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Cost (in U.S. dollars) of a single “Fog Point” Martini made in part with the famed fog that envelopes San Francisco. Served at restaurant Epic Steak, the martini is made with Hangar 1 Fog Point Vodka, a distillation of vodka plus tiny bits of water that condense from fog captured by mesh “fog catchers” strategically placed around the Bay Area.

When critics describe a wine, they refer to all of these except for its:

A. Head

B. Legs

C. Nose

D. Body

A wine’s “nose” is its aroma. Wine pros will say, for example, that a given wine has a nose of apricots and peaches. Similarly, a wine’s “legs” are the rivulets of wine that inch up the inside surface of the glass above the wine, then run slowly back down. It’s often said (erroneously) that the thicker the legs, the better the wine. Legs are a complex phenomenon related to the amount of glycerol and alcohol in the wine, plus the rate of evaporation of the alcohol. A wine’s “body” is its weight on the palate. Light-bodied wines feel about as heavy as skim milk on the palate, while full-bodied wines feel like half-and-half or even cream. Medium-bodied wines are somewhere in the middle. Head? Um, that falls in the beer department.

Veraison

Veraison (ver-AY-zhun) is happening right now all over California. It’s the time in a vine’s growing cycle when grape berries begin to soften and change color. “White” grapes go from green to yellowish, and red… Continue reading

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