The Iron Chevsky Wine Blog

Great dinner last weekend at Chris & Molly's (our dear friends) - Chris is a master griller and he impressed once again with his lamb chops! (pun intended). Serious winos in attendance contributed a tasty array of wines. While most of the wines delivered, the consensus seemed to be that the 1996 Clape Cornas stole the show with the lamb. I especially liked the 2002 Beaune-Greves 1er Cru burgundy from Michel Lafarge, even though it was perhaps a bit too bright and delicate for the lamb, but so satisfying, complex and charming like only an aged burgundy can! Here are the wines and dishes to salivate over: Champagne starter. Fascinating wine - a 1987 Corton-Charlemange white burgundy from Mommessin, the producer of the famous Clos de Tart grand cru - who knew he had a white grand cru! Silky texture, copper tones (color and palate), unfortunately over the hill, with oxidized notes. Still a rare treat. The '97 Brunello Poggio Alle Mura from Castello Banfi was in goo

Zola just opened in downtown Palo Alto. Finally, I hoped, a foodie French place, worthy of taking my burgundies to, by the chef and wine connoisseur Guillaume Bienaime, previously of Marche in Menlo Park, a restaurant that was renowned among wine geeks for hosting great wine dinners. After 3 hours at Zola and sampling a dozen dishes, I am thoroughly satisfied. It was creative seasonal French cooking, comfort food, I'd say, taken to the next level. Not fancy gastronomic, but rather very very tasty. The style of food gave me a feeling like Pizzeria Delfina (of course, that's Italian) and Marlowe (California cuisine), in San Francisco, but with more selection, and it's French - my favorite! This will be my go-to place in Palo Alto, thank goodness, finally! It's not cheap, but not too expensive either, for the quality you get. Here are some quick snapshots of what we had. Everything was delicious, and paired with wine very well! We sampled a variety of appetizers w

The 10th annual Institute of Masters of Wine (IMW) North America Champagne event roared through San Francisco at the end of September. Held in the gorgeous Ferry Building at Market One, with the largest concentration of venerable masters of wine (MW's) in one room that I'd ever seen, this continues to be my favorite champagne tasting of the year in the Bay Area, and an incredible bargain at $65. Once again, this time it did not disappoint. The quantity and quality of the champagnes seemed as high as ever, and generous selection of cheeses didn't hurt either. Hardly any surprises among the tasted wines, vintage champagnes were the most impressive group, as they should be. I wholeheartedly recommend this event to everyone who is interested in champagne. For more info on IMW events, check here . Here are my quick notes. Enjoying @mastersofwine annual champagne tasting SF w/ fellow bloggers @vinography & @RJonWine (&Connie). Gr8 event! pic.twitter.com/Ww6JINE6

September 2014 marks the fifth anniversary of Tango , the mobile tech company in Mountain View, where I am the VP of Engineering. As mentioned previously , besides my main job, I also run the "Tango Winos" wine tasting club there as an extracurricular activity and as a management "thank you" to employees. We do this quarterly, paid 100% by the company, with focus on higher-end great wines of the world, something that employees will not usually (perhaps ever) drink. Forty people attended the latest one, which is a lot for barely a 200 person start-up. The tasting, served with catered dinner, was a ton of fun for everyone, and is the only corporate wine tasting event of such caliber anywhere in the Valley, AFAIK, which makes me particularly proud to do this at Tango. What made this tasting even more special was the 5th anniversary of the company, so we upped the ante with famous bottles at $200-$500 each! I prepared a venerable array of 7 wines, 3 bottles each,