Sometime during my childhood, some Filipinos I knew started identifying as “Pacific Islander” along with “Asian”. I didn’t think anything of it. In the present day – probably some time in 2018 – I go on a persistent Scruff date with a native Hawaiian. A bingo card for gay first date topics might include burned family connections or sexual shenanigans, but for me, a square always includes identity – which easily glided from an identity-driven blind wine tasting game at this wine bar. He comments: yes, why do Filipinos like to check the Pacific Islander box? I don’t get it. I don’t disagree. The rest of the date is fine, but I feel bad about partially wondering how to escape this date unscathed because I’m in the mood for accelerated drunkenness with my friends and this wine just isn’t doing it.… read more
Tag: Pinot Noir
On Filipino Food and Wine Pairings: an Experiment
I never thought it would feel this quick, but I’ve spent almost 10 years in the wine industry, accompanied by all types of grapey gripes. They range from folks who think red wines are served too warm (which is a perfectly reasonable thought that I also vibe with), to those who decry Chardonnay as if it was Satan manifested into a liquid. Some are oddly offended by the slightest hint of sugar to the point where anything remotely sweeter than battery acid is considered a flaw. I’m not here to yuck anyone’s yum (even when said yum yucks other yums), but damn. Let’s loosen our sommelier pins just a smidgen.
Onto what Lagrein-ds my gears: I fucking hate pairing suggestions that generalize off-dry wines into super generic categories for particular cuisines, like this line: “try this German Riesling with Asian food”.… read more
Look I’m just going to post about these 11 Champagnes I tasted in August 2018 and forgot about because life is just going to get worse and the more I wait the more inappropriate it’ll get
Studying Champagne while your life is going through several circumstances for which Champagne is simply Not Acceptable is a weird moment. Or maybe it is acceptable. I haven’t decided yet. All I know is that it’s been a pendulum of anxiety and excitement, and suddenly every day seems simultaneously too slow and too fast.
Zoom presentations on 21 Champagne producers? Yes! All for it, but presenting Gaston Chiquet and telling a funny story about their blanc de blancs and your last birthday in Vancouver before moving to San Francisco while trying to budget finances at the corner of your eye is real. Falling asleep in a bathroom: real.
…actually, there may be a reason for Champagne, but I don’t wanna say what that is yet.… read more
Santa Barbara, Santa Claus, and the CWAS Exam
I feel like I’ve gone full circle: the first vineyard I’ve ever been to was in Santa Barbara. Here I am with the last class of the California Wine Appellation Specialist program studying the same sub-region, along with the weird loose ends like wines from Los Angeles county, whose appellations all seem to have “Malibu” tacked somewhere in their place names.
It’s odd that I consider the end of a course dramatic enough to something that completes a full circle, but I said it once and I’ll say it again: school is bae. Already looking into more courses, you guys. God damn, tuition. What the fuck is a savings account? If the gayest wines are rosés and Champagnes, it follows that I should probably sign up for the master-level Provence or Champagne courses with the Wine Scholar Guild.… read more
Gay wine culture: the uncontrollable urge to pair Arroyo Grande wines with Ariana Grande
The stroke of December leads to the dawn of pregnant holiday plans which I’ve decided to not spend in Vancouver for the first time. Christmas, the first of my big two, has passed – and I planned for the Eve to be a quiet one, and it was legitimately fantastic. Why don’t I roast vegetables more often, while listening to Ariana Grande’s Christmas music, and then watch episodes of Grand Hotel while sipping Crémant? I spent the 25th at a friend’s, a polar opposite yang to the previous night’s yin. Ever watch someone combine your Premier Cru Champagne with Korbel, but then have your cringe melt into a shrug because it’s Christmas? Yeah.
And then the other holiday evenings. Y’all. One night involved all of attending the opening of a new exhibit at the GLBT Museum, attending a fantastic art exhibit at Strut, and then drunken shenanigans for a friend’s birthday.… read more
Putting the Rain in Monterey’s Thermal Rainbow
It’s a partial shame that I was in the USA for Canadian Thanksgiving and in Canada for American Thanksgiving. I didn’t get my fill of holiday food – and I’m not headed back to Canada for the big holiday extravaganza (much to the discontent of my colleagues and family) – so I’ll have to make do, and I’m not mad at that. Huzzah! Maybe my mind will change (it won’t), but nothing sounds better than eating take-out, drinking an entire bottle of Champagne, and binge-watching feel-good movies.
But yes, Canada: I’m perpetually unafraid of rocking my combination of short overalls and thick plaid jacket, but I was greeted with all of Vancouver’s rain: I realized my mistake during my ride-share to the San Francisco airport.… read more
Bay/Bae Wines for Bay/Bae Moments
This city is doing things to me. I willingly and happily went to a networking event, you guys! I mean, it was themed which made it as enticing as free booze at straight equivalents of such events: it was hosted at Oasis by Out in Tech, a company which focusses on LGBTQ+ folks in the tech world. I’ve attended the venue before, in the form of drag shows and fuzzy evenings, but upon a night of networking, it got packed real quickly, the drink lines as straight as the room’s sexualities.
I’m exclaiming my excitement for a queer tech networking event, yet weeks later I’m stoked about a regular one. 20-year-old me is grimacing at 25-year-old me. Also, you know you’ve reached peak queer tech when someone’s name tag says that they work at “U-bear”.… read more
On Sonoma and my 4th Wine Bloggers Conference
I vigorously decided not to attend the Wine Bloggers Conference this year (in Santa Rosa) until the very last minute. Why not go? I live in San Francisco, and the theme for the previous Tuesday’s California Wine Appellation Specialist class was, well, Sonoma. A sign. Even though I missed all the early bird discounts, I decided that I would be absolutely insane not to attend. After some nudges from fellow wine attendees and comforting caresses to my bank account, I clutched the part of my chest that encased my liver and headed up.
I can’t believe it’s already been my fourth year! I still remember my first, which brought me to the relatively nearby Santa Barbara region after I earned a scholarship to attend.… read more
Napa’s 2017
Napa. Its seemingly daunting wine is made up of relatively simply shaped sub-regions. The clean-cut sixteen seem well-fit into a geographical puzzle compared to the overlapping Russian nesting doll appellations of every other region in California, and I am 100% here for that.
I finally ended last week’s mental tug-of-war on whether or not to attend the Wine Bloggers Conference in neighbouring Santa Rosa, and I’ve decided to go but with as much cost-cutting as possible. Though it was super fun, one of the most interesting sessions was the discussion on the recent wine country fires: the panel included George Rose, photographer; Patsy McGaughy, of Napa Valley Vintners; and Pierre Bierbent, winemaker of Signorello Estates.
The descriptions and statistics of the damage were heartbreaking, including 75,000 total acres burned and 652 homes lost. … read more
Mendocino’s medicine-o
What terrible timing it was for the recent fires in California to start wreaking havoc around the same time as I started the California Wine Appellation Specialist course. It’s so unfortunate that a recent masterclass helped surge personal interest in a wine region that went relatively ignored during my WSET diploma studies, only for the terrible news to ensue. I hope that by learning more about the region I’m doing a part to support them – and thusly I may also retract my decision to not attend this year’s Wine Bloggers Conference in Santa Rosa? Sigh. We’ll see.
Testing my just-in-time schedule, I rushed out of the door from work to make it to class, being the last of the group that was on time, but that seems to be my Thing, anyways. … read more