American Beer Goes Global

Here's a cool article about how American craft beer is starting to get a demand overseas, especially in the UK. That's great news both from a business and cultural perspective. American brewers have made some distinctly American styles over the years and European brewers, who rely more heavily on tradition, are starting to innovate and are looking to the U.S. for inspiration. The article focuses on California breweries but East Coast breweries, being closer to the European market, have potential for exports too. I could see European demand for beers from Dogfish Head and Bell's, for example.

Porter Creek Winery

Here is a great article from the San Francisco Gate about Porter Creek Winery, one of my favorite Sonoma wineries. I got to visit this winery a few years ago. They have big, corporate wineries all around them with big fancy tasting rooms. Porter Creek's tasting room was basically their garage. And you know what? Their wine was far better than the stuff I was tasting from the big wineries. We currently have their Zinfandel in the enomatics, which was the NY Times #1 pick in a recent Zinfandel tasting. Look for the Pinot coming soon.

A restaurant-quality meal at home (at a price you'll love!)

New Year's Splurge or Steal

Pizza night at kybecca

Pizza pizza everywhere!! Tonight we add a couple more Neapolitan style pizzas to the selection to bring the total to four. - fried chicken pizza and pesto pizza-
our line-up now includes:

3 cheese pizza - buffala mozzarella, regular mozzarella, and parmesean topping our house made sauce

mac & cheese pizza pictured) - our mac & cheese on a pizza.

Fried chicken pizza - tender buttermilk battered fried chicken as a topping and finished with parmesan cheese. perfect comfort food

pesto pizza - our pistachio pesto covered with mozzarella and parmesan. Great vegetarian pizza

see you tonight!

Pizzas at kybecca

We are really excited about pizza day (Sundays starting at 4p) here at kybecca. While in Italy I was inspired by a chef who made the best pizzas. He made a pizza that was so simple and delicious I had to make it at the kybecca. Our take on this classic dish is great dough covered with a simple red sauces and smothered with buffala mozzarella, mozzarella and finished parmesan. This was the first pizza we introduced last week.
We started experimenting with flavors and decided our second pizza should incorporate something easily recognized as kybecca. Our mac & cheese is one of our customer's favorite items. Introducing kybecca's mac & cheese pizza. A half portion of our mac & cheese topping the new neo-Neapolitan dough, fresh house made red sauce with fresh herbs finished with just enough panko to give it a great crust. Come enjoy the our latest addition to the pizza menu.
Both Pizzas are available at 4p every Sunday. Next Sunday, Fried chicken pizza!
ble today starting at 4pm

.

Riesling Overdose

Last Tuesday I attended a dinner in Charlottesville hosted by Williams Corner Wine, one of our favorite importers and wholesalers. The wines were from importers Mosel Wine Merchant, who specialize in German wines, particularly Rieslings made along the Mosel river. We must have tasted at least a dozen different Rieslings plus a really nice German Pinot Noir. The wine was served with braised rabbit, which was delicious. Here are a few things I learned:

- Rieslings are still hugely under-rated. A $25 Riesling blows away most Chardonnay at that price when judged on the basis of complexity, food-friendliness, and originality, among other things.

- Even sweet rieslings pair beautifully with food.

- Global warming appears to be making better quality German Rieslings, so it's not all bad!

- Wine geeks appear to mostly be men. As the guests continued to arrive, I noticed with chagrin that there wasn't a woman among them. I mean wine geek in a positive way, though

The tasting made me really wish that Rieslings were taken more seriously. Too many people just can't get past the sweet ones, and the dry ones don't seem to be of much interest either. Too bad.

The Prisoner on Cougar Town!

As you probably already know, we at kybecca are HUGE fans of The Prisoner! Evidently, Courtney Cox and her cast mates are also big fans of the wine and reached out to Orin Swift awhile back for some product placement. The first episode that featured The Prisoner aired on October 13th 2010 (Season 2, Episode 4 “The Damage You’ve Done!”) As the show is very wine-oriented anyway, Orin Swift is pretty excited about the opportunity. The wine will apparently make several additional appearances in the show.

You can catch up on past episodes of Cougar Town here. And you can come downtown or order from our website and buy yourself a bottle of the Prisoner to see what the hype is all about! (Or buy a taste in the Enomatics at the Wine Bar)

More About Ciders

Eric Asimov of the NY Times has a new article about ciders. I wrote about ciders in last month's Front Porch magazine. We don't do them as Thanksgiving picks because ciders aren't for everybody, but if you're game they are great to have on Thanksgiving. My personal favorite - the ciders of Michel Jodoin from Quebec, especially his rose cider. It's pink color comes from the type of apples used: Geneva apples, a rare variety that has red flesh. I've had plenty of French, American, and British ciders, and this one is the best I've ever tasted.

I'm Making These & Drinking This

I found some baby sweet potatoes at Whole Foods the other day, problem is I really haven't cooked with sweet potatoes very much so I don't have a good recipe handy.
Saveur.com to the rescue, they really have a wealth of great recipes. In fact most of my tried and true Thanksgiving recipes come from the pages of Saveur. This one is Spiced Sweet Potato Wedges w/ Yogurt Dipping Sauce.
In any case this one looks easy and yummy and I am going to make it. I think a nice Pinot Gris from Alsace would make a good pairing. They tend to be a little richer and riper than the typical offerings. My choice is the Klement Klur 2006 Pinot Gris, $26.99.