Bordeaux Wine Enthusiasts

A few of the Colorado delegation will be in SanFran for the UGC event on 1/25. We’re then heading to Napa for 1/26, and back in SF on 1/27. We are up for an offline the 26th in Napa or the 27th in SF, we’ll be drinking some fine wine both nights, so let me know if you’re available to join in.

I might be able to do something on the 26th....let me get back to the office in a few days and revert back

Was trying to rustle up the SMF cadres for something late January without much success so maybe they can be coaxed into this instead!

Hi Patrick we have just booked and we are flying into San Francisco around the 22nd so would be up for all of that that plus a day on the slopes the week after.

We need to buy plane tickets to Denver from SF, what are the best options?

Hi Ian, great news! Are you referring to January or March (as it sounds)?

For skiing in March, I suggest flying into either Eagle or Denver on the afternoon of Tuesday March 26th so we can hit the slopes bright and early on the 27th. If you fly into Denver* (which could be cheaper than Eagle, but a longer trip) early enough (landing by, say, 3 PM), you could catch a ride with me up to the mountains (a 2.5 hr drive from the airport).

*Southwest Airlines often has inexpensive (~$90-110) direct one-way flights from SanFran to Denver.

Blanquito wrote:A few of the Colorado delegation will be in SanFran for the UGC event on 1/25. We’re then heading to Napa for 1/26, and back in SF on 1/27. We are up for an offline the 26th in Napa or the 27th in SF, we’ll be drinking some fine wine both nights, so let me know if you’re available to join in.

Napa on the 26th sounds fun. Do you have any places you want to visit? wine/food
SF on the 27th is open as well, Any restaurants/food interests in the bay area?

I might car pool with Arv if things work out and bring Stan from our Sacramento group.

Happy New Year - Gene

gene m. wrote:

Blanquito wrote:A few of the Colorado delegation will be in SanFran for the UGC event on 1/25. We’re then heading to Napa for 1/26, and back in SF on 1/27. We are up for an offline the 26th in Napa or the 27th in SF, we’ll be drinking some fine wine both nights, so let me know if you’re available to join in.

Napa on the 26th sounds fun. Do you have any places you want to visit? wine/food
SF on the 27th is open as well, Any restaurants/food interests in the bay area?

I might car pool with Arv if things work out and bring Stan from our Sacramento group.

Happy New Year - Gene

Hey Arv and Gene, hope to see you and others in CA.

4 of us have plans to drive from SanFran on 1/26 to do some ‘library’ tastings starting at 11 AM at Ridge Lytton Springs and then Montelena, and at Phelps and Forman the morning of 1/27. We are at in a hotel in the town of Napa the night of the 26th and then we’re near Union Square in SanFran on the 27th, no arrangements at a BYOB restaurant in Napa or SanFran yet (we are very open to BYOB friendly options in both locales).

I'd love to but heading to Hawaii at the end of January. Have fun guys.

Bill

1/27 in SF works for me right now. I live in SF itself so let me know how many people and I can help coordinate.

SF Ed

BTW, San Francisco is never San Fran. It is San Francisco, SF, The City, but never San Fran.

SF Ed

Great, let’s plan something for one or both days. Two of the Colorado party fly out on the 27th, so it will be just 2 from CO for dinner (me and Steve, who will be at the Convention too).

You might want to check in on MichaelP personally, he doesn't always check in on the site here for stretches of time.

Napa options I've used that are BYOB friendly/low corkage/no corkage:
casual: Pizzaria Tre Vigne, way up valley, St Helena, used to be no corkage... ~ 15.00/btl

very good diner/truck stop food: Cindy's Mustard's, Yountville used to be no corkage if you call/reservations, $20.00/btl waive if you buy from list

Michelin starred: Ken Frank's LaToque/DT Napa, 25.00/4 bottle limit, waived if you buy from list, ~$120-225 dinner,, 4-5 course tasting menu or chef table,all truffle course.

Mostly up to date info (as of Aug/Sept 2018: see www.napalife.com/corkage.pdf

BD: Thanks for prompting folks, and me.
Patrick: Thanks for PMing me.

Nalan and I are good for one evening for sure. At this point for SF on the 27th.

Very untypically, we happen to be doing wine events in Napa both weekends prior to the 26th, so a third weekend in a row might be a tough sell.
Let's see.....

Michael-P

Patrick: ask Margaret at Forman why she doesn't respond to my tasting requests!

A few places in Napa have limited free corkage but you guys will blow through that quickly. BTW, sadly Charlie Palmer in Napa sucks. Food, service and atmosphere. Nothing like DC. Although their rooftop drunken bar scene is a hoot.

Michael-P

Gene and Arv, you guys still game for dinner on Saturday? We definitely are and Ken Frank's LaToque sounds perfect. Please join us for any wineries you want to visit as well. We can get a head count and make a reservation.

MichaelP, glad you can join in on Sunday. Looks like there will be 6 of us all told in downtown SF. I’m gonna bring a 96 Baolo and Steve is aiming for a nice Côte Rotie.

