Last Friday April 2 at 6 PM Katya and I hosted a Wine Questers SF Urban Meetup at the Winery Collective in SF near Fisherman’s Wharf.  Attendance was not outstanding, only 6 of us, but the conversation and wines were excellent and we had a great time by including hapless tourists.  The engaging tasting bar staff deliver a diverse selection of wines in a variety of flights for a good taste adventure.

We bought:

1. Sol Rouge Gypsy Blanc, and interesting white blend.
2. Sol Rouge 06 Napa Valley Cab – this one we have raved about before.  The nose and taste has more than hints of Kalamata olives.  The vineyard soil does this.

We spent Friday and Saturday nights at the adjacent Argonaut Hotel. Hotel management gave us a great deal on a room looking west to Ghirardelli Square, the Hyde Street cable car turnaround (entertaining) and the Golden Gate Bridge.  This hotel is nautical themed in keeping with the maritime museum in the same building. Actually, the building is owned by the National Park Service.  Great place to stay!!!

We wanted to spend the weekend resting but that never happens.  I looked out the window on Saturday morning and the weather was warm and sunny.  There was also no line for the cable car that goes over the hills to Market Street. We grabbed the cameras and spent much of the weekend shooting video and stills for a future Discover SF Urban Wine Region video.  We had a mostly empty cable car and a cooperative driver so we got some good shots.  We also shot from the ships in the historic park.

The Winery Collective isn’t the only wine thing to do around Fisherman’s Wharf.  We wandered into Ghirardelli Square for some reason (chocolate) and happened upon a wonderful wine store and tasting bar.  Cellar 360 has a huge selection of wine, incredible view of the Bay, a well-stocked deli, friendly and informative staff, and a nice patio. We picked a few munchies from the deli, bought glasses of wine at the tasting bar after they let us taste a variety, and relaxed in the warm sun on the patio. Lazy and hedonistic, just our thing.

As we wandered toward the famous chocolate store we were in for another surprise.  Alexander Valley’s Wattle Creek has a tasting room there and not in AV. I had never heard of them and we hang out in Geyserville in that Sonoma County valley, only minutes from their winery.  I’ve been tasting in Alex Valley since the early 70’s and love the wines there.

We bought Wattle Creek’s:

1. Yorkville Highlands “The Triple Play” red blend.
2. Alex Valley 05 Cab Sauv.
3. Yorkville Highlands “Focus” red blend.

We would have bought one of everything but we have a budget and no room to store them.

On Sunday we found Wines of California wine bar on Pier 39.  Their wine list is interesting and they have a patio overlooking the marina.  It also looked like they were preparing to BBQ. We had enough wine for the weekend so a visit there is on our to do list.

We hit many restaurants in the area.  Our favs are The Blue Mermaid for nautical ambiance and chowder in the Argonaut Hotel and McCormick & Schmicks at Ghirardelli Square for interesting seafood dishes and VIEW.

Our Discover SF Urban Wine Region video is a future project.  We’re just collecting what photography we can for now.

We only ventured a few blocks in each direction from the hotel but had a busy and interesting weekend.

- jim

Tags: San Francisco, Wattle Creek, Winery Collective

This entry was posted on Thursday, April 9th, 2009 at 5:36 pm and is filed under California, San Francisco Bay Area, Wine Questers picnics, Wines. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.