Noir City 7

Opening night for the wildly successful, 7th annual Noir City Film festival recently took place at the Castro Theater this past Saturday night. It's a must for any film noir aficionado. Or in my case, for anyone who merely wants to play (and dress) the part, while enjoying the communal cinema experience in the unbeatable Castro Theater ambience. This year, the festival focuses on the media, with an opening night double bill that featured Deadline USA (starring Humphrey Bogart) and Scandal Sheet. I enjoyed the former for the sharp, punchy writing and typically witty, no nonsense performance by Mr. Bogart, while the latter also had terrific writing and prescient commentary on the dumbing down of the daily newspaper.

Noir City 7 runs at the Castro Theater, with two films screened nightly (7:30pm and 9:30pm) through this Sunday February 1st.


Local wine blogger, keepin' it noir

ANIMAL COLLECTIVE - MY GIRLS

Well, Animal Collective's latest album, named after the Frank Gehry designed concert venue Merriweather Post Pavilion in Columbia, MD, has been out for a few weeks now. I look forward to finally downloading a copy, and also to seeing the band perform in May at the newly renovated Fox Theater in Oakland.

Chances are that some of you are into this band and have already seen this video for the song 'My Girls.' But for everyone else, check out the cosmic, sample based, beautifully harmonized sounds of Animal Collective, set to a pretty cool video.

SPANISH WINE, gateway to the old world, bridge to elsewhere (anywhere else) in Europe?

Pop Quiz 1 - After you first got into wine, after you learned your cab from your pinot noir and chardonnay from your sauvignon blanc, which country's wine's did you check out next?

Pop Quiz 2 - You are a wine geek. You love nearly anything 'naturally' made, especially if it is French. A.) Explain your Francophile tendencies. B.) Extra credit. You enjoy good sherry and Rioja from Lopez de Heredia. What do you know about Spain's other wines? And how does your preference for honest, low alcohol, high acid French wines inform your exploration into other types of wine, mainly those from Spain?

HIGH ALCOHOL - Not always a bad thing

I tasted a few wines in the past day which, at over 14.5% abv, could be considered 'high alcohol' for red table wines. In fact, I tasted many such wines, as I tasted a large number of domestic reds yesterday. Most of them were of no interest to me. Overly fruity, oaky, burnt from heavily toasted French oak, lifeless from lack of acidity, you name it. A range of what many picky palates would call out as flaws in modern winemaking.

However, two wines stood out for their relative sense of balance. One was Spanish, the other from the Suison Valley (southeast of Napa Valley). Both had 15.5% alcohol, something you'd no doubt note after drinking a few glasses, but tasting the wine, perhaps is somewhat less noticeable.

The 2005 Val Llach Val Llach is classic, modern Priorat. With its bold aromas of cassis, blackberry jam and sweet mocha it probably will not win over those who generally do not enjoy big, brawny, intensely fruity Priorat. Typically, I'm the first to hate on Priorat (for that matter, throw in Ribera del Duero as well). Overly ripe fruit and way too much new oak seem to rule the day. However, this particular Priorat, produced by the president of the Priorat D.O., just worked for me. Yes, it's big and not shy about utilizing some new oak, but that llicorella (slate) minerality is there, as well as nicely balanced acidity. Gonna go out on a limb here and guess that this is one of the few Priorats I like due to a.)CARIGNAN makes up the majority of the wine, and as we all know carignan is just delicious and/or b.) the vineyard site really is top notch, with an incredibly steep slope composed largely of black slate.

Abe Schoener, best known for his Scholium Project wines, also makes slightly more accessible, lower priced wines under the Ten Brick label. The 2007 Tenbrick Pinot Noir Suison Valley shows intensely flavored, red fruit, of a candied quality, that I often associate with Russian River pinot noir. Like the very few decent Russian River pinots out there, this wine has real acidity to balance the intensely ripe fruit flavors. It also shows lively, with a natural, tense structure that shows its stuff mainly mid-palate and towards the end taste. That's the way I like it. As one might expect in the location, near Fairfield and heading towards on the Amtrak line towards Sacramento, the grapes have no problem with ripeness - alcohol is 15.5%.

While both of those earned my respect, they probably would not earn my dollar. For the price of the Val Llach (about $75) I'd go with an '07 JJ Prum Wehlener Sonnenuhr Riesling Auslese, using the extra $15 or so for a bottle of good muscadet. And for the price of the Ten Brick Pinot Noir, I'd go with a bottle of '06 Louis Claude Desvignes Morgon Javernieres.

Further proof that, though I respect good winemaking in new world and trendy, stylistically new world leaning regions, more often than not I'll continue spending my money on the classic, and often times less fashionable, wines out there.

Bay Area Gardening

There are people who are much, much better and more experienced gardeners than I (in fact, that would probably be most people who garden). So I will not begin to consider posting an instructional gardening bit here. Nevertheless, I realized that it had been a while since posting on the results of our Bernal 'foothill' plot. Last summer, there were bountiful greens, especially mustards, romaine and mixed lettuces. Cherry tomatoes did decently well. Potatoes worked out also. We actually grew stuff that grew and had food to eat for several months. After the summer bounty, the garden came into tougher times. We did not plant the right things at the right time, we went for days without watering (partiallly due to neglect, as well as an occasionally non functioning water water supply).

Today, we planted some garlic, kale, rapini, spinach and romaine, and transferred a few collards which had been in a planter outside our apartment. Things should be on the up and up in our little slice of terraced community garden land.


Garlic


Close-up, Mustard green leaf


Flat leaf Parsley - got to ALWAYS have parsley around the house


Watering is important

Can you smell Onenasty, power of the Onenasty

Allow me to provide a little background on this homemade curiosity, the creative progeny of two dudes from Athens, Georgia. Apparently Sean Rawls (of SF based Still Flyin'fame) and his fantasy football teammate 'Ice' (don't know his real name) produced this song and video to celebrate a victory over some of their friends in the fantasy football season. I've never participated in fantasy football and hardly follow the NFL, but can definitely get down with this goofy, but well-produced song and video.

This is a modern day classic in DIY straight to youtube music video production.

Oh yeah...despite what I just said earlier about not caring much about the NFL, I can't help but be excited for Sunday's showdown between the Steelers and Ravens.

GO RAVENS!

1965 BV Georges de Latour Napa Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve

Last week I tasted a 1965 BV Georges de Latour Napa Cabernet Sauvignon. By a narrow margin, this is the oldest Napa wine I have tasted. Excited to try my first Andre Tchelistcheff produced (produced, not consulted) wine, I must say this did not disappoint. I did not take notes, but recall that it was red fruited, subtly flavored, elegantly textured, slightly mineral, still alive and well. A really elegant wine, especially for Napa Cab. Even Luc Ertoran would drink a glass. Hey Luc, Africa may be the future, but, as it relates to wine, sometimes I do believe that Napa is the future, so long as it hails from the distant past!

Alright, no more California wine notes for a while, I am well aware of the name of this URL....