HOW WINE BECAME MODERN

A couple of weeks ago I attended the SF MOMA for an exhibit called How Wine Became Modern. All my family, including my younger siblings are really into wine, so I was pretty excited to see it. The exhibition was designed by the well known architecture firm Diller Scofidio + Renfro and it was organized as a suite of gallerias. Upon entry, the visitor was greeted by the sound of clinking wine glasses, a peculiar doorbell timed to ring every 3 minutes.

Further into the exhibition,visitors will encounter a huge wall on wine labels and brand identity, glassware, and artful decanters. A gallery will be devoted to the new, global, wine-related architecture, including wineries by Santiago Calatrava, Zaha Hadid, Steven Holl, Herzog + de Meuron, Renzo Piano, and Alvaro Siza. The exhibit showcases a map of the would pinpointing all the places where the wineries are located, the most significant wine-related buildings, incluiding Herzog & de Meuron’s Dominus Winery, Gehry Partners’s Hotel Marqués de Riscal, and Michael Graves and Edward Schmidt’s Clos Pegase.

Ridel decanter

At the end of the exhibit, you'll encounter the smelling section, a wall with suspended flacons teaching you how to identify and name each smell. White is not the color of the grapes used to make White Zinfandel. Red is. Noble indicates "stature and breed," wrote Michael Broadbent in Wine Tasting, first published in 1968. A decade later, when UC Davis professors Maynard Amerine and Edward Roessler released Wines Their Sensory Evaluation, class-based terms such as "distinguished" and well-bred" were rapidly displaced by more phenomenological seemingly democratic language. Petrol is often attributed to wines made from Riesling grapes. While many connoisseurs prize this smell, the world plainly lacks popular appeal. When the German version of the Aroma Wheel was created in 1997, the German Wine Institute eliminated this word, along with entire category of related chemical terms.

Hamster cages is fighting words. First usde to elaborate a French Syrah's warthy nose, the term provoked outrage among conservative tastemakers, who responded by denouncing the young bucks' linguistic excess. One wine merchant acidly remarked: "If they continue like this, we'll soon have customers requesting wines that smell of a sumo wrestler's thighs."

Suspended flacon on smelling wall.

This pretty much covers the whole exhibit. Too bad they didn't have a Tasting Wall...LOL

UNDERGROUND MARKET

Last night I attended an event called the Underground Market, at Private Works on the Mission. It was my first time going and had no idea what to expect. We got there an hour early and the line was already starting to get buzzy, we were getting anxious, it was starting to rain and some of the vendors were not ready. After a 45 minute wait that felt more like six hours we were in. The cover charge for entry is only five bucks and you have access to delicious food, music and an evening can't be completed without some alcohol.



It's a two story building with patio area as well. After entering we decided it was best to do a lap before committing to any vendor. But not of course without getting a glass of red with me. Upstairs, there was this food stand of duck confit gnocchi with wild cherry glaze, the line was getting super long so we decided to try it. In my opinion it was really good, but the only thing I could really taste was the tons of butter the chef was adding to his frying pan. OMG! I guess some people really like the greasy stuff.

Here's my very proud friend Beny trying the Gnocchi...

It was starting to get warm, so we decided to head outside and see what the fuzz was about. For starters they wouldn't let us drink outside so we had to finish our drinks inside. At the patio, there were two food stands, Wachi Nango, which is mexican coastal cuisine and Hapa SF, which is organic filipino cuisine. I tried both and I must say that they both were amazingly good, but maybe because I am mexican or who knows, the fish tacos from Wachi Nango were my favorite of all. The salsas are really good, spicy enough.

My friend Andre proud owner and chef of Wachi Nango

...my last taco

By the end, we decided to head inside and listen to some interesting bands play. The last one playing was sort of a folk type of music, it was really fun seeing all the people a little bit buzzed trying to dance this type of music. We had a great time!

WEB PAGE

I am currently working in the layout design of my public domain. It is taking a while to finish, I am designing every icon, background and logo included in this page. I wanted to be as unique as possible and express what my style is all about. Please let me know what you guys think about it.