No grape is more closely associated with Tuscany than sangiovese. The grape of Brunello di Montalcino, Chianti Classico and Vino Nobile di Montepulciano, it is the most widely planted and important varietal of the area. But in the Bolgheri region, sangiovese is a minor player, taking a back seat to the Bordeaux grapes, cabernet sauvignon and merlot.
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The thinking goes that if all the components in a sandwich are great, the finished product will sing. Wrong. I’ve built many a soulless sandwich using the most pristine, painstakingly sourced ingredients. No, a brilliant sandwich has a magical something that makes it more than the sum of its parts.
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If we were to play wine word association and I said, “Oregon,” you would probably say “pinot noir.” And that would be a great answer.However, in Southern Oregon, pinot is only part of the story and in the Applegate Valley you might very well hear, “Pinot who?”
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While many restaurants on The Embarcadero offer fine views of San Francisco Bay, few can match the Waterbar’s sophisticated ambience. Now that summer has finally arrived, enjoying cocktails on the popular outdoor Bayfront patio is particularly appealing, especially before or after a Giants game at nearby AT&T Park. Inside, the elevated, horseshoe-shaped raw bar is usually crowded with locals and tourists alike. When night falls and you look out at the lights of the Bay Bridge hovering right above, it feels like being in a movie.
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Cajuns and Cantonese may not seem like culinary kissing cousins, but both these cultures know that crawfish, shrimp, crab and clams cooked and served in the shell have superior succulence and flavor. The fare at Craw Station, an Asian-Cajun house of boiled and fried seafood, proves that. The drippy, messy, finger-burning ordeal of extracting the tail meat from a pound of crawfish in spicy Cajun boiling liquid is more fun than you might think at this Sunset district restaurant.
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I don’t know too many people who get excited by California sauvignon blanc. Sancerre, has huge international appeal and New Zealand sauvignon blancs have a big following, but in California, it is still often viewed as no more than an alternative to chardonnay.
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By:
Erik Cummins
06/30/11 8:00 PM
The area around China Basin and Mission Bay has developed rapidly from being a destination for Giants games into a full-fledged neighborhood, with new commercial and residential construction, and a whole assortment of restaurants and bars frequented by locals and visitors alike. Just far enough from AT&T Park to avoid high-volume pregame and postgame traffic, Tsunami is most favored by the young professionals who live nearby. Tsunami features an interesting quirk: While it has a large sake list, it specializes in high-end, hard-to-find gin.
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This small restaurant in the Outer Richmond district epitomizes what San Francisco does best: it’s a unique little spots that transports its clientele to a different world. It is a Moroccan restaurant, and walking through its doors feels like slipping away to the Casbah, with Aziza’s dark, ruby-red walls, romantic dining alcoves and inverted amber glass lamps hanging from the ceiling. The site formerly housed El Sombrero until chef-owner Mourad Lahlou took it over a decade ago and named it after his mother.
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A developmental chart of food service might start with street hawkers and progress to carts, trucks, booths in markets and then food windows in grungy bars.The Broken Record, a food operation in the back room of just such a bar, may not be high on the evolutionary scale of restaurants, but it turns out some of the most elegant and deeply satisfying American food in town.
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California may not be best-known for its bubbly, but thanks in large part to Schramsberg’s efforts more than 40 years ago, there are a good handful of producers who make world-class sparkling wine in our backyard today.
Founded in 1862 by Jacob Schram, a German immigrant, the German grapes, riesling and gewürztraminer, as well as zinfandel, were grown and made into still wines. Along with the help of Chinese laborers, he blasted into the mountain and created two extensive caves that are still vital for aging.
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URL: http://www.sfexaminer.com/archive/17556/17556?page=28&type[story]=story&quicktabs_6=1
