On December 5th, 1933, Prohibition was repealed and the Golden Gate Bridge was 11 months into construction. Celebrate this momentous occasion in the history of wine and San Francisco by enjoying your favorite Foggy Bridge wines on the 75th anniversary of Prohibition’s repeal this Friday, Dec. 5th.
Share your Repeal of Prohibition anniversary story on our blog by Dec. 8 at noon PST, and you will be entered to win a Foggy Bridge orange and brown striped beanie (perfect for these winter days). We will honor two winners only, and bonus points granted for creativity!
Fine print: We will award winners whose stories include any wines, not just those from Foggy Bridge. So bring out those wines you’ve been saving and cellaring, and share your story with us! Want to celebrate in true San Francisco style with an elegant Foggy Bridge Pinot Noir from Bien Nacido Vineyards or a crisp, refreshing Sonoma Sauvignon Blanc? Order online, and we will ship directly to any CA resident.
We look forward to hearing from all of you wine lovers out there!
The big feast is almost here! If you’re still wondering what to prepare for a first course, here is a delicious carrot soup recipe (created by our very own Joyce Stavert) with a twist - a sweet and spicy version made with apple juice and chili peppers - wake up those tired holiday taste buds!
The Asian flavors in this soup include ginger, curry powder and the fruity spice of a Habanero pepper. The carrots offer a refreshing change from the standard pumpkin or butternut squash varieties. Pair with our Foggy Bridge 2007 Columbia Valley Riesling for an intriguing food and wine pairing. The floral notes of the wine combine with a slight sweetness on the palate to bring out subtle flavors in the soup and cool the lingering heat of the peppers. The soup can be made one day in advance. Cover tightly and chill overnight, then reheat and garnish before serving.
Spicy San Francisco Carrot Soup with Toasted Almonds and Crème Fraîche
• 1 cup diced shallots
• 2 small pieces of fresh peeled ginger, about the size of a grape
• 1/2 teaspoon ground ginger
• 1/2 teaspoon curry powder
• 1 Tbsp chopped fresh thyme
• 1 bay leaf
• 3/4 stick unsalted butter
• 2 Tbsp olive oil
• 2 small Yukon gold potatoes
• 3 lb carrots, peeled and cut into ½ inch rounds
• 3 cups reduced-sodium chicken broth
• 1 cup fresh unfiltered apple juice
• 2 1/2 cups water
• 1/2 teaspoon black pepper
• 1/8 to 1/4 Habanero chili, very finely chopped. Substitute 1/4 Serrano chili if necessary. Remove seeds if you want a less spicy soup.
• Salt to taste
• ½ cup sliced almonds, toasted
• 8 oz crème fraîche
Preparation
1. Peel the carrots and slice crosswise into half-inch thick rounds. Peel the potatoes and cut into cubes about ½ inch squares.
2. Melt the butter in a large saucepan. Add olive oil and then add the shallots and sauté over low heat until the shallots are fragrant and soft, about 7 minutes. Add the ginger, both the pieces of fresh and ground powder, and the curry powder.
3. Add the broth, water, apple juice and pepper. Toss in the bay leaf and when the mixture begins to boil, add the chopped carrots and potatoes. Reduce the heat and cover the pan. Allow soup to simmer for about 30 minutes or until the carrots and potatoes are tender when poked with a fork. Add the chopped fresh thyme.
4. Let the soup cool for 10 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the bay leaf and the large pieces of ginger. Put the oven on low broil and place sliced almonds on a cookie sheet in a single layer. Broil until golden and toasted, about 3-4 minutes depending upon your oven.
5. Divide the soup into batches and puree in the blender. Add some of the chopped Habanero chili to taste to each batch, based on your tolerance for spice. Return all the soup to the saucepan to reheat before serving and salt to taste.
6. Ladle soup into shallow bowls and sprinkle with toasted almonds, and top with a dollop or drizzle of crème fraîche. Serve with chilled Foggy Bridge 2007 Riesling.
7. Serves 8 first course portions. For a vegetarian version, use vegetable broth in place of chicken broth, and ½ cup olive oil in place of butter.
While Foggy Bridge has had a presence on Facebook since August, we have continued to grow our fan base and now have more than 100 fans. If you are on Facebook and want updates on the winery progress, as well as invitations to launch events, become a Foggy Bridge Facebook fan today.
