LIOCO line-up

Thursday, July 17th, 2008

We boarded a plane from Santa Rosa to LAX yesterday afternoon, and Kevin O’ Connor of LIOCO happened to be on our same flight. Call this a sign from above that it’s about time we make good on our promise to write up the wines we tasted with Kevin a week ago.

For those of you unfamiliar with LIOCO, a bit of background…only a couple of vintages young, Lioco is a small winery crafting Sonoma wines, many of them from single vineyards. Its principals have a storied history in the wine and food industries of California: Matt Licklider spent many years at North Berkeley Imports, handling sales for some of the world’s finest wine labels. Kevin O’ Connor continues to head up the wine program at Spago in Beverly Hills. And winemaker Kevin Kelley got a degree at Davis and spent his formative years in Burgundy before returning to California. Licklider and O’ Connor teamed in 2005 and the rest, as they say, is history… Read more…

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get your wine on

2005 The Great Whatsit Syrah, Santa Ynez Valley

Our first ‘domaine547 selection’ is a deep, brooding and delicious Syrah, made by the fine folks at Stolpman Vineyards. It’s due to arrive very soon, and is on special at a mere $20 a bottle. Get some, open it up and drink it in. We’re super-excited to share it with you. What’s that? Whatsit!

2006 Vigna Senza Nome Moscato d’Asti

Gary Vaynerchuk called this one of the best Moscatos he’s tasted on today’s show. You know where to go to see his videos. But it you’re looking for a west coast source of the wine, look no further than us. We love it too and have had it in stock since the day we opened. On sale while supplies (11 bottles left) last$17 bucks in honor of Vaynerchuk

2005 Tenuta di Valgiano Colline Lucchesi Palistorti

We have a knack for picking Italian wines that score really horribly in the press. This one gets an 82 from the Wine Spectator — but we love it nonetheless. It’s a blend of Sangiovese, Merlot and Syrah that hails from a biodynamic estate outside of Lucca. It couldn’t be from anywhere else, unlike the 98 point yielding Super Tuscan blends that we’ve on occsasion mistaken for California iterations of Bordeaux varieties. This will probably end up in our six-pack prize of wines that will not make the Spectator top 100…$37 for 82 points (how’s that for transparency?)

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freshly pressed

Corkage Week Announcement!:

The week of September 7th will be “Corkage Week” at domaine547! What does this mean? We’re going to devote the week to issues surrounding bringing your own wine to restaurants. Yay!

In the meantime, it would be nifty if any of you could email us (info at domaine547 dot com) with any BYO stories of your own, and maybe you’ll wind up on the front page of d547. In fact, if you go out in the next few days and decide to give corkage a try, send us a picture of the bottle you brought, the receipt with the corkage charge, and any stories you care to share. If your story is selected to appear in our hallowed pages, we’ll send you a gift certificate to d547 for the amount you paid for corkage (within reason).

And now, a quick tip for corkage etiquette: avoid bringing a bottle that is already on the wine list of the restaurant you’re going to. This can mean downloading a restaurant’s wine list online, or calling in advance to check for duplication.

See you in a couple of weeks for lots more on corkage!

Corkage Week Announcement!

August 27th, 2008

The Week Ahead

August 25th, 2008

Price Check: 2006 Lang & Reed Cabernet Franc, North Coast

August 18th, 2008

wine jargon

Frizzante
From Wikipedia: Frizzante is an Italian wine term term for semi-sparkling wine (as opposed to Spumante, which is generally used for fully sparkling wines). Frizzante wines generally owe their bubbles to a partial secondary fermentation in tank. You might notice a light fizz or tingly sensation on the tongue with a Frizzante wine, compared to the more carbonated sensation that more fully sparkling wines yield.

Scorekage
Okay, so we made up this word yesterday after a great restaurant experience. We brought a bottle of wine with us, expecting to pay a corkage fee. But the restaurant either forgot to charge us the $15, or decided to be nice to us. We scored! Hence, “scorekage” has entered our lexicon. This can also refer to BYO friendly restaurants that don’t charge for corkage under any circumstances.

Frizzante

March 29th, 2008

Scorekage

March 23rd, 2008

Rioja

March 3rd, 2008

grapewise

The 89 Project
We’ve joined a group of bloggers (wannabe critics, some have said!) as part of “The 89 Project,” an effort to explore the complicated matter of the 100 point system of evaluating wine. Go take a peek at the 89 Project blog, which has apparently already started a bit of controversy (and we’ve yet to make a post!). It’s interesting stuff.

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