I've edited the list. My guess is it won't be crowded if we have some late additions. It's serious winter out there. Note that parking is ample, close and free. I've included a "Wine Caper" article. Lot's of Restaurant Quotes in today's strib. C, J ----- Forwarded message from "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> ----- Date: Wed, 31 Jan 2007 11:45:04 -0600 From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> To: wine(a)thebarn.com Subject: Zin/Primitivo at Sapor tomorrow User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i X-Spam-Score: -1.44 () ALL_TRUSTED X-Scanned-By: MIMEDefang 2.56 on 128.101.142.226 Been a while since we've been to Sapor..... Dara's declared the "End of the World" in this week's City Pages. Some quotes from Auriga, Levain, Five. Stay Warm. Cheers, Jim Date: Wed, 12 Jul 2006 11:25:05 -0500 From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> To: wine(a)thebarn.com ----- Forwarded message from "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> ----- Date: Mon, 22 May 2006 16:12:23 -0500 From: "Jim L. Ellingson" <jellings(a)me.umn.edu> To: wine(a)thebarn.com We're going to Sapor at 6:30 on Thursday. Style du jour is Zinfandel $5 per person in leu of corkage. Part of their wine list is on their web site. If you happen to bring something that's on the list or the shelf (easier than you might think. Ask Russ about a split of something obscure he'd bought at a winery that was on their shelf as well.... ) we'll just save it for another week. We're never short of wine. http://www.saporcafe.com/ 428 N. Washington, Mpls 612 375 1971 Yes/Guess: Ruth Bob Russ Jim Fred P Betsy maybe/doubtful More guesses.... Lori Roger LeClair Dave Sapor is very close to Sam's Wine Shop (closes at 8:00 M-Th). No's from Annette S, Bill S, Karin/Nicolai, Warren. Thanks to all who responded. ----- End forwarded message ----- February 1, 2007 Atherton Journal In an Enclave of Serious Wine Lovers, a Mesmerizing Theft By PATRICIA LEIGH BROWN ATHERTON, Calif. . It was perhaps the most Californian of crimes. Behind the electronic gates and freshly clipped hedges of an exclusive cul-de-sac, the thieves worked in the dead of night, ignoring watches, laptops and other ho-hum booty to cart away the ultimate prize: 450 bottles of wine, including a rare $11,000 1959 magnum from the Châau Péus in Bordeaux, France. Thus began what the police in this Silicon Valley town, one of the country.s most affluent ZIP codes, refer to as .the big wine caper. . a $100,000 theft, still under investigation, whose audacity has inspired Agatha Christie-like fascination among sophisticated oenophiles in the Bay Area. .It.s a worrying thing,. said Ken Chalmers, the assistant manager at Beltramo.s, a local wine purveyor who sells hard-to-come-by vintages to customers with pebbled driveways and lavender-lined walks. .If you drink a bottle of a .61 Bordeaux every five years and somebody swipes it, you.re not going to be happy. You can.t replace it. Wine is a very personal thing.. Like a sauvignon blanc with an ash-covered chèe, theft and wine make a heady pairing, especially in Atherton, the sought-after nesting place of venture capitalists and magnates like Charles Schwab, of the wealth management company, and Tom Proulx, the founder of the software company Intuit. Wine cellars are a fixture of daily life here, a common amenity along with home theaters, fitness centers and his-and-her offices. At some point between Dec. 28 and Jan. 4, while the homeowner was on vacation, the police said, the thief or thieves made their way to the basement, where the collection, much of it distinguished Bordeaux, was stored at an optimal 55 degrees. The police have not identified the victim. There was no sign of forced entry, indicating the possibility of an inside job, said Detective Sgt. Joseph C. Wade, who is in charge of the investigation. The house is gated, and a code and a key would have been needed to enter it, he said. The perpetrator had a discerning palate, leaving behind lesser vintages. The average bottle stolen was reported to be worth $3,000, and the collection included a magnum of 1959 Châau Beychevelle and a magnum of 2002 Jones Family cabernet, a Napa Valley cult wine. The mystery of the theft on Fair Oaks Lane has captivated a region obsessed with the vine, a place where The San Francisco Chronicle.s weekly Wine section is required reading. .The properties in Atherton are so large that it.s possible to imagine no one would notice,. said Stephen J. Bachmann, the chief executive of Vinfolio Inc., an online store and consultant service for private wine collectors, who also writes a blog. .It.s an interesting question of whether they had advanced knowledge of what was in the cellar. A lot of people don.t think of wine as an asset that needs to be protected. But they should.. In many ways, Bordeaux has assumed the status of liquid gold. .Like chocolate was to the Aztecs, wine has become the ultimate currency,. said Daphne Derven, an independent scholar on food and wine based in Eugene, Ore. .It appears that the thieves, whoever they were, had more faith in the stability and accruing value of the ultimate bottle of wine than the American dollar.. The crime is perhaps understandable given record increases in wine prices at auction, said Thomas Matthews, the editor of Wine Spectator, which recently reported on counterfeiting, in which labels are falsified. . In 2005, major auction houses in the United States and abroad sold $166 million worth of wine, Mr. Matthews said. Last year, sales rose to $240 million, with numerous world records, like the 50 cases of 1982 Mouton-Rothschild that sold for $1.05 million at Sotheby.s. Although theft of private wine collections is uncommon, Mr. Matthews said theft at wine warehouses in the United States and Europe was on the rise. With yet-to-be released vintages, like a 2005 Châau Latour, fetching $800 a bottle, .that puts a lot of upward pressure on older wines,. he said. .In wine, the supply is finite. Rising prices are the result.. The crime.s swirling reach has extended even to New York, with the list of stolen wines making the rounds of retailers and distributors. .It.s going to be difficult to track,. said John Kapon, the auction director at Acker Merrall & Condit in New York. .The sad truth is, it should be relatively easy for whoever stole it to sell this wine without anyone being able to figure it out.. Unlike missing art and antiquities, hot wine has no official registry. .Something like an Amber alert would be very useful,. said George Derbalian, the president of Atherton Wine Imports, an importer of Burgundy and Bordeaux. Theresa Lawless, a manager for the Fireman.s Fund Insurance Company, in Novato, Calif., one of several major American insurers of private wine collections, said loss of wine was typically a result of fire or power failures, not theft. .But this will definitely make people think twice,. Ms. Lawless said. Wine cellar designers are increasingly installing fingerprint and voice recognition systems and crisscrossing laser beams that trigger alarms (àa the movie .Entrapment. with Sean Connery and Catherine Zeta-Jones), said Tod Ban, a wine cellar designer in Atlanta who recently completed such a cellar for a private collector with 27,000 bottles. Evan L. Goldenberg, an architect and owner of Design Build Consultants in Greenwich, Conn., said radio-frequency labels that allow the tracking of individual bottles were on the horizon. In Atherton, where cameras are embedded in oaks, the theft has caused deep unease. .You.ve got to be careful,. said a resident, speaking through her intercom. .There.s been a lot of trouble around here.. The case has lingering overtones for Sergeant Wade, who also was working on a case in nearby East Palo Alto, a city that has long wrestled with high crime rates. .An 18-year-old girl was shot point-blank in the head and I received no calls about it,. he said. .The wine theft? A gazillion. It kind of shows you where people.s values lie..