We recently became intrigued by Twitter and will post updates on where Foggy Bridge is being poured, sampled and celebrated at events throughout the Bay Area. To get the latest scoop (or taste) sign up as a Twitter friend.
Finally, check out a newly-uploaded video on YouTube. Get a sneak preview of what’s to come at Foggy Bridge and meet winemaker Daryl Groom!
Visit us on these various social networking sites and stay up to date on happenings at the winery. We’ll see you there!
The fashion industry has been holding their week long celebrations for years, and now there is one for wine! Leave it to San Francisco, that wine-loving town, to launch this great idea. Check it out at SF Wine Week - it’s a great deal for wine lovers. Six nights of events at different venues all around town where you can taste and mingle, all for the single price of $75 for the week’s worth of events. All the venues are downtown and include the newly opened and remodeled Paradise Lounge. I was there a couple of weeks ago for their pre-opening party and it is very cool - nice interior with lots of different spaces to mingle, dance or lounge around. We will be pouring our wines at the Friday and Saturday night events - Friday is the Industrial Wine Party at the Hayes - a new residential community, and Saturday night, the Red Party is at the Atrium. We will be pouring our Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Cabernet Sauvignon and Shiraz, so come out and see us and support wine! A portion of your ticket will also support First Graduate, a great organization. If you like the wines after you try them, remember to come back to our blog page at Foggy Bridge Winery and let us know what you think.
If you are an avid walker or jogger and live in San Francisco, you are probably aware of the picturesque running paths along the Crissy Field promenade and Marine Drive leading to Fort Point and the Golden Gate Bridge. Many locals take advantage of this relatively traffic-free zone ideal for walking dogs, strolling with friends and children, running and cycling (and of course, wind surfing out in the Bay).
Recently, several new athletic facilities have opened on Crissy Field, which will further encourage all of us to get/stay in shape, while overlooking the incredible expanse of San Francisco Bay. We recently visited Planet Granite, an indoor climbing gym, yoga studio and fitness center, which opened a couple weeks ago on Mason St. What a beautiful facility, built for serious climbers, yet also offering plenty of classes for novices - and kids, too.
Speaking of the little ones, La Petite Baleen caters entirely to the under ten market, offering an indoor children’s swim school for kids starting at two months old. Located adjacent to the future Foggy Bridge Winery, we look forward to offering parents a chance to relax and taste some wine before picking up their children.
In addition to these permanent fixtures, we also welcome the variety of athletic races that occur on Crissy Field. JP Morgan Chase recently hosted its San Francisco Corporate Challenge 5K race along Crissy Field and the Marina Green for more than 5,500 runners representing 250 local companies. We are also excited for the annual Bridge to Bridge Run on October 5, which takes participants from the Bay Bridge to the Golden Gate Bridge via the Golden Gate Promenade and Mason St, right by our future winery home.
All of us at Foggy Bridge Winery look forward to greeting our athletic neighbors - from casual strollers to marathon-training runners and rock climbers - once we open our doors on Crissy Field. Until then, keep generating those exercise-inducing endorphins!
Earlier this week, Daryl and I drove down to Santa Maria Valley on the Central Coast to check on the development of our Pinot Noir grapes. We are thrilled to be sourcing Pinot for our Foggy Bridge Classic tier from Bien Nacido Vineyards, arguably one of the finest vineyards in California for growing Pinot Noir, Syrah and Chardonnay.
Bien Nacido vineyard manager James Ontiveros met us and walked through each of our vineyard blocks - as you can see from the photos below - to help determine when to schedule picking (which should occur within the next week). The 2008 harvest is looking really nice with balanced flavors and sugar/acid levels. You’ll notice netting on the grapevines, which is in place to keep the birds from pecking at and eating the grapes. We need to ensure there is adequate supply for our Foggy Bridge fans!
We also dined with James at the now infamous Hitching Post - at the original location in Casmalia near the Vandenberg Air Force Base, not the Hitching Post II in Buellton, famous for its feature in the movie Sideways. The pork ribs and filet mignon were superb; the vibe is relaxed, hospitable and exudes “Old Western nostalgia.” A true local gem.
During the first week of September Foggy Bridge will commence its 2008 harvest and will be into making our first 2008 vintage wines - very exciting! The quality is looking awesome, and the warm weather is pushing the grapes along nicely. Chardonnay from our estate vineyards in the San Francisco Bay appellation will be the first to come off, followed by the red varieties a few weeks later. It is an exciting time for me to start to see the quality of the wines evolve after all the viticultural hard work over the growing season.
