No, but it may rain wine at the Pinot Noir Summit.

​What: 10th Pinot Noir Summit

Where: Hilton Financial District

When: Saturday, Feb. 25, 1:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m.

Cost: $130 for an all day ticket, $85 for the Grand Awards Tasting and Ceremony.

The rundown: Hang out with wine lovers and ABC weather man Spencer Christian for a full day of praising pinot noir. Just remember that pace is the trick. Affairs of the Vine's 10th Pinot Noir Summit will kick off with a blind tasting of 40 gold medal-winning pinots. Winners will be announced at the Grand Awards Tasting and Ceremony emceed by Christian.

With converting people to wine as their mission statement, Affairs of the Vine's summit will also include workshops and a sparkling wine reception. Discounted hotel ratesare available so you can stumble your way to a room. But only 350 tickets are available and the event sold out last year. Buy tickets here.

Sometimes you have to go a long way to find a local wine. For this week's wine(s), we turned to Canada. Actually, Canada came to us in the form of our friend Dups, and his iPhone image of a Waterstone Cabernet. He asked if we knew it. We didn't . He liked it, we tried it, and now here we are.

​Waterstone is a "virtual winery" in that they own neither vineyards nor an actual winery. Instead, they buy the first and rent the second. There are plenty of exceptional wines that fit this model, such as Kosta Browne. The freedom from assets gives freedom of choice: Which grapes to buy, which wines to make, when not to make a wine at all.

Of course, to make great wine you need great grapes, and to get great grapes you generally need long-term contracts, so the image of a free-wheeling winemaker driving around Napa picking which grapes to buy each season is a bit illusory. But with vineyard acreage in Napa selling for as much as $300,000 an acre, there's plenty of reason not to be an owner, and plenty of winemakers that don't have the option.

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The View From Gary Farrell

​According to William "Rusty" Gaffney, M.D., aka The Prince of Pinot, "Some consider Gary Farrell the father of Russian River Valley Pinot Noir." While Gary himself has long ago left the vineyard, the fog-shrouded winery he built with Bill Hambrecht is still producing premium wine, and seems to have managed this feat while going through a series of ownership changes more befitting cult wines than wineries.

Farrell himself sold the business to Allied Domecq, who sold it to Beam Wine Estates, which sold it to Ascentia Wine Estates which more recently sold it to Bill Price's Vincraft. Price and Vincraft take the long view, so we expect a steady future for the brand from here out and wanted to take a return look at what was once one of our favorite wines.

The Gary Farrell approach is a "Burgundian" one. In simple terms that means they focus on the wines of Burgundy, pinot noir and chardonnay.

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Yes, you may spit, but don't drool.

​Have you ever been the only sober friend in a group of drunks? Those of us who make, sell, and write about wine can feel like that at big public wine tastings, since many of the consumers who come to these events seem to take them a bit too far. Considering that both ZAP and the Golden Glass (ticket giveaway winners posted below!) are coming up, SFoodie thought it'd be useful to give you a view of what the folks pouring the wine would do in your place.

1. Spit. That's what the pros will be doing. Those big buckets on every table are there explicitly so you can vacate the wine you just tasted and move on to the next one. No one will be surprised to see you bending over it. The more you spit, the more wines you can taste.

2. It's a tasting, not a drinking. Know your limits. Even if you do spit, you're going to absorb alcohol through the inside walls of your mouth. We try to hit our limits by tasting as many wines as we rationally can, not as much as we can fit in before passing out. Isn't the goal to find that great undiscovered wine?

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One of our standbys for high-quality, locally-sourced, reasonably-priced bubbles is Schramsberg.  Schramsberg stands out, with a few others, as a producer that doesn't merely mimic the method of Champagne (Methode Champenoise), but actually approach or equal the quality of houses from sparkling wines place of birth.

As in France, under the Methode, wine is fermented and aged in bottle, stored in natural caves, and hand riddled (rotated to allow the sediment to settle in the bottle as it ages).  The labor and capital intensive efforts deliver some outstanding wines, and there are two that consistently stand out for price-to-value. Their Blanc De Blancs and their Blanc De Noirs.

Expert Tip:  While the literal translation from french is "white of whites" and "white of blacks" respectively, the only thing you need to know to demonstrate your wine expertise is that Des Blancs (meaning "of white") is made entirely from Chardonnay grapes, while Des Noirs is made from Pinot Noir.


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​ Hey, want to go to Slow Food's Golden Glass event? SFoodie has two tickets to award to the person who writes the best one-line description of a wine, real or imagined, in the comments section below.

If you like Italian wines, you'll like the Golden Glass wine and food event, and we may even be able to take you there (more on that at the end of the post). Golden Glass is Slow Food's annual tasting focused on wines from Italy.