And I’ll definitely get Forman your message!

Nalan and I are in for the 27th in SF.
Let me see what additional (to me) Italians I can bring.
Looking forward to it!
Michael-P

Nice to see the 1/27 SF plan come together.

SF Ed

I have to be in Oakland for my nephew's party on the afternoon of Jan 26.

I think I will drive up from there into Napa for the evening dinner; it's about an hour away I think.

That probably blows up the carpooling idea with Gene/Stan from Sacramento.

Let me confer with the SO if all that is good, since it probably means we end up taking two vehicles into the Bay Area that wknd.

What are the estimated times of the Napa and SF dinners?

thanks

Great, I hope you can make it happen. We are open for start times for Saturday. I haven’t made a reservation yet, should we get on that?

I pulled 2 Italians to bring for SF on the 27th.

Michael-P

Blanquito wrote:Great, I hope you can make it happen. We are open for start times for Saturday. I haven’t made a reservation yet, should we get on that?

I plan to attend in Napa Sat. Jan 26th. Anytime that works for all is fine.
I'm about 90 min. away.
Not sure what I'll bring. I'll confirm if Stan is coming.
Go ahead and make reservations if that is OK.

Thank you - Gene

Is la Torque good for all? What time is good for you Arv?

I’ll make a reservation for 6 people, to be safe. Right now, I count Gene, Arv, me, Steve and maybe Stan.

6pm should be ok for La Tocque.

6 PM La Toque (Napa Westin, near Oxbow market) is fine.
I think I'll bring a bordeaux, 88' Haut Brion, that almost drinks like a burg.....
Stan cannot make it as he has another commit on Sat.
I'll likely skip the winery visits and just join everyone for dinner.

Looks like we need a plan b for Saturday. La Toque is booked until 8:45 for a party of 4. Any ideas or preferences?

If anyone has Amex Plat, the concierge might be able to get a table earlier.

Unf, I'm not in that rarefied silvery circle.

Ok, I called la Toque (it was Open Table that said they were full, so I thought a call might give us more luck), I dropped the name JimHow and BWE repeatedly, and they gave us a table for 4 at 6 PM on 1/26! I had to give a card to secure the spot, but we can cancel up to 48 hrs in advance without any penalty.

Given Gene's 88 Haut Brion, I will bring a Bordeaux as well and so will Steve. I think I'll bring the 83 Lynch Bages.

Blanquito wrote:Ok, I called la Toque (it was Open Table that said they were full, so I thought a call might give us more luck), I dropped the name JimHow and BWE repeatedly, and they gave us a table for 4 at 6 PM on 1/26! I had to give a card to secure the spot, but we can cancel up to 48 hrs in advance without any penalty.

Given Gene's 88 Haut Brion, I will bring a Bordeaux as well and so will Steve. I think I'll bring the 83 Lynch Bages.

Thank you. I was going to call or email. If things did fall through my other options were (Iron Chef) Morimoto's for the Omakase or Bistro Jeanty for French. I've had a few dinners from Ken Frank, a 61' horizontal dinner @ LaToque and a catered affair @ Crocker Starr. Ken is a fan of good wine.

If the HB is flawed/corked I think I might bring an 81' Ch Margaux as a backup.

Gene

Blanquito wrote:Ok, I called la Toque (it was Open Table that said they were full, so I thought a call might give us more luck), I dropped the name JimHow and BWE repeatedly, and they gave us a table for 4 at 6 PM on 1/26! I had to give a card to secure the spot, but we can cancel up to 48 hrs in advance without any penalty.

Given Gene's 88 Haut Brion, I will bring a Bordeaux as well and so will Steve. I think I'll bring the 83 Lynch Bages.

What's crappy about all those 3rd party intermediary booking sites is that they won't allocate good inventory (prime time tables) to them, and basically expect them to only book their Tuesday 9pm tables. And that creates a vicious bad cycle for the sales channel - once the clients realize OpenTable can't really deliver any value beyond maybe the administrative ease of auto-populating your Outlook or gCalendar - they stop using it and just call direct.

At least the legit concierge services can offer up the value proposition to venues (for truly scarce tables) that they interact with tons of customers all day who basically ask "where should I eat tonight? suggest something and get me table..." I don't think people go to these websites (like Opentable etc.) with that kind of open ended adventure in mind....

Thanks for arranging Blanquito. I'll revert back with wines. $25/corkage correct?

"LaToque: $25 corkage, with a 4 bottle limit, but waived if you buy from list". Maybe we buy a white off the list to start and then save $100 on our 4 bottles?

Sure. I think their goal with that are just to get people to look at the lists, even if they are BYO'ing.

It's hard to get a bunch of happy, buzzed enthusiasts to stay under a $100 bottle (net) limit, especially at top end places where values (i.e. discounts to current auction values) are likely.

It might be worth double checking about the corkage fee waiver for list purchase. Sometimes it's they'll waive a fee, but only for each bottle purchased.