When I come back to terra firma I realize it’s almost time to go to Corkage for some wine tasting. Corkage is a wine and sake bar that I discovered about two weeks ago. It’s located between Tsunami sushi and Café Abir on Divis and Fulton. The three establishments in fact are all one. Corkage and Tsunami are offshoots of Café Abir. You can easily walk from one to the other with the greatest of ease using the connecting hallway. The owners of Café Abir had been trying for years to make something of the copious space adjacent to the café. Twice it has been a magazine and cigar shop which so far has been its most successful incarnation. For a hot minute it existed as a cyber café. I was a regular at the space when it was briefly converted into an organic market with fresh bread and produce and an impressive selection of cheese and wine. At one point they brought in some roasters and used the space to roast their beans. I can recall walking past the large windows and seeing sack after sack of coffee beans in waiting. In the end sushi was the answer. Tsunami does have an element of swank going for it. It’s dark and wooden and the chefs prepare the seafood in the back unlike many sushi places which tend to be bright, well lit, and place the chefs in the front so you can admire their precision blade work. Perhaps it is because Tsunami is more like a standard restaurant than a sushi house. The generous bar is for drinking although you can order food there but it is unlike traditional sushi bars where the bar is a place where you eat and get to watch the sushi show. The place has been a success since they opened the doors. Café Abir received a face lift a few years ago and now it has the swankiness to match Tsunami. It doesn’t feel like a coffee house anymore. The last time I was in I couldn’t find the coffee menu on the chalkboard and I noticed all the shelves behind the counter were lined with bottles of wine. I am embarrassed to say that Corkage has been in existence for two years and I was just now “discovering” it. I still walk or ride my bike past Café Abir practically every day but since Café Abir is no longer on my radar I didn’t notice how they stealthily instigated this wine and sake bar known as Corkage. Divisadero is currently undergoing construction to make it appear like a boulevard of importance and the construction has closed parts of the sidewalk on adjoining streets. Instead of being on auto pilot I had to negotiate the construction obstacles and that’s when I noticed the wine bar. The place is tiny and has a small but inviting bar that seats about 5 people. The rest of the place is wooden shelves stocked with wine and glass refrigeration filled with an impressive array of colorful sake bottles. I came back for a visit with my pal Libby and we fell in love with the place because they have high quality booze in abundance and Yoshi who works behind the bar is one of the coolest people you will ever meet. He’s from the neighborhood now but was born and raised in Japan. He has a good grasp of knowledge about wine and sake and he plays the bass in a band called Beatropolis. I always enjoy meeting people in bands as it reminds me of the pre dot.com days in the neighborhood when there were actually a couple of rehearsal spaces on Divis within a block of Café Abir and live music was why you went out at night. That’s a whole other story that I will be writing about in a future blog.
The wine tasting is an RSVP event so I get there about 7:15pm. Even though the event has only been going on for 15 minutes the place is already filled to the gills. The only place left to stand is the middle area where the wooden cases of wine are stacked. This was actually the perfect place for me since I brought my Flip video camera to record the goings on. I had a stable platform to set my mini tripod and I’d be able to democratically shoot video of everyone in the bar . Luckily they were still on the first wine which was a $99 bottle of champagne, Dumont I think but I can’t be sure. I’ve rarely met a bottle of champagne I didn’t like and I became fast friends with this one. It was crisp, fruity, and the carbonation was ever nose tickling but not overpowering. Yoshi was working the bar but he wasn’t the front man tonight. He was mostly consumed with keeping the gears oiled while three others catered to the needs of the patrons. One of the three was a pleasant blonde haired gal wearing a turquoise blouse. Her job was to mingle about the crowd with a fresh bottle ensuring the guests were satiated. The main man for the evening was Alex Casella. He was the organizer and the wine selector. Dressed in a straight black mortician suit and tie and sporting a neatly trimmed beard and mustache I could tell Alex loved his job. He went about the crowd educating us on the details of each wine chronicling where it was grown, what the climate and soil conditions were like, and what kind of barrels the wine had been stored in. He had a particular affinity for the Montrachet region south of the Loire valley in France which he spoke of in almost religious terms. Rounding out the crew was Tod who acted as Alex’s second. He was more focused on conversing about the nose and particular taste of each wine. After speaking with him I discovered he was the weekend barkeep at Corkage and a long time resident of the neighborhood. Tod wore a derby, the kind of hat you might find on a detective back in the days when they wore hats. Along with the hat he wore a black tie with a long leather coat. He wore his dark hair long and his mustache and beard in a mini Fu Manchu style. Tod was very enthusiastic about sharing his thoughts and feelings about the wine. Where Alex was more of a showman, Tod came across as someone