One of my favorite things is to ask people about their own personal favorite foods and drinks.  So I decided to poll friends all over the country about their favorite Summer Drinks, or Dranks as we call em’ if they are in Big Gulps.  Well, unfortunately for summer drinks(ing), the older we get, the more we have to do (not referring to drinking of course, but real stuff), tomorrow! BUT it’s summer time and we all need to kick back a bit and as my friend Ryan would say, “What do you have to do tomorrow?”

When we were out to dinner recently, a friend asked me, “So do you ever order anything without asking the server a question about their favorite?” Well, no, I typically like to find out the house specialties, it backfires occasionally and more often than not, lands me a great meal or something I wouldn’t have normally tried.  It is the same thing for traveling to new territories and finding the good spots to eat.  You have to talk to people. It’s part of the adventure of travel and food too.  I learned that one from my Dad, so I guess I’m proud of talkin’ to peeps about their favorites!

Here, we are talking (or emailing) our way to the best summer drink favorites, thanks guys!

Favorite Summer Drinks, From East to the West:

Ryan, New Hampshire

• Smuttynose IPA is ridiculously crisp and nicely hopped it goes well with steak, burgers, hot dogs, cereal, strawberries and of course more beer. They are like Lay’s potato chips, no one can have just one. They are the local Portsmouth NH brewery who are making amazing award winning beers. A staple in any NH home.
• Wolfer Estate, Long Island, NY Rose Table Wine 2010 @ Lodge in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY – I really enjoy their crispness and bright fruit characteristics.
• Vis Gris de Cigare, Bonny Doon- Light, crisp and refreshing with tons of summer fruit. And of course, who could go wrong with this bottle!

Chad, Ohio

• Victory-Summer Love Ale - A crisp and clean one from Pennsylvania
• Bell’s-Oberon Wheat Ale - from Michigan
• Brooklyn-Summer Ale - “Light Dinner Ale”, from Brooklyn (they have a great website!)

Kirk & Suzy, Texas

• Kongsgaard Chardonnay is refreshing and tasty though some may be offended by the “oakiness”….and the price.
• Houston Summer Lunch @ Gravitas Restaurant we have here sometimes on Tuesdays which is fried chicken (the best I’ve had anywhere and only on Tues.) with Blanches de Bruxells beer (preferably on tap).

Kelly, Washington

Sangria from Cook’s Illustrated with Kelly’s Suggestions

• 2 oranges, washed and sliced
• 1 lemon, washed and sliced
• 1/4 cup sugar
• 1/4 cup triple sec
• 1 bottle, chilled red table wine (Kelly suggests Spanish table wine – Recipe suggest Merlot)
• +Add apples (I know they probably don’t add much flavor but I like how they absorb the wine and make a yummy snack at the end)

Let your Sangria sit for 1 day for best results (at least two hours). Use juicy fruit.

Grace, California

Strawberry Basil Vodka Lemonade

Makes 2 quarts – 8 Servings

• 3 cups of strawberries (approx. 1.5 cup of blended strawberries in Food Processor)
• Lemons
• 3 cups of lemonade (use 2 cups of Countrytime Lemonade to start the base + 1 cup of fresh squeezed lemon juice)
• Basil Leaves
• 1 cup of Vodka (How to make your own Strawberry Vodka in Mason Jars)

Squeeze a cup of lemon juice and mix well with Countrytime lemonade mixture or your own lemonade concoction. Add 1 cup of Strawberry or Citrus flavored Smirnoff Vodka, strawberry-mash blend.

Anne, California

• Muns Rose of Pinot from Santa Cruz Mountains - Nothing better on a Summer evening than dinner at Restaurant James Randall in Los Gatos, CA with a glass of Muns Rose of Pinot.
• Silver Mountain’s Rose of Pinot from Santa Cruz Mountains

Al, California

• Paulaner Weissbier or Hefe-Weisse
• Franziskaner/Spaten Weissbier or Hefe-Weisse -These are two of my favorites.  I equally like both the ‘weissbier’ and the ‘hefe-weisse from these two brewers. Weissbier has the suspended yeast filtered out and hefe-weiss (usually cloudy) is unfiltered. In Germany the hefe-weisse beers have a lot of sediment which is full of B vitimins. Hence, the common reference to the beer in Germany as food.

