30pm – 7:30pm – $33

All of you know I have a soft spot for Copain:  I think they make some of the most elegant wines in California.  But don’t take an average joe’s word for it:  see what the NYTImes had to say about his pinots and syrahs.  This Wednesday, join winemaker Wells Guthrie through a taste of  five wines, featuring multiple single vineyard pinots and syrahs, including the 2006 Hawkes Butte Syrah (I was lucky to help polish off a magnum of the ’05 with Wells and others during a wine club event last year in Anderson Valley — frickin’ fabulous stuff).

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Wed. Aug. 11:  Second Annual Cab-ulous! @ Solano Cellars (Berkeley)
Solano Cellars
1580 Solano Ave.
Albany, CA

7:30pm – 9pm – $62

I don’t really understand how anyone can fully enjoy a cab tasting without having a little food to pair with the stuff in your glass.  I mean cab is generally a fairly tannic wine, emant to age, and can come across as fairly harsh without some food to cut through. Thankfully, Solano Cellars is pulling together a cab-tastic (I mean “cab-ulous”) tasting. Six different cabs (“from the likes of Caymus, Neyers, Ridge, [and] Robert Sinskey and more!”) will be poured and paired “with apps such as flank steak and caramelized onion crostini and Cab-centric cheeses.”  NOTE:  This is limited to 15 people, so make a reservation ASAP:  call 510.525.9463.

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Wed. Aug. 11:  TasteTV Food & Wine Taste-Off @ Press Club (SoMa)

Press Club
20 Yerba Buena Lane
San Francisco, CA

6:30pm – 8:00pm – $45 (tickets can be purchased here)

If you ever wanted to be on TV, but feared being voted off the island or dealing with the roommates / head cases from “The Real World,” here’s your chance.  Join TasteTV as they film their first Food & Wine Taste-off at the Press Club.  You’ll get a chance to sample and pick the best new pairings for the menu.

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Thurs. Aug. 12:  Deconstruction of Tasting @FPWM (FiDi)

Ferry Plaza Wine Merchants
Port Commission Hearing Room
2nd Floor, Ferry Building, San Francisco California
San Francisco, CA

6:30pm – 8:30pm – $50 (purchase here)

Ready to take the first step in learning more about wine?  It may seem odd to go to an event to “learn how to taste,” but it’s like going to yoga for the first time and learning “how to breathe.”  You might think it’s silly at first, but little by little you begin to see that going back to the basics is often an important first step.

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Sat. Aug. 14-Sun Aug. 15:  Wine Lands @ Ouside Lands (Golden Gate Park)

Golden Gate Park
San Francisco, CA

All day – Tickets start at $75 (not including wine)

Whoa.  whoa.  WHOA.  What a line-up:  Copain, Peay, Wind Gap, Ridge and 20+ other wineries — this is shaping up to be one of THE tasting events of the year.  You have to buy separate tastes, but access to these wineries alone (oh, yeah, and the concert) is worth it!

K&L: $20 or Less Challenge

K&L Wine Merchants

Quick:  you’ve got to pick up a couple of bottles for a dinner party, and want to spend about $20 per bottle (or less).  Short of stocking up on bottles at your corner bodega, where would you go?  While BevMo! might seem like a good stand by, let me throw you a curve ball:  K&L Wine Merchants (SOMA:  4th & Brannan) has some of the best bargains in the entire Bay Area.

K&L might best be known as the go-to place for higher-end,  hard-to-find wines, but it also happens to be a great place to find quality, value wines. I put them to the test on Sunday, and they passed with flying colors.

I was planning on serving a hearty entree for a “Mad Men” dinner/viewing party, so wanted a tasty red to round out the meal.  Lucky for me, K&L had a really exciting selection of syrahs, all for under $20, including two harder to find selections from David O’Reilley, of Owen Roe fame:

• 2007 Owen Roe Ex Umbris Syrah (Columbia Valley, WA) – $19.99
• 2006 Corvidae “Lenore” Syrah (Columbia Valley, WA) – $12.99

I decided to go with these two in order to do a Pacific Northwest tasting — the “Lenore” being particularly fitting for a “Mad Men” night given the literary allusion to Edgar Allen Poe’s classic, “The Raven.”

But K&L had even more to offer.  Either of the following also would have been great selections, and tremendous values:

• 2006 Copain L’hiver Syrah (Mendocino) – $12.99 [From all-star winemaker Wells Guthrie]
• 2007 Boom Boom Syrah (Washington State) – $14.99 [From rock-star winemaker Charles Smith, recently voted Food & Wine magazine’s winemaker of the year]

Moral of the story:  K&L might well be my new favorite wine store–not only for special occasions, but for everyday wines, too.

PS – K&L also has a great mobile site:  m.klwines.com.  Check it out.