Madeira Tasting in San Francisco - May 17-19, 2013

[Eric Menchen]

... today I put in a bid on a 1860 Sercial Solera Madeira Cossart-Gordon, near the top of the expected range.

I was outbid by $50. After the buyer's premium, the bottle went for about $540. I guess I'm not quite up for this one.

[Roy Hersh]

This bottle or the tasting?

There's still plenty of time.

[Eric Menchen]

Lots of time until then, but not necessarily enough time for hunting for bottles given other things on my plate ...

[Marc R]

Marc R -(1) is in for both nights. I'm looking forward to it.

[Alan Gardner]

I've just booked my flights - for 2 people.
So we'll be there.
If anyone else is coming from Canada (or travelling anywhere else in US for that matter) Air Canada has a sale on THIS WEEK ONLY (must book by Sun Feb 24; eligible dates Apr 1-May 30, 2013) which gives you 15% off (plus early seat selection). Use promo code SPRING15USA.

See y'all there, eh!

[Llyn Strelau]

Booked my flight too (solo). Thanks for link to the Air Canada sale Alan. Ended up on United though, I try to only fly direct and plan to arrive on Wednesday 15 but go up to Napa/Healdsburg for first few days and then back in town for the weekend then home on 21st. Managed to get return for $475.00 though so was happy about that.
Hotels are high though - long weekend for US.
Looking at a room via www.airbnb.com, if you haven't tried them check it out.
Just need to figure out the neighbourhoods and will wait til Roy has a venue nailed down so I can try to find a place close to the restaurant. Wouldn't want to have to stagger too far 'home' after an evening or two of Madeira :)

airbnb has listings for both spare rooms in peoples apartments/houses as well as full houses/apartments. Don't need a whole place to my own (too expensive) but if anyone is interested in sharing a place (with more than one bedroom of course), let me know.

Llyn

[Roy Hersh]

I am waiting on a price proposal on a specific venue. Once that is all finalized, I'll be happy to announce the name of the restaurant. There may be a conflict with one of the dates but they will know about that within the next 2 weeks at most. I'd hate to split our two events into different restaurants.

[Andy Velebil]

I've modified the title of this to reflect the carved in stone dates so everyone is clear when it is.

[Timothy B.]

So I'd like to plan my trip, get the time off work, etc.

From reading this thread, there will be a tasting on Saturday May 18th and one on Sunday May 19th. Is that right?

If so, what's the plan for the 17th? (I.e., why is it one of the dates?) I'd like to know if I can fly in late on the 17th because I may have something going on for work on the day of the 17th.

Also, in the "set in stone" post, Roy said that things would be finalizing by email in late February - have I missed something?

--- Timothy

[Mark L]

Hi Timothy,

I believe Roy has been working extremely hard behind the scenes to pull all this together, and as his most recent post stated (and I have even heard from him since), he's working diligently on nailing down the venue. I think once the venue is officially set, then many of the other details will fall into place in such a way that Roy can post an update to help everyone with their plans.

It is also my understanding that the tastings will take place on Saturday and Sunday of that weekend so flying in the night before would be appropriate. (Perhaps if enough people are flying in the night before, there might be an informal gathering if those interested would like to organize, but the official tastings will just be Saturday and Sunday)

Hope this helps!
Best,
Mark

[Bradley Bogdan]

:-/ Found out that I'm going to be unable to be at the tasting, but for good reasons. A friend is getting married that weekend, on what is a rather spur of the moment style occasion. Can't say I'm ever unhappy to see happy couples wed, but on such short notice with a big Madeira tasting so close? Ugh, haha.

[Marc R]

I'm very interested in attending both nights and posted a few weeks back, but wasn't sure what the process is to know if there is/was still room prior to booking flights. Who should I confirm with?

Thank you

[Roy Hersh]

I have been in negotiations with two restaurants in SF: SPRUCE and CAFE DES AMIS. Both are owned by the same company and they are a 10 min. taxi ride away from one another. You can check Google for location, which I would do and post, but I have a boatload to get done before leaving the country in 5 hours.

Question: For the people coming to both events, would you be ok if I just booked one of the restaurants and had the menus switched up? That would be the very easiest, because only 1 of 2 is open during the day, so we'd have to take taxis after the tasting to get to dinner, if it matters to have distinct venues.

Menus, table layout, more indepth talks about getting lower corkage, working with 2-3 rental companies to find the best glassware, this is a serious undertaking and I am happy to do it. I guess for now, please know that for sure I am leaning towards doing both events at Cafe des Amis, with the possible potential for Sat. dinner at Spruce, but that is only 50/50 at this time. So if you are looking to book hotels now, I'd suggest seeing what is around the Cafe des Amis locale.

Sorry that I can't get into any deeper discussion until I return on April 1st. But at least we have a place for sure as I've made basic "hold/reservations" with out signing a contract. Seemingly we are going to be around the $200 per person range or so for the events. Possibly less depending on how negotiations wind up, but I'd say a min. of $150-$175 and hopefully no more than $225 which will include room charges/corkage/tips/taxes/meals etc. The gig we just held in NYC was $325, so this seems considerably less expensive.

You can feel free to share whatever feelings you have about this. If in the next week, someone can compile a list for each of the two groups that people want to be a part of, when I get back if that is posted here, it will help me to hit the ground running.

Thank you all!

Roy

[Steve Pollack]

Unfortunately, I will not be able to make it. My son's college graduation party, which we originally planned for Memorial Day weekend, had to be moved to May 18.

I hope the wines show well, and everyone has a great time.

[David Spriggs]

I have a friend who would like to attend, possibly both days. What is the criteria for attending for each day? There was some talk about the wine being worth $300 on one day and $600 on another. Was there any conclusion?
-Dave-

[Mark L]

Roy,

If it's easiest for you (given all the other stuff that you are already doing for this event) to have everyone hop into cabs and head to the other restaurant one of the nights, then I'm sure we'll all be totally ok with that. A 10 min cab split between 3 or 4 people is really nothing much.

Also, I've gone through this thread, and I'll email you a compilation of names of everyone for each night. (Perhaps someone else has done the same, which is good because maybe I missed someone!)

Safe travels, and hope you get some decompress time when you get back before you tackle this,
Cheers,
Mark

[Bret Davis]

I've booked my flights for the weekend. Since I'm relatively new to the board, I'd like to discuss (probably offline) what would be appropriate for me to bring each night. I'd like to bring something unique, especially for the "high bar" evening, that the group would be interested in trying, and certainly not duplicative of someone else's selection.

Lastly, since I live in the desert, my shipping season - both into & out of here - will likely be closing in the next 2-3 weeks, and I would probably need to ship my wines to someone in a cooler climate that will be driving to SF for the event and wouldn't mind bringing them (I don't want to fly them up on that Sat).

Let me know your thoughts. I can be reached via email at Bret.davis@ymail.com.

Thanks in advance. Cheers!
Bret

[Eric Ifune]

What time are the events starting? If too early, I can't make it. I'll be in Northern California then, but working in the day.

[Andy Velebil]

A scheduling conflict as come up on this weekend. As sorry as I am to say this, please remove me from the list

[Mark L]

Eric, I'm not sure what Roy has in mind for a starting time, but what time is the earliest you could start / join the tasting ?

Andy, you will be missed!