Wine Wednesdays - Meaty Zins, Close Encounters, The Best Theater in San Francisco, and Birthday Drinks

I'm sure it's been a long week but luckily Wine Wednesday has rolled around once again which means more wine posts for you (and hopefully you're own glass... or bottle when you get home!).

Meaty Zins

This was a really fun week for me. I'm a member of several wine clubs and two of them only do shipments twice a year. Both of these were wines I'd tried once and decided to join their clubs since they were delicious and inexpensive. At the end of July, I received my first wine shipments from both of these clubs and was really excited to dive into their wines... so I had them both this week.

The first winery is a local East Bay wine maker - Urbano Cellars. Their tasting room is on 4th Street in Berkeley so it's definitely worth checking out if you don't want to drive all the way out to wine country.

I was craving a big steak dinner so I decided to try Urbano's 2006 Old Vine Zinfandel. It was also one of the wine's I hadn't tried yet so I was excited to give it a shot. The flavor on it was very intense and you could really tell it was getting a lot of complexity from the old vines. It's crazy that an 8 year old wine was still so robust and this one could stand up in a cellar for many more years. The flavor was a meaty, leathery, deep berry taste and it was a very well done Zin. It went great with my steak and veggie dinner. If it's not obvious from the picture, I was really excited to cook again after our trip to San Diego!

Urbano Cellars 2006 Old Vine Zinfandel $25.00

Close Encounters

The other wine club I tried a bottle from was Area 5.1. I'm not going to lie, we walked into their tasting room because of the name. We ended up finding a winery with a really fun premise and really unique

blends. You'll be seeing their wines here again, but let's talk about last week's wine - Close Encounter (even their names are fun!), a blend of  Grenache Blanc, Roussane, and Loureiro. 

The wine was very acidic with notes of lemon and grass. It was really crisp and refreshing and went really well with my roast chicken over roast veggies (seriously, was so happy to cook again!!!). 

I also want to say how happy I was that this wine had a low alcohol of 13.5%. I tend to have two glasses of wine a night and I can definitely feel the difference between a 13.5% and an 18%. I like wine because I like the taste, not because I want to get wasted every night. I really appreciate wine makers that focus on high quality, delicious wines instead of pumping up the alcohol content. It's nice to have two glasses of a good wine and not feel tipsy. 

Area 5.1 2012 Close Encounter $24.00

The Best Theater in San Francisco

When I watch movies at home, I like to curl up on my cozy couch with a glass or two of wine. So why can't a theater give that same experience? Well, the Kabuki Theater in Japan Town has solved this problem. The theater has bar areas built into the common areas. Some can only be accessed before shows but there is a whole floor of only 21+ theaters so you can take your beer, wine, or cocktail into the movie with you. In addition to that, the seats are large plush lounge chairs (which you reserve ahead of time so no worries if you want to hang out at the bar until the minute your flick starts) and there is a little table between every two seats so you can easily rest your drink and any food you got. Oh yes, the food - Kabuki goes well beyond your normal theater fare and offers options like pizzas, salads, sandwiches, and other small bites. They even point out which items are ready faster if you don't have a lot of time between shows.

So Friday when we wanted to see the most anticipated movie of the summer (at least for me), Guardians of the Galaxy, of course we were going to pick the theater where we could guarantee our seats and enjoy a glass of wine. I was really happy to be able to sip on some Petite Sirah and enjoy a Margarita pizza (yes, sometimes I go crazy and have pizza) while watching an awesome flick!

Birthday Drinks

Sunday was the birthday of my lovely boyfriend so of course we celebrated... with drinks! Dan loves cider so there was only one place to go... upcider, the only cider bar in SF. We have a lot of fun trying new things there and we have very different tastes so it's nice to get to try a bit of something that I wouldn't have ordered myself. For example, I got this dry apple Sonoma Cider aged in Bourbon barrels called The Anvil. Dan got Pineapple cider. We are just two very different peas in a pod sometimes. All in all, it was a nice quiet way to spend his birthday enjoying a drink that we love and that happily is becoming more and more popular!

On a side note, one of our favorite things about upcider is the people watching. It has huge glass windows that overlook a busy intersection on Polk St. If you love casually judging strangers over cider (they have beer and wine also, not to mention a decent food selection) then definitely check out this little gem.