The large-scale tasting at Fort Mason, Slow Food's eighth, offers wine and food from "artisans around the world in celebration of Slow Food's work to advocate for sustainability, biodiversity and preservation of food traditions." This year's event also celebrates the launch of Slow Food's new wine publication, Slow Wine, "Slow Food Italy's new, comprehensive and meticulously researched guide to Italian wines." The guide looks at how the wines taste and how ethically and environmentally they were produced.

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We go to a lot of wine tastings: trade, consumer, best-of, pre-auction, single-appellation super-regional. They can be a great way to train the palate, but over time they're tiring to foot and tongue. So, we've resolved to focus only on the ones that have shined over time, the ones where your feet and tongue will be satisfied with what you've put them through. Here's a favorite.

This year marks the 21st annual ZAP, Zinfandel Advocates & Producers, celebrating the spice, fruit and flair of Zinfandel. This year's Grand Tasting moves to The Concourse at 8th & Brannan with over 650 Zins from 208 producers from different regions Saturday January 28.

There's also a separate, evening, food & wine pairing event (Epicuria), the Thursday before. Fifty vintners will pair Zins with the food of 50 chefs including:

• Artezin Wines paired with Kollar Chocolates
• B.R. Cohn Winery paired with Preferred Sonoma Caterers
• Calstar Cellars paired with Cabot Creamery
• Claudia Springs Winery paired with Pacific Catch
• D-Cubed Cellars paired with A-16
• Dogwood Cellars paired with Sift Cupcake
• Four Vines paired with City College of San Francisco
• Gamba Vineyards and Winery paired with ESTATE
• J. Dusi paired with First Crush
• Klinker Brick Winery paired with Fifth Floor
• Ledson Winery & Vineyards paired with Centre du Vin at the Ledson Hotel
• Mazzocco Winery paired with Radio Africa Kitchen
• McCay Cellars paired with Wine & Roses
• Outpost Wines paired with Mustards Grill
• Peachy Canyon Winery paired with Swan Oyster Depot
• R&B Cellars paired with Paul's Paella
• Ravenswood paired with Central Market
• Rock Wall Wine Co paired with Angela's Bistro
• Selby Winery paired with Bocanova;
• St. Francis Winery paired with Executive Chef David Bush
• Starry Night Winery paired with Il Davide Restaurant;
• Terra d'Oro Winery (recently reviewed by us here) paired with Taste
• Three Wine Company paired with The Fairmont;
• Trentadue Winery paired with Sarah's Forestville Kitchen
• Tres Sabores Winery paired with Dean and Deluca

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​If you've followed Jay McInerney's move from chronicler of a generation to scribe of that generation's current obsession, wine, you may have seen his 2012 resolution to "Drink more Riesling." His insight that "every wine merchant and sommelier you encounter will think you're cool if you ask for it" might even have you considering doing the same.

While we have no specific opinion on McInerney's advice or expertise, if you want to start drinking more Riesling, we thought we'd find you some. Besides, most wine writers like an excuse to write more about Riesling (or Sherry, or any of a host of other under-appreciated wines for that matter), and Riesling is one of the great friends of hard to pair foods, like vegetables and our local crab.

Of course, as always, our mission (as we've chosen to accept it) is to find you local wines for $40 or less that stand out in story, style or substance. Here are two Rieslings in that spirit.

Wine: Trefethen 2010 Dry Riesling

Notes: Very pleasant and approachable with crisp, but not overwhelming, acidity. Notes of fresh citrus dominated by lemon and lime. Light petrol on the nose only modestly carries through to the mouth. Bracingly dry with only the lemon zest of sweetness that is implied, but not actual. The finish lifts from your tongue in dry waves like the glimmers of heat off a dessert asphalt road.
Sells For: $18.99 (At K&L) Drinks Like: $30
Where to score it: Falletti Foods, K&L, Jug Shop, Marina Supermarket and Andronico's.

Wine: Smith-Madrone 2010 Riesling

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Notes: Clean, Apple-y, classic Riesling flavors, that are both dry and simultaneously provide the illusion of a touch of sweetness in a tart package -- like a granny smith apple.
Clean, fresh and pleasant. There's a slight note of petrol in the finish which hints this wine will age into a serious petrol-rich scented Riesling over time, but don't worry about that -- just drink it now. Mentally makes us crave a slice of hot apple pie to pair it with, though it would almost certainly go better with seafood or veggies.
Sells For: $26.99 Drinks Like: $30
Where to score it: Only at K&L.

Contact Ben Narisin at sfoodieben@gmail.com. Follow us on Twitter: @sfoodie, and like us on Facebook.