Jessica, California

• Summer Wine Spritzer – In a glass pour 2/3 white wine, 1/3 Sparkling Lemonade + 1 raspberry per glass

1. The best wines perfectly pair with food and compliment a meal.
   
2. It’s all about what YOU like, everyone prefers something different.

I’m not sure what it is about wine + food that throws me off or just doesn’t interest me. After six years in California, I can finally taste wine and know fairly well what I like.  However, when you add food to the equation or use the idea of a wine being perfect with a particular food, I lose interest.  Or, to be honest, is it that I lose discernment and my palate becomes prejudice? Or is it something else entirely?  Don’t get me wrong, the proper wine paired with food is important and tasty but why do I just not care about wine with food?

Wine lovers, sippers, and gulpers, CA visitors and residents … think back on recent wine tastings.  And yes, I know this conversation is laced in pretension and pretension seems to be the main marketing bent for wines.  The pretension is one aspect that would seem to hold the marketing of wine back in my book (along with the grogginess of the day after one has “tasted” too much of a good thing).  Because Americans have become the biggest consumers of wine in the world, maybe the pretension thing really does woo Americans.  BUT … have you heard some winemakers, *think serious indoor sophisticated voice*, discuss their wines as pairing with food and being low in alcohol as a marketing talking point? I have heard this quite often in wine tasting opening statements and we’ve had a lot guests this spring which equals a lot of wine tasting.  After hearing this the first few times, I started thinking, just to myself of course, “I don’t care about wine with food.”  Strongly recognizing that this thought was a no-no statement, because I know an attribute of French wines (or Old World wines in general) is that they are known for being very food friendly, made me keep this thought to myself.  However, I secretly wondered if I was alone in not caring much about wine with food?

The bigger isn’t always better concept in wines (bigger in flavor and alcohol) was partially described to me at Hillcrest Vineyards in Santa Cruz. One of the partners in the business told us that big California Cabernet was popular in the 1980’s and the oaky, buttery Chardonnay was the big thing in the 1990’s in the US.  I then read in an SF Gate article entitled “Ten food-friendly wines you can bring home to dinner,” that “Highly alcoholic, overly fruit-driven wines with an abundance of new oak are generally thought of as the antithesis of “food friendly“ (http://articles.sfgate.com/2006-06-15/wine/17297972_1_viura-caceres-spain-rioja-world-wines).” Ah dang it, those are the wines I like!  I’ve considered that my taste for the big and bold may have to do with dropping a decent amount of money on a good bottle of wine and wanting it to pack a punch (without being to tannin heavy).  This could also explain why I’m a wine saver/hoarder and don’t drink my stock until we have a justifiable special occasion (my brother claims we’ll have a great wine collection in the future or a hole in our closet floor, one of the two) so this also puts the pressure on wine to be extra bold and enjoyed on its own before or after a meal, I suppose you could even call IT a meal.  Then I found out, I’m not alone … on our Aunt and Uncle’s dining room table I spotted a recent article from the San Jose Mercury News entitled, “On Wine: With or without Food?” In the article it states that, “Recent research shows that nearly 60 percent of the wine consumed by avid U.S. wine drinkers does not accompany a meal. About one-quarter of the wine they drink is consumed on its own, in situations where food of any kind is a no-show. One-third of the wine is consumed with snacks or appetizers, or while the consumer is preparing a meal (http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ci_17901771?nclick_check=1).”

The author from the San Jose Mercury article claims that the research of this new wine trend of wine being consumed without food may show that Americans are developing a wine culture of our own and that being a very good thing.  See US winemakers … I’m not alone.  With this in mind, we are apparently defying wines main purpose, to accompany food.  It sounds kind of dangerous for wine not to accompany food but maybe wines of our very own will be cultivated in the name creativity and new possibility.  You can pack a punch wine, go for it!

