Toast: How To Start A Wine Bar

Many of us dream of doing up an old villa in Provence, learning to surf in Hawaii or starting a wine bar. Which are you?

Kristen and Heather, co-owners of Toast Wine Lounge

Do you want to open up a wine bar enough to scrub toilets after they've been used by builders for three months? Nooo? Well think again about the last one.

Toast

Because that was the unenviable task undertaken by Heather Sittig, co-owner of the new Oakland wine bar Toast.  Who, by the way, is a self-confessed clean and neat freak, her c-owner Kristen Policy simply a clean freak.

Toast crew meeting 

Heather and Kristen, both 36, met ten years ago while walking their Labradors down the road at Hardy Park. They became immediate friends, both considering food and wine a "necessity rather than a hobby".

Time went by and Heather, a local realtor and Kristen a photographer, found themselves wheeling babies around the streets lamenting the need for a comfortable wine bar where they could chat with babes in tow. They spent many hours dreaming, plotting and planning this imaginary bar while sipping wine and conferring with their trusted friends, whom they call their "Board of Directors".

Toast

When San Francisco Dancewear moved out of its storefront at the corner of College Avenue and Chabot Road after twenty years, the women saw potential in the bright space and outdoor seating area and secured the place last December 1.

Their aim was to make Toast a comfortable community space that welcomed children — a wine bar to impress the keenest oenophiles, but with no pretentiousness. The wine -  chosen to go with the food - is sourced from small producing vineyards, the limited production meaning that wines would be constantly rotating with a sense of newness and adventure. Their slogan: Drink More Wine.

The outside street-side patio has high chairs and dog bowls and inside are industrial lights, swervy wood tables, benches salvaged from Richmond High (with naughty graffiti removed) a blackboard drawing of a huge corkscrew and wild flowers.

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Six Start-Up Tips from Kristen and Heather:

1. Get feedback from your community. 
They canvassed everyone they knew and created a "board of directors" from trusted friends with lots of evenings sharing wine, ideas and advice.

2. If you're not naturally optimistic, don't open a business.
Kristen:"Since we didn't have experience in wine bars we didn't know what was not possible and we just assumed it was."

3. Assume everything will take twice as long and cost twice as much.


Opening: They signed the lease on 1 Dec and their planned opening date of Feb was delayed two months because of stipulations about a grease trap and hood.

Cost: They assumed it would cost $500,000 to open and it cost half that! They pre-sold 2000 wine vouchers for a total of $50,000 and raised $16,000 in 90 days through the website Kickstarter where you state the amount you need and the time frame. The owners invested $15,000 and the remainder came through three investors, one who walked in off the street.

4. Be prepared to do everything yourself.
Heather: "I have polished the floor and cleaned the fridge." And of course scrubbed the toilets. During our interview they were folding napkins and linens which they'd washed themselves.

5. Know your market.
Both women have lived here for ten years and Heather has sold "half the houses in this area". They saw residents as sophisticated foodies with high standards.

6. Be honest with your partner at the onset:
Heather: "You are gambling with your friendship and that often doesn't go well. We got together one night and laid out all our flaws. We agreed Toast wasn't going to bring us down. " Kristen: "I'm clean but not tidy. There can be piles of papers everywhere, but it drives me nuts if things are sticky." Heather: "I'm a real control freak and I have a hard time when things are not done by the deadline."


You can read my review of five Toast wines in the East Bay Express.

Miss Marple's Tipple is Hip!

As dusty old sherry finally shuffles off the shelf - I can reveal Miss Marple's tipple of choice is finally hip! Er, sort of, my dears...

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How lucky I've been to write about two of my favourite dames in one week; first Lady Gaga and today Agatha Christie's Miss Marple, the super-ist sleuth who ever lived in The Vicarage...or nosy old busybody depending on who you're chatting to in St Mary's Mead.

The New York Times wrote last week that "fuddy duddy sherry is taking it's turn as the new hip thing." Apparently the drumbeat has been heard in small specialty shops, in restaurants "where ardent sommeliers hold sway and in bars mixing high-end cocktails...Not a fever, mind you, more of a mild warmth." That's New York - but what about the drinking Zeitgeist right here in Oakland?

My friend Mike and I headed out to two local tapas place to unravel this little mystery.

Sherry is a fortified wine made from white grapes grown near the town of Jerez, Spain where it is called vino de Jerez. Sherry is an anglicization of Jerez. In Europe all wine labelled "sherry" must legally come from the Sherry Triangle. And most sherries are initially dry with any sweetness being added later.

According to some reports sherry has been pretty much "under-appreciated" since Shakespeare extolled its virtues 400 years ago. "It ascends me into the brain" he declared, affording him a "warming of the blood..." and "Illumineth the face". Much later it was Miss Marple's tipple of choice after a fox hunt or dribbled over a Christmas trifle. It remained a dusty alternative for reading by the library fire and descended into cheap plonk for Seventies households.

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On Piedmont Avenue - a little village of tzotchke shops, vintage stores and hip eateries - Cesar Latino has a choice of 12 sherries. Matt, the bar manager, says it's not ordered that often as it's still seen as a drink for the older generation. "It has to be hand-sold by someone who knows about it as opposed to something like vodka that sells itself". Americans prefer dry drinks and by-pass supersticky sherries, though bartenders are beginning to use it in cocktails, he said.

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First we tasted a 20 year-old NV Oloroso Corregido Sandeman from Spain ($10), the classic red dessert wine. Friend Mike said: "It has a sweetness that lingers but it's not icky sweet, more like a tawny post. It gets a little oakiness from the aging. I thought it tasted a little of dates.

