city is in Columbus—Kihachi. This is a very authentic Japanese restaurant (owned, managed, chef and 98% of the clientele). During my years in Columbus, I took numerous winemakers from California and importers from New York...

-respected Jim Clendenen, owner and winemaker at Au Bon Climat, not a distributor. And I don’t know where you get this theory that distributors force restaurants to gouge people-there are any number of factors for high...

, and discussions ensue. Here’s a quick look at the Babbo approach to wine: THE LIST Babbo’s wine list has ballooned to almost 2,000 selections, and that number is only going to grow. Our objectives are simple: (1) To represent...

industry for 3 decades, or my background as a brewer, hard cider maker, winemaker, the competitions I have won, the multiple culinary schools I have attended... Besides you... who cares? My question for you is how many vodkas...

? The kitchen did the dish. The server delivered it with a flourish and now the crowd has moved on. It is the patron, who must now deal with it. Make it easy. It’s almost like saying that this wine was produced by a...

figured out that by putting moonshine made from winemaking waste into beautiful bottles, he could get suckers to shell out big bucks for it. Where’s the big exposé there? People are paying $100 and up for what is...

Danger, Danger, Warning Will Robinson! Broad Generalization Ahead! Keep in mind that winemakers can tame or, within limits, enhance the astringency of the tannins by what they do in the winery. Fining, for example, will alter or...

restaurants (can we give Trio credit for aspiring to this? I would think so). For the first time, pretty much, the cuisine of such restaurants is not at all friendly to those wines, which from the side of the winemakers is an...

through current and past restaurant reviews in the food archives of the SF Guardian and East Bay Express, which are conveniently online. One or the other also list current food events, such as winemaker's dinners. That’s my...

producer handles an off-vintage, wines made from grapes grown in land adjacent to those destined for grand wines, or a wine-maker adopting a style very different from his/her peers. Given that hounds are rather independent...

, she’s a wonderful winemaker), Thirty Bench, Trius, Vineland Estates (could the end of the ever improving cab sauv nigh?). I’ve put all of these on my ‘approach with caution’ list. Last step before...