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Name::Farmstead
From::Alameda, California
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We won!!! Farmstead named Best Wine Store
We won!!! Farmstead named Best Wine Store
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Sunday, January 29, 2006
The Fancy Food ShowSo, we spent three days last week scouring the aisles of the Moscone Center for new cheeses, cheese and wine accessories, and other things.
As always, we met with vendors, tasted tons of cheeses, and were overwhelmed by the riot of sights, sounds, smells and tastes of the Specialty Food world.
The Cheeseworks Ltd booth was the hit of the show for us cheese heads. Well over 100 artisan cheeses to taste and smell. Jeff fell in love with a traditional, soft sheep's milk cheese from Portugal called Serra da Estrella, goopy, complex, creamy, sheepy. If you've had Torta al Casar, then you are entering Serra territory. It just arrived in the store a few days ago.
We also tasted a passle of Goudas from Cheeseland, our Dutch cheese supplier, and were wowed by two cheeses (which have already graced our shelves): Double Crème Gouda, and Memoire (a double crème Gouda with black truffles).
We also visited with Mark from The Fine Cheese Company of Bath England, whose fine British cheeses are already on the shelves.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Altesino Brunello
Here's a shot of the large Tonno used to age Brunello di Montalcino at Altesino. That's the 2004 vintage you're looking at. A lovely setting, professionally run. Great wines. 
This past week has been all about Riesling, that fabulous white wine grape that dominates German and Austrian winemaking.
Twice a year, Winewise (a local distributor) conducts a huge German and Austrian wine trade tasting featurning wines imported by Terry Thiese. He flies in a gaggle of winemakers to present the wines, and over 150 Rieslings from dozens of producers are poured (along with other varietals like Gruner Veltliner, Blaufrankisch, and Zweigelt from Austria.
Terry Thiese is there, ready to discuss the finer points of each wine (the man's knowlege of wine is sooo impressive!), as well as a virtual Who's Who of the SF wine scene - sommelliers, wine store owners, authors, etc etc etc.
As you can imagine, the tasting can be overwhelming. Where to start? How to distinguish among all of these finely crafted wines? Which wines to taste? How to keep from swallowing, getting drunk and "losing one's palate"?
My tack through the tasting is always similar. I choose five producers and taste all of their wines. That way, I have a somewhat clear sense of a producer's style across their portfolio, and don't get bogged down about whose Sonnenuhr Auslese 2004 I liked more (there were about 50 wines with that distintion at the tasting!).
This time, I tried wines from two Austrian producers - Heidi Schrock and Berger - and three Germans - Meulenhof, Kerpen and Selbach-Oster. We carry or have carried a smattering of wines from each of those producers in the store: Schrock's amazing Muscat (a blend of dry Muscat and Sauvignon Blanc - complex, floral and just plain killer), Berger's liter-sized Gruner Veltliner (if you've never had Gruner, you need to - think Sauvignon Blanc meets Pinot Grigio - refreshing, easy to drink, goes well with everything light), Kerpen's Sonnenuhr Kabinett (racy, tingly, crisp, with a complex finish), Selbach-Oster's Sonnenuhr Kabinett (a bit more minerality than the Kerpen, with a touch more fruit), and Meulenhof's Sonnenuhr QBa, and Sonnenuhr Kabinett(more fruit forward than most other Rieslings I've tasted, but still crisp, complex and minerally).
In conjunction with this tasting, we were honored to have Guido Justen, co-owner of Meulenhoff, in the store on Saturday, January 21 for a special tasting. We poured a selection of wines from across their portfolio: 2004 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling QbA, 2002 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Kabinett, 2003 Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Spätlese, and the 2001
Erdener Treppchen Riesling Auslese (#13).
The in-store tasting was a smash! We've never had more folks in the store for a tasting before, and we've never sold more Reisling! (In a normal month, we'll sell maybe six bottles of Riesling - we sold over four cases in a single day!!).
Monday, January 23, 2006
Selvapiana
My bride Carol and Federico Giunti, (owner of Selvapiana), in the famed Bucerchiale vineyard. We spent a wonderful day with Federico, wandering the vineyards, tasting library wines and discussing everything from dogs to wine and back again.http://www.selvapiana.it/eng/main.htm
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Jeffyd at the famed Mario in Florence
Carol and I couldn't stay away from this place while we were in Florence this summer. It's a very simple place - a handwritten menu every day - featuring housemade pastas, bistecca fiorentina, wines by the glass, etc. They are only open for lunch, and are stuffed to the gills with workers from the nearby Mercato (a must see when in Florence!), backpackers (it's featured in Let's Go Europe) and foodies (rated a coveted Snail from the Slow Food folks).
We ate there three times!
Well, we made it! Our third Holiday Season is over, and we surpassed all expectations! Thanks to great customers, great employees and great vendors, who all combined to make this the best Holiday Season we've had. YAY!
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What's next?
Well, Jeff is taking a few days off to rest his tendonitis, while Scarth is off to Portland to visit old friends, and Carol is back to school.
The west coast Fancy Food Show is coming up the 3rd week of January. It's the big trade show of the year for folks like us - literally THOUSANDS of vendors, offering wares from cheese and wine to housewares to candies to - well - everything that you can think of in the Specialty Food arena. We get to sample new products and re-cement relationships with vendors, while trudging bleary-eyed from booth to booth. It takes a full day to walk HALF of the show floor, so Jeff devotes three full days to the show each year. Be on the lookout for new cheeses, new accessories, and new wines in the coming months.
We'll be starting up the Farmstead Wine Club in late January, and boy are we excited!! Many of our customers have expressed interest in joining the club, and we have been in conference with several of our vendors to come up with a club that will be fresh and exciting.
In early February, Jeff is off to a wine tasting in Virginia, put on by Fran Kysela - an importer who's palate aligns very closely with Farmstead's (about 20% of the wines in the store are from Fran). I am sure that even more of Fran's fantastic offerings will appear in the store after the tasting.