Next we sipped a white Tio Pepe Jerex Xeres Palomino Fino. Bar manager Matt commented: "This is pretty esoteric, you've got to know this and mostly it will be used for cocktails"


Friend Mike thought this one was "cleaner, little minerally, almost like a grappa, leaves some heat on your mouth. " It smelled herbaceous, almost medicine-like. I could detect apples.

Matt, the bar manager used the Tio to make us a cocktail with mescal, smoked agave, cherry liqueur and orange rind which tasted fresh and complex.

We thought the red sherry would be good with blue cheese as a finish or aperitif while the white was too austere to drink by itself, more pleasant in a cocktail.

In the edgy Temescal area, Barlata offered five choices of sherries on the dinner menu which were drier and made to drink with tapas. There was also a range of sweet dessert sherries. We were recommended the white Tio Pepe fino ($6). After a huge serving of seafood Paella we found it dry and chalky but more interesting than the previous Tio.

Mike

In the end the two chalky whites sherries we tried were better used in smoky cocktails using darker liquors. The traditional red sweeter sherry  - dare I say the Miss Marple one - was still the most endearing. Well, quite.

I came home to uncover on the electronic typewriter the most wonderful sounding cocktail through LostPastRemembered. A mixology manual from 1869 (yes!) called Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks  instructs to mix sherry, cherry "shrub" (juice), soda (but try ginger ale), a squeeze of lemon and ice.

Just one sip and the mystery of sherry will be revealed, my dears. Case closed.

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Read the edited version of this article in the East Bay Express

Cocktail Crawl in High Heels

It's always a bonus to wear high heels on a bar crawl but the barking dogs at the end of the night usually dictates my frumpy flatties.

Tonight I've picked the ultimate place to tip, toe and trot rather than crawl; three restaurant bars all in Oakand's "Uptown" - which let's face it, is just a few blocks from Midtown and then Downtown. But I like the sound of it so after pulling on my boots and purple silk trench coat we headed down Broadway, just beyond Auto Row and towards the harbour.

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First up is Mua, a converted 6,500ft car garage, which I thought was pronounced Mwa as in Absolutely Fabulous. And it is AbFab in a street way with a black facade and graffiti inside and out, a live band and dancing later on and the odd wobbly chair and table. But it's actually MooWha, Korean for the existential "You are Here".

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The overall effect is a bit neither-here-nor-there and actually kind of all-over-the-show with bits of particle board, disembodied arms and splash paintings but the result is remarkably comfortable and we struck up many philosophical conversations with others at the bar, which is as it should be. The food is also a twist on comfort including Mac'nCheese which has butternut squash and no cheese and softshell crab Po-Boy sandwiches.

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Jus the head barman here is the real deal: passionate about fresh ingredients and a philosopher with it. He grew up in bars and restaurants and at just three-years-old was playing liars' dice with the staff at the Hungry Hunter while waiting for his mother to finish her shift. He's tended bars and chefed all over the Bay Area and as a student at St Mary's he even owned a restaurant with his mother.

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All Jus' drinks of the day were clipped on the wall and one was The Kicker ($10) with Corzo tequila, green chartreuse, creme de gingambre (ginger) lime, grapefruit, and a rinse of absinthe. The rinse of absinthe, just a hint, was the key. I love aniseed but a full glass of absinthe is hard to swallow and a simple wash was just right.

Jus said it was the ginger that makes it pop.You see, he mused: "Making a drink is like life; you've got to get the balance right -  going out, working, going to the gym... and then you need something like the ginger to make things pop."

As our friend Fredi said: "Each time you sip you discover something new."

We said farewell to our new bar friends and hopped across the road to Pican, an elegant door to the Deep South with variations on old staples such as fried chicken and collard greens and seemingly an entire book of Bourbons to choose from. This is really swishy place with doormen and valet parking and sometimes up to three very glamorous women to greet you. The interior is lushly elegant; deep chocolate browns with coloured glass, copper ceiling tiles and Victorian mouldings.

A pianist playing the grand in the bar was wonderful, but the TV dulled the atmosphere. I really dislike television in bars, the focus is always on the screen.

This is a place to really dress up for. You can never be too sparkly or too fancy for Pican; one-shoulder cocktail frocks, stilletos and chandelier earings are all just perfect here.

Many of the men were wearing three-piece suits with hat, tie, silk scarves, and pocket squares. All the elegance and flair is utterly refreshing. There are boatloads of bourbons here and cocktails containing bourbon. I am not an afficianado of Bourbon, though we tried the Kentucky Highball and Pican Old Fashioned. I did like the Mint Julep ($10) with Jim Beam and rock candy syrup and fresh mint,  fresh without being too sweet.

We walked up the road to Ozumo, a chic Japanese restaurant and bar with a jazz club atmosphere. The bar is a horse shoe with dramatic coloured lighting, a waterfall, dreamy watery-blue paintings, and pretty saki bottles lining the walls and ...a TV.  So I'm obviously one small uncounted opinion when it comes to TVs in the bar...

We sat at the Robata Grill where you can view the drama of a huge kitchen with leaping flames. We opted for the $9 Sparkling Lychee, lychee syrup with passionfruit puree topped with Chandon De Noir Sparkling wine, which was sparkly and slightly sweet without being too cloying.

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So it was Mua for the bohemian rhapsodising and funky funky ginger, Pican for the slow, silky lounge-lizard with Bourbon moves and Ozumo served up a fresh, fruity bubbly. By the time I'd gotten home and the cocktails had worn off slightly, my feet were starting to ache a tad. Bit of rest required before the next "research assignment."

(Edited version in East Bay Express )

What's the best cocktail in your town?