Will Date For Food -- Sideways Wine Club

This week's wine class was the last event to be held at the Reaves Gallery on Market Street. The gallery is relocating to Gough Street, in the hip-and-booming Hayes Valley. It is a great location, complete with the lack of parking which seems to be a badge of honor among true hot spots. I'm looking forward to holding next month's class in the new location.

I share a similar aesthetic with gallery owner Sharon Reaves. We both feature products from boutique producers, we personally select each item, we are doing what we love, and we're figuring out a way to pay the bills as we go. When asked about the rent on her new space, it was Sharon who said "Who needs to eat? I can always date for food!" which we thought would make an interesting sign to put in the gallery window. Printed in crayon, of course, on a flap torn from a corrugated box.

Class Favorites

The guests began with some exercises to help focus our sense of taste and smell - sensory stretching exercises of a sort - then launched into a blind tasting exercise. The objective of this friendly competition was to identify each wine's grape varietal by correctly matching the wine with its printed description. The six wines we tasted:

1. Beckmen Vineyards, 2006 Sauvignon Blanc. $16

2. Costa de Oro, 2005 Estate Chardonnay, $21

3. Barham-Mendolsohn, 2004 Pinot Noir, Russian River Valley, $42

4. Benjamin Silver Wines, 2001 Cabernet Sauvignon, Casa Blanca Vineyard, $24

5. Andrew Murray, 2005 Grenache, $29 (2006 available here)

6. Barrel 27, 2005 Syrah "Head Honcho", $35

(Shop for these and other wines here)

Though there were a few "gimmies" in the line-up, for the most part these wines were not easily identified - the pinot showing more barnyard than most domestics, the aged Cabernet expressing unique characteristics of its origin, and the Grenache being almost as big as a light Syrah. The class did quite well, with four guests tying for first place after reversing just two wines. Only one guest mis-identified every wine. He received a consolation prize of the John Cleese educational wine video, after which he reported having had great fun and promised to return next month.

Cheers! Dave Chambers, Wine Merchant Dave@SidewaysWineClub.com.

Today's Quote "Real joy comes not from ease, or riches, or the praise of others, but from doing something worthwhile" Wilfred Grenfell (1865-1940)