Do you need to pretend you are among the ladies who lunch, even though you have to head out on the one day of the weekend that you don’t actually have to work?  This is California right … everyone works.  The Restaurant at Wente Vineyards is your spot for a ladies who lunch outing.  Wente is also a good place for dates with your honey, hubby, or daddy too (we saw all of the above).  The complimentary lunch valet also makes you feel like your out-for-lunch aka on vaca.  You even get to head out of town a bit for a nice drive in the country to get there, an SF Bay Area Day Trip for sure, without having to go all the way to Napa or Paso Robles.  It is about a 45 minute drive from Mountain View and from Oakland to get out to Livermore, CA.  As you get closer to Livermore you will find fruit stands along the road.  We bought cherries along the way and had a cherry spitting contest, FYI, not at Wente (don’t get yourself kicked out).

We liked snacking on: Cayenne Spiced Roasted Nuts, Maple, Garden Herbs & Warmed Nicolau Farms Goat Cheese, Herbed Bread Crumbs.

We liked sipping on: SEASONAL COCKTAILS such as the Lavender Martini and local wines.

• Livermore Valley Wine Country

When we want to have a really memorable party we have a wine tasting party.  Only certain guests can really appreciate an unsophisticated wine tasting activity.  This year, we told everyone to bring really good bottles.

A Fast Wine Tasting Set-up:

• 3-5 people per group (Give everyone a # and don’t let couples be together in the same group)
• Label each bottle with a number.  Divide up the whites and reds
• Give each group a piece of paper labeled with a number for each bottle of wine. A wine rating of 1-5 will be decided on by everyone in each group.  5 is the best and 1 rating is the worst. (Of course, my group had to start giving 2.25 ratings and 1.75 ratings)
• Designate a number cruncher at the party (Accountant, Actuaries, CFO, or an Engineer paired up with an Artist, Writer, or Teacher = Instant Fun) to figure out the winner.

White Winner (out of 4 whites):

• Chateau St Jean Chardonnay (09 • $12.99 – 07 • #25.99) – (90 PTS WILFRED WONG)

Red Wine Winner (out of 10 reds):

• Dierberg Pinot Noir 07 ($35-40) (Dierberg Pinot Noirs Rate between 90-95 PTS)

Easy & Enjoyable Saturday Afternoon at the Burrell School Winery

• Great Deck & View: You can buy a bottle of wine and sip it on the deck at Burrell School Winery with friends.  The view is beautiful and looks out over the vineyard towards the Monterey Bay.  Open Thursday through Sunday, 11am to 5pm.

• Short Weekend Drive: 25 minute south of San Jose, 15 minutes south of Los Gatos

• $5 Tastings or Buy a Bottle to share on the deck

• Free Tastings for You & Three Friends when you are a Wine Club Member: If you are a member you pay $70 for three bottles four times a year.  With this you receive free tastings including three guests and often can enjoy pick-up parties in the garden when you stop by for your wines.  We do this often when friends are visiting from out of town or even on Friday afternoons.

Summit Road Wine Tour Idea after the jump…

Quick Saturday Afternoon Santa Cruz Mountain Wine Tasting Day Trip

• Easy Three-Winery Tasting Tour: 15 Minutes from Los Gatos

Santa Cruz Mountain Wineries: http://www.scmwa.com/

Summit to See Wine Trail: http://www.summittoseawinetrail.com/

Stop #1:

Regale Winery: http://www.regalewine.com/

Daily Selection: $10 tastings for 5 wines, exquisite view and interesting mural painting in new structure

Winemaker’s Selection:  flight of six wines, with an emphasis on Pinot Noirs and Cabernets, for $15.

NOTE: You are welcome to purchase wine by the glass or a bottle to share and spend some time enjoying our beautiful Italian inspired decor. Picnics are welcome with wine purchase.  The Bocce Ball court is available on a first come, first served basis.  We ask that you limit play to one hour if some one is waiting to play.

Our tasting room is open Saturdays and Sundays from Noon to 5:30 p.m.  Please call (408) 353-2500 or CLICK HERE for reservations.

Stop #2:

Burrell School Winery: http://www.burrellschool.com/

Cute tasting room next to the old school house and a great deck to sip your wines

Thursday through Sunday, 11am to 5pm.

Stop #3:

Loma Prieta Winery: http://www.lomaprietawinery.com/

26985 Loma Prieta Way – Los Gatos, CA 95033

OPEN for Passport Days the third Saturday of January, April, July, and November, from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. (open other Saturdays sometimes as well)

Doctor, please, I need Chocolate intravenously pumped into my blood stream!

