Archive | 6:27 pm

2006 Sedna Malbec from Flavio Senetiner

17 Apr

This is rare: a quick ‘n’ easy review of a single wine, divorced from my rants on coffee or family reminiscences or comparisons to women.

I went down to Chronicle Wine Cellar on the corner of California and Lake.  (I have a Yelp review of this place here.)  I love Chronicle Wine Cellar because it’s so small and unpretentious–it’s on the bottom floor of a rundown apartment building, for God’s sake!  They also offer a very good selection of wines at dirt-cheap prices.

I spent all of $22.47 on three wines: the one I am drinking now is the “Sedna” malbec from Flavio Senetiner.

It’s a malbec from the Mendoza region of Argentina, named after the furthest planet in our solar system.

I had selected a sparkling wine (for the ladies) and a rosé (because of the heat) and wanted to get a smooth-drinking, easy red to round out my trio.  It was either between a shiraz from Australia or this malbec.  Both were at the crazy price of $5.95.

I selected the malbec for the maybe fallacious reason that Argentina wines are generally cheaper as a whole than Australian wines–thus, I had more of a chance of finding a decent, cheap Argentinean wine than a decent, cheap Australian wine.

The verdict?

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Another Reason Why My Teeth Are Getting Stained

17 Apr

I am a huge fan of coffee. It shouldn’t be surprising, given that my earliest memories of family life were those of my father driving the Cadillac with one hand on the wheel and the other gripping a precariously full cup of coffee, and my mother daintily sipping from a mocha and eating delicate pirouettes at the Farmer’s Market. Having attended Berkeley and “studied” at its myriad cafes led me further down the coffee trail, and now, years from my first small sips of coffee and milk, I found myself at Groundwork Coffee Co., gawking at a flier that stated in no uncertain terms that I could, for a mere three dollars, have a 16-ounce cup of Panama “La Esmeralda Especial”.

This coffee varietal made waves for being sold at auction last year for $130 a POUND (and you thought Starbucks was expensive!). Groundwork managed to procure some from the same farm and was selling their beans for the slightly more manageable price of around $80 a pound. Unfortunately, there aren’t too many people willing to shell out that much for their morning joe.

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