M. Senegor

I have turned mining restaurant wine lists for ultra-expensive wines into a sport. As the years go by the lists keep upping the ante with new record prices. My first experience with this was about 10 years ago at The Sardine Factory, a Monterey restaurant near the famed Aquarium. There I spotted a 1945 First Growth Bordeaux (I no longer remember the label) for $10,000. About four years ago I wrote a blog about two different Las Vegas restaurants, across the Strip from each other charging $12,000 and $14,500 for the same bottle of wine, a 1982 Chateau Petrus. Yesterday, in yet[...]

Are you tired of the chardonnay, sauvignon blanc rut when it comes to white wine? Well I am, and have been for quite a while. While I still drink massive amounts of chardonnay in the form of Chablis and other white Burgundies, and New Zealand sauvignon blanc, not to mention white Bordeaux, I have found refuge in lesser known whites which are not only refreshingly unique in their tastes, but also food friendly and, most important, cheap. Most come from Italy and Spain. If you've followed my blogs for a while you know by now that I like to view[...]

I recently had dinner at a swank French restaurant in the SOMA district of San Francisco called Chez Spencer. Among the appetizers bouillabaisse was listed; so I ordered it. To my surprise what they brought was a red broth with some fish flavor. I had never encountered bouillabaisse devoid of "stuff" in it, and I was taken aback. This classic French dish, analogous to the Italian cioppino probably started out as a basic fisherman's dinner, where they threw in whatever seafood was available into a broth, and made a sort of seafood stew. It has now become elevated to high cuisine status.[...]

For us wine enthusiasts there are numerous regular irritations we encounter in our wine-life, from ridiculous prices, to wines that taste nothing like they should, based on their labels, to haughty sommeliers, and more. One which I have wanted to complain about  for the longest time but haven't, is back labels on wine bottles. It is now time to tackle this annoyance.I don't know if you ever read these. I regularly do. Almost all books teaching about wine appreciation recommend - usually somewhere around chapter one - that these labels be perused, for, according to their authors, they are chock full of[...]

Two decades of wine tasting has sharpened what was previously the weakest sense in my body: my smell. I don't know whether this is a blessing or a curse. At any given occasion, as I go through anywhere I sense countless different smells, usually subconsciously. Sometimes they interfere with whatever I am doing if the smells somehow don't fit the occasion or setting. Nowhere is this more annoying than when I am wine tasting. .I discovered this phenomenon years ago as a novice wine taster when we assembled for our Friday night blind tasting. Our hostess, a professional chef, who[...]

My European readers may not know that the movie Sideways (2004) singlehandedly altered the wine market in the United States, a fact most of us domestic wine drinkers now take for granted. Its most dramatic effect was the elevation of pinot noir's popularity. This fickle grape of Burgundy, which had previously been so difficult to cultivate in U.S. soil, and was beginning to make headway among mainly Burgundy affocionados, suddenly catapulted into the "A-list" of varietals to consume along with such better established partners as Cabarnet Sauvignon, and its white Burgundian sister Chardonnay. Along with this largely positive development came a[...]