• Food & Beverages: The Desserts & Appetizers are the winners on the menu at Chocolate.  The desserts are amazing and can be enjoyed with just a beverage later in the evening.  Or you can indulge in a romantic dinner by sharing a fondue appetizer or small antipasti plate and then dessert to split.

• Good Date Spot: Romantic Dining Room & Heated Outdoor Patio.  Both of these dining areas are dimly lit for a romantic dinner or after dinner desserts with your honey or close friends.  FYI: the bathroom is located in the Bookshop Santa Cruz

• After dinner suggestions: Stroll around the Bookshop Santa Cruz afterward to let your food digest because you will be quite full, OR head to 515 for a creative hand-mixed cocktail.

• FINAL BITF: Chocolate is an after-dinner dessert stop for us.  We (John & Les) love to share the Gelato Sundae and the large Mate Veza Pale Ale.  Stick with the foundation dishes (cheese apps & antipasta plates) and desserts at Chocolate and you will be happy.

If you thought to yourself, “Yes!” to the idea of intravenously administered chocolate and have a similar feeling about chocolate, then you might be on your way to Chocolate in Santa Cruz before you finish reading this.  I have taken my dad, who is also a serious chocolate lover, to Chocolate telling him to trust me on ordering the Dark Chocolate Gelato Sundae and he now requests to go there on each and every visit, multiple times during the trip.

I am a dark chocolate fiend and this is one my favorite deserts of all time: Dark Chocolate Gelato Sundae with Dark Chocolate Sauce, Homemade Whip Cream, and a Lady Finger!  I am so serious that it is out of this world!

What to order and share on a romantic dinner for two: Vegetarian Antipasto Platter: Organic sundried tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, roasted red peppers, feta cheese, marinated mushrooms, hearts of palm, olives, pesto, grilled garlic, artichoke hearts served with bread, balsamic and olive oil (order the small platter because it is about the same size as the large), mixed greens salad or soup, and then a dessert to share.  Large Mate Veza or Wine.

For Dinner: The Upside & Downside of Getting an Entrée at Chocolate:
Their “Own Baked Pasta Rosettes” Fresh Pasta Pinwheels stuffed w/ ricotta & romano cheeses Served with Organic Marinara Sauce, or Artichoke Pesto Cream Sauce • Half Order with cup of Soup: $11.50 • w/ Organic Baby Greens: $10.50 •” is also very tasty for a good size dinner.

What Not to Order: The salads are very basic and familiar but nothing to impress you.  Some of the Entrees are good but nothing stands out except for the filling and tasty Pasta Rosettes [and the BBQ pork plate].

http://www.chocolatesantacruz.com/

Zach: Stick to the dessert.  The regular menu is overpriced and not that good.  Chocolate sundae is decadent.

• Food & Wine: Creative Organic and Locally Grown Menu with Wine & Food Pairings – ($5-35) – Special Event Dinners such as: Food Pairing & Barrel Tasting Dinners on Thursdays ($50) and half price bottles of wine w/food on Wednesdays.

• Unique NorCal Menu: Seasonal Daily Dinner Menu is Posted Online: (https://www.bonnydoonvineyard.com/cellar_door_cafe/) : Snacks ($5-8), Small Plates ($15-18), & Prix Fixe Family Style Dinner ($35), which does not include wine ($22-50ish a bottle).

• Community Dining Ambiance: The spacious & tastefully designed tasting room and café are located in a re-purposed warehouse, sporting recycled wine barrels, hanging wine bottle lights, and wine bottle chandeliers with modern touches.  The dining room has a few community-style long tables that you can share with other diners.

• Great New Chef: The kitchen is an open-air venue where you can spot the great Manresa Protégé Chef, Charlie Parker, hard at work.

Take your San Francisco and Silicon Valley foodie friends here to impress their palates, and your belly!  It isn’t cheap, but for this kind of restaurant it is worthwhile for special occasions. We spent $75 (not including tip) on a bottle of wine, four “snacks,” and the cheese plate as a starter for five guests.

