Dang it, just when I thought wine was winning the booze battle hands-down, I get wind of the latest Gallup poll results, which show preferences among folks 30-49 years shifting - for the first time since 2002 - from wine back towards beer. In fact, the most recent results show beer in a double-digit lead over wine for the first time in years, something that makes me sad, since wine was doing SO WELL in its impressive march upwards in US consumer preferences in recent years. Even more of a bummer? Beer is the clear preference over wine among the 20-something set,

the folks who make up the bulk of Hip Tasters!

Still, what these results don't clearly show is that wine is still on the rise nationwide, among all age groups - including 20-somethings. In fact, peeps in their 20s are buying more wine, more often and at higher price points than any generation before them. So take that, beer!

The whole hoopla also calls to mind an interesting new book - He Said Beer, She Said Wine - which I've not had the pleasure of reading yet, though I DID watch an entertaining video about it on the book's Amazon page. The book pits a brewmaster (male, shockingly enough) against a sommelier (female, so now there's some nice sexual tension in the mix) as they duke it out over whether beer or wine is the best beverage. Or so the concept goes. If you read the Amazon language a little more closely it sounds more like a tutuorial on both beer and wine, with some banter between the two authors thrown in for gimmicky measure. If anyone's read it and has insights, do share.

Posted by Courtney at 10:41 AM •

Okay, so the goose doesn't exactly make the Pinot, but Toulouse Vineyards' mascot is most definitely a goose, and their Pinot is without a doubt off the charts (though admittedly made by human hands). I absolutely loved the 2006 Toulouse Anderson Valley Pinot Noir my sister picked up in Mendo recently, and which I had the pleasure of quaffing a few days ago in the baking hot Central Valley, where I'm visiting my family. The newish operation (their first vintage was 2002) is run by Vern and Maxine Boltz, a retired Oakland fire chief and United airline stewardess, respectively, and Toulouse Vineyards represents

a second career for both of them. They do everything by hand on site, including bottling and farming their 17 acres of sustainably grown Pinot Noir.

Goose Has Good Pedigree
Once I did a little research I quickly discovered I'm not the first to find the wine fabulous (some other peeps who thought it was good include the Chronicle and Wine Spectator), which just goes to show it really is great juice, and great juice getting noticed, at that. My tasting note follows, but I just want to say that the best part of the bottle after what came inside was this simple note from the back label:

"The Toulouse is a huge blocky goose that can tip the scales at 30 pounds or more. This placid giant thrives in the tranquility of the vineyard." Said huge blocky goose is pictured on the label, and I love the simplicity of its image and the subtle humor (and brevity) of the bottle's descriptor. Clearly, these are people who aren't interested in hyper polished marketing lingo (or they might've written something about the berries and toast in the wine, or its ideal food pairings, or something else rote and predictable) and they also really care about their vineyard and what goes on it in - as well as who lives in it! Blocky geese, welcome!

Tasting Notes
Appearance: pale-med ruby with brick rim
Nose: moderately intense inviting notes of smoke, meat (bacon), cooked strawberry, anise, nutmeg and sage. Stony (granite? I wrote, but after reading the site it's gravel; totally get that!).
Palate: dry with marked acidity and high alcohol, though strikes me as balanced; moderate tannin. Flavors of plum, anise, earth, nutmeg. Smoke lingers on the finish.
Conclusion: Lovely, absolutely lovely. Poetic, like a Burgundy, and though heavy on the toast/nutmeg (comes from barrels), that works, too, just like the high alcohol (14.5%). It's a wine that transmits its sense of place - that's the poetry part - and strikes me as incredibly harmonious in all its parts. Bravo!

92 points

Posted by Courtney at 09:03 AM •

I've never picked up a wine book I wanted to quote more than Lawrence Osborne's deliciously entertaining tome, The Accidental Connoisseur: An Irreverent Journey Through the Wine World. In it, the Brit - who right up front gamely cops to a serious distrust of his own sense of taste - sets out to visit several of the world's foremost wine regions in search of answers to his own burning question - what exactly is taste? - as well as more (less?) controversial issues like "why do men fetishize wine, and woman don't?"

As you might imagine, this book delighted me. For those of you wondering what's behind the fetish question, it came up not so much as a question posed by the author but instead as a fantastically quotable tidbit offered up during one of the author's interviews, in this case with one Ralph Ewing, Opus One's PR guy. In response to Osborne's inquiry "who drinks wine?" Ewing said the following:

"In the $100-plus category, Parker rules. It's your white middle-aged male Ritz-Carlton crowd. Between $40 and $60, it's the Wine Spectator. But, you see, women actually buy 65 percent of all wine (woop!), and women are much stingier about how much they'll pay. Women will pay between $15 and $20, rarely more. Women don't fetishize wine. It's true across the world. Women motivate the consumption of wine - the romantic dinner - but not the collecting of it." (Woop mine.)

There are many more fabulous tidbits like this in the book, which does a great job exploring the psychological and cultural context of wine, without getting mired in all of the techo babble so many wine books fall into. Instead, Osborne focuses on the people who make wine (and market it, I might add) as well as those who drink it, and doesn't spare any barbs when his subjects unravel into self aggrandizing wine jargon (there's a hilARious bit about a French guy who describes a Rocchioli PInot as having "a spherical, sexy mouth"). As the New York Times put it, the book is a must-read for those "who find hyperventilated discussions of microscopic differences between hundreds of essentially identical wines to be little more than scholastic quibbling."

Hallelujah.

Posted by Courtney at 09:24 AM •

We've done Green. We've done Grill. Heck, we've even done Saints & Sinners, Salty & Sweet and All White. But we've never rocked like this before.

Join a whole bunch of Hip Tasters at vintage-cool SF night spot Pink as we party to the sounds of updated arena rock (think Def Leppard's Pour Some Sugar On It) while noshing on sushi rolls and sipping summer-appropriate whites, pinks and bubblies. And with our first-ever dance party going down from 9pm-10pm, this will be a Hip Tastes you definitely won't want to miss. PS: the 3 best dressed (as in rock dressed) Hip Tasters will go home with Best Dressed honors and a free gift. Booyah! See you there.

Tickets & 411

Posted by Courtney at 06:28 PM •