I am equally excited to be traveling the state making wines from California’s best growing regions for our Classic Foggy Bridge range of wines. One day in Santa Maria, next day in Napa and the next few in Sonoma County. Really a winemaker’s dream except for the long car ride!!
I had a lot of fun this past weekend bottling our 2007 Reserve Pinot Noir from the Rochioli-Allen Vineyards in Russian River Valley. Aside from overseeing the wine quality during bottling I actually worked emptying the bottles from the cases on the beginning of the line so they could be filled, corked, capsuled and labeled. My youngest daughter helped. She stacked the full bottles back into the cases and did a QC check on every bottle. This was a small production of only 115 cases and will be released in time for the holidays this year. Lots to smile about at Foggy Bridge!
First of all, a huge thank you to the hundreds, if not thousands, of you who visited the Foggy Bridge Canteen at Outside Lands this past weekend to taste our very first Foggy Bridge wines! We enjoyed talking to all of you and are thrilled by the positive response you gave us - on the wines and the future winery plans. We can’t wait to reconnect with all of you at the winery in 2009.
We apologize for being sold out of a portion of our wines on Sunday - demand was much greater than the festival expected. But stay tuned - we will begin offering wine sales on the Foggy Bridge site by the end of September. Sign up for our mailing list, and we will let you know exactly when the wines will be available.
If you missed Outside Lands this year, we are enclosing a few photos of the festival and our Canteen area. You’ll see Daryl Groom was in his element talking about Foggy Bridge. His energy is contagious!
Our very first wines were poured this weekend at the Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival and boy, has it been fun! Holly and I have been working on organizing our role as the official wine sponsor for the event since April and it has all been worth it! We have the Foggy Bridge Canteen set up next to the Winehaven tent and concertgoers can sit outside at picnic tables sipping our wines and nibbling on oysters from Hog Island and charcuterie from Fatted Calf. We poured our Classic Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Zinfandel and Cabernet Sauvignon, Tradewinds Shiraz, Yorkville Highlands blend and Muscat. The event concessionaire, a very nice guy, was afraid to buy too much wine because he didn’t think people would pay to drink high-end wines at a rock concert and we proved him wrong. Many of the wines are already sold out and we still have another day to go. Way to go San Francisco! You have proven to the world that we love good wine here and all your comments and enthusiasm for our wines has been music to our ears (pun intended). The best part has been having Daryl Groom, our winemaker, and Holly and I out there meeting you all, talking about the wines, the project and seeing how excited San Franciscans are to have a winery of their own. Thanks everybody - I’ve got to run to get back out there for the last day - see you in the Canteen! More comments and photos to come tomorrow . . .
…is this weekend - Aug. 22-24. We are excited to announce that Foggy Bridge Winery is the official wine sponsor of San Francisco’s Outside Lands Music & Arts Festival, the inaugural three day outdoor music festival in Golden Gate Park, which is now just four days away. Featuring headliners Radiohead, Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers and Jack Johnson, Outside Lands will mark the first time any artist has performed at night in Golden Gate Park. And our first Foggy Bridge wines will be served to commemorate the occasion.
Visit Outside Lands this weekend and be one of the first to taste the Foggy Bridge Sauvignon Blanc, Zinfandel, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Sauvignon, Shiraz and more – before they are available to the general public.
Join us at the Foggy Bridge Canteen (adjacent to the Winehaven tent) on Speedway Meadow and meet winemaker Daryl Groom and the rest of the team. Get a sneak preview of the winery design and learn more about upcoming plans for Foggy Bridge. In addition to the Canteen, a selection of Foggy Bridge wines will be served at the premium and VIP concessions and private cabanas.
We look forward to introducing you – for the first time – to Foggy Bridge this weekend. For more information about Outside Lands or to purchase tickets, visit the Outside Lands website. Not only is the artist lineup spectacular, but our friends at Another Planet and Superfly have done a great job creating a true San Francisco experience - with an Ecolands Village, Crowdfire technology tent, Winehaven tent with local wineries and SF-based restaurants, like Asqew Grill, Gordo Taqueria, Pacific Catch and Hog Island Oysters, serving high quality food throughout the festival.
December 1, 2008 
Posted in Pre-Launch, San Francisco 
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