Last Friday night, we wanted to impress our cheese-loving friends from LA (they aren’t actually cheesy, but they do love their gourmet cheeses) with organically grown NorCal food and wine.  We used this as an excuse to finally try out the Cellar Door Cafe at Bonny Doon in Santa Cruz.  The Café ended up being a most excellent choice because our friends exclaimed in bliss that they really don’t have food quite like this in LA.  The five of us enjoyed the small-plate experience that has been popular now for a few years at many restaurants inspired by Spanish Tapas.  This was one of those perfect dining experiences that left us wanting more or at least a rewind button.

Snacks, small plates, and a prix fixe menu are what’s for dinner or pre-dinner apps at the Bonny Doon Vineyard Tasting Room and gourmet Cellar Door Café.  Manresa Restaurant Protégé, Chef Charlie Parker’s snacks were bursting with flavor, each one a small, but concentrated, tasty punch.

We ate:

Snacks:

-Castelvetrano Olives, Peppers, and Roasted Garlic – $5

-Smoked Fingerling Potatoes in Aioli – $5 Amazing Flavor!  We have never experienced a potato in quite this way before!  We will be trying this one at home.  The Fingerling Potatoes were smoked, then deep fried, then placed in a ramekin with aioli on the bottom.  Pure bliss!

-Fried Brussel Sprouts w/ Smoked Chevre & Cider – $8 Out of this world flavor, texture, and crispiness!  The sprouts were cooked to a perfect crispness and served atop Smoked Chevre Cheese. Zach says you have to use a lot of butter to get that kind crispiness.

-Boquerones – $5  Anchovies that melted in your mouth.  Exquisite fresh white anchovy flavor!

Small Plate:

-Assorted Cheeses, Fruit, & Housemade Bread -$15 – w/ desert wine soaked golden raisins and apricots.

Wine:

-Syrah Le Pousseur, Fabulous wine choice for what we ordered.

https://www.bonnydoonvineyard.com/cellar_door_cafe/

The Bonny Doon Tasting Room is attached to the restaurant with tastings for $7.

Lesley: The food and dining experience were both great and I would never get tired of going to eat at CDC if someone else could foot the bill for dinner every night.  I love the feeling of the industrial Swift Street wine tasting rooms, boutiques, Annie’s Bakery, and Santa Cruz Mountain Brewery Pub.  If you haven’t been there to check it out, plan on it sometime.  CDC left us all wanting more because the flavors were creative and intricate without trying too hard.  Zach and John waited patiently to finish off all of our dishes because they both have the appetites of lions.  We spent $75 without tip for the five of us.  It was a splurge but well worth it!

Zach: Every bite of food and drink of wine was absolutely spectacular!  If you order something here and don’t like it, odds are it’s a problem with you and not the food.  If you’re like me and can’t afford to eat like this all the time, I promise you it’s worth the splurge.

John: Absolutely fantastic.  I look forward to having a full meal here, especially if the larger plates are as tasty as the small.  For everyone’s information, the Syrah we had is available at Safeway pretty regularly at a reasonable price.  Definitely worth a drive if you’re not as close as us.

We love to have wine tasting parties with a mixture of guests ranging in age from their later 20’s to their 60’s.  That way you are sure to get a good variety of wines from less than $10 bottles to more than $50 bottles!

This is one of our wine tasting party ideas that we executed last month.  It was a big success!

•8 bottles with a mixture of reds & whites for 16 people

How we constructed our tasting:

1. Wrapped each bottle with brown paper bags to hide the labels.  We then put a # on each one.  This way our tasting could be somewhat blind.
2. Asked everyone to bring their own wine glass and to wear something funny.
3. Organized appetizers of cheese and crackers, fruits, and a pitcher of water.  We also gave each person a piece of paper and a pen to rate the wines from 1 (least favorite) to 5 (exceptional).
4. Gave everyone a number from 1 to 4 and got into 4 groups of 4 for the tasting.  This way people who don’t know each other get to meet and chat.  By the end of the night they are buddies, trust me!
5. Group 1 started with wine #1, group 2 with wine #2 and so on.
6. Each group discussed the wine together and then individually rated it on their piece of paper.
7. At the end of the tasting we collected each taster’s wine ratings and our “Mathematician” averaged the scores to find the group favorite.

2009 Wine Tasting Party Winner:  Forty-Five North, Pinot Noir Rose ($18)