The less than attractive exterior of Domenico’s industrial building in San Carlos about 20 minutes south of SFO masks a nice interior and hospitality.  You taste their wines in a large warehouse but it has been decorated for events and of course wine barrels supply a warm ambiance.

Domenico has a rather large wine list that makes a trip there worthwhile.  I was impressed with their Super Tuscan among others.  This 2005 Amador blend of Sangiovese, Merlot, and Cab Sauv has a delicate but interesting nose, medium body, and a mild finish that still has flavors.  All the wines we tried were very good but we found the wines a bit soft for us.  That means that pretty much everyone else will love them

- Jim

Urban wineries, this one near Oakland, lack the incredible ambiance of say Dry Creek Valley.  That doesn’t mean they aren’t interesting to visit.  Periscope is in an old submarine plant near the San Francisco Bay in Emeryville just west of Oakland and Berkeley.  They make less than 5,000 cases with a focus on blended red wines and grapes from small family growers.

We brought home their 2006 Cab Sauv and tasted a little each of three days. It held up beautifully during that time.  We loved the oak, long finish, and light tannin.  This Cab is a blend of two Sierra Foothills grapes; 75% Cab and 25% Petite Verdot.

If you’re exploring SF Bay wineries we suggest Periscope for good wine at great prices plus hospitality.

- jim

We recently visited little family-owned Pinder Winery in an industrial building in Campbell, CA next to San Jose.  Sure, an industrial building isn’t our first choice for ambiance but Pinder is an excellent choice for wine and hospitality.

Pinder sources their grapes from a variety of vineyards from Temecula to Lodi and the nearby Santa Cruz Mountains.  This strategy gives tasters an interesting taste variety.  We enjoyed all of their wines and particularly the 2003 Lodi Merlot.  It is full of flavor, well-balanced nose, and an enjoyable and lingering finish. Prices are excellent for a winery with less than 500 case production.  If you are in the South Bay this winery is one of the most convenient and worth a visit.

- jim

Stage Left is a tiny winery in an Oakland industrial area that is only open the first Saturday of the month, usually.  While I wouldn’t make this a destination for winery ambiance it is perfect for a quickie day trip and a friendly tasting room.

They do all their harvesting and winemaking by hand and love experimenting. Don’t expect their wines to be predictable. Do expect them to be interesting.

Stage Left's Oakland tasting room. Not much ambiance but friendly.

We were mapping San Francisco East Bay and dropped in for a short visit and tasting. We found the wines to be rich, flavorful, and interesting to explore.  For this blog I brought home a bottle of their 2007 Paso Robles Syrah.

This is a top Syrah. It is an inky rich full-bodied wine that made us smile with delight with every sip. It was soft enough not to bite on the way down but hearty enough for the taste to linger will into the finish.

We intend to go back someday and more fully explore their selection.  We were in a hurry to finish mapping East Bay wineries and had to move right along.

- jim

Katya and I recently visited and mapped 7 wineries in the East San Francisco Bay cities of Emeryville, Oakland, and Alameda.  All are in declining industrial areas that offer the advantage of cheap space and proximity to a large population.  While Sonoma or Napa style ambiance is lacking in these wineries, the neighborhoods are no Dry Creek Valley, some of them fixed up their tasting rooms a bit.  All are in working wineries.

We now have almost all of the SF Bay Area urban wineries that are regularly open to the public in our region map for the area.

I’ll share with you some of the wines that we bought and drank.  Urbano Cellars makes a great 2005 Solano County old vine Zin.  Plenty of fruit, medium body, and old vine softness.  Dashe Cellars has a 2007 Petite Sirah from Alexander Valley that is thick, inky dark color, rich, and framed in oak.

The lively and quaint Irish Monkey tasting room in action.

While we enjoyed the people and wine in all the tasting rooms we visited we had the best time in the Irish Monkey Cellars tasting room.  We arrived late so the tasters were happier than earlier in the day.  Contributing to that was the personality of the vintner and tasting room staff.   While creating ambiance in an old industrial warehouse is challenging these folks have done a more than decent job.

Irish Monkey has a larger selection of wines than most, see their WineQuesters.com profile or Website, and we found all of the wines to be excellent.  We especially enjoyed their Fume Blanc from the El Dorado County in the Sierra Foothills and a full-body Primitivo from Lovell Valley, Napa.

We have one tasting room remaining to visit and map.  Rock Wall is on the old Alameda Navel Air Station somewhere near Rosenblum.  Actually, it is a Rosenblum family winery.  They recently opened for tastings on the weekends but I didn’t know about it until the day we returned from that mapping trip.  We need a biz excuse to return to that area anyway.

For convenience to major cities and airports you can’t beat the SF Bay Area urban wineries.  The wines are a delight, the staff and vintners excited to see you, and you don’t have to dedicate a big budget and a day for the visits.

- jim

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

Katya and I don’t like to tell tasters what they will taste. That’s because we frequently don’t taste what others tell us we should.  However, I will mention wines that are interesting and unusual.

The Sol Rouge Winery in Santa Rosa makes one of the more interesting Cabs that I’ve ever tasted.  It tastes of green kalamata olives.  Bryan Kane, the vintner, told us that the Napa vineyard soils create this unusual condition.

We sipped from our prized bottle for four evenings and the wine held up very well.

This wine is fun and pairs well with dark chocolate.

It is available in the Winery Collective tasting room near Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco.  This tasting room is owned by a few vintners and hosts wines from all over California.

- jim

The first Wine Questers Live Blogup (then called Taste n Tell) was at seven SF urban wineries last January 10th.  Tiny A. P. Vin was one of those.  Andrew makes only Pinot and from various California regions.

This evening Katya and I are doing a little comparison tasting of his 2007 Alexander Valley and Santa Lucia Highlands (Salinas Valley) Pinots.

Both are soft with finely tuned Pinot nose and taste.  The differences are subtle and interesting.  We feel that the Santa Lucia is slightly more robust.  The fruit will taste a little different but you have to really pay attention.

As usual I’m not going to tell you what you will taste. Everyone’s taste varies in many ways and is affected by mood, environment, experience, and more.

I will suggest that if you are in SF you make an appointment with Andrew and try his Pinots from various regions.  This is an usual venue with a fine winemaker and an interesting selection of Pinots available for a broad comparison tasting.

- jim

On Saturday January 10th about 60 wine questers met at a warehouse winery operation on Treasure Island in SF Bay for our first Wine Questers Taste n Tell.  We tasted from these tiny boutique wineries: Vie, Blue Cellars, Treasure Island, Morningwood, and Sol Rouge.  Too much wine to review here but we loved them all.  The wines will be reviewed on Twitter as they are consumed.

The vintners presented their wines to the group sequentially and then set up on a nearby table so we could explore them more.  I was busy shooting video and doing event organizing things so I missed a lot of the presentations and wines.  Everyone seemed to be having fun and format was very good.

Katya Preston got up at 5 AM on Saturday and made over a hundred Russian peroshki.  These are little pies or turnovers stuffed with different meats, potato, and apple.  There were many comments that they went great with the reds.

Later we moved to A.P. Vin near the SF Design Center and then to the shoreside home of Canihan Wines with an incredible view of the Bay and the Golden Gate Bridge!

These wineries are not open to the public on a regular basis.

I wouldn’t consider Treasure Island or even San Francisco a wine tasting road trip destination but it seems to be getting there.  The vintners are in various stages of opening tasting rooms and we can expect to see some soon around Fisherman’s Wharf.  They are enthusiastic about developing San Francisco as a wine tasting destination and their wines are terrific!