In late September 2009 a few friends and I capped our trip to Oktoberfest with a visit to Bamberg, a 1000+ year-old town known for its beer. Bamberg is a charming small city of about 70,000 in northern Bavaria. It’s reminiscent of Bruges in that it escaped bombing during WWII, retaining a twisty medieval character. [...]
A few months back I went to Munich for the world’s oldest and greatest beer festival. I loved it – Oktoberfest wildly exceeded my expectations. I had been to Munich at least once before, but not during this time of year. I expected a New Orleans Mardi Gras-like crush of drunken screaming twenty-year-olds to ruin [...]
Let’s just get it out of the way. The Bogle 2007 Russian River Valley Pinot Noir is ruined by an overwhelming buttery note. This wine has several other redeeming qualities, but they don’t outweigh the butter. I’ve started to despair of finding a sub-$20 Pinot Noir that’s worth drinking. Certainly sub-$15 is even tougher. My [...]
Today I attended an excellent beer festival at The Bistro in Hayward, CA. It went under various names: The Barrel Aged Festival The Bistro Wood Barrel Aged Beer Festival West Coast Barrel-Aged Festival But whatever it was called, Vic Kralj and his team pulled off a great event. Like several attendees, I was hit by [...]
The 2008 Pinot Noir from Valle Perdido in Patagonia (Argentina!) is the second-best under-$15 Pinot Noir I’ve ever tried. It’s actually pretty good. But that doesn’t mean I would recommend you buy it. I purchased this bottle from K&L Wines in Redwood City, CA, in May 2009 for $11.99. Attractive label, screw cap. K&L’s description [...]
The highlight of my September 2007 trip to Japan was a visit to the Yamazaki Distillery outside Osaka. Yamazaki is Suntory’s best-known whisky (Bill Murray’s character endorsed it in Lost in Translation), and to my knowledge the only Suntory single malt brand distributed in the USA. However, the menu at the Yamazaki tasting room (“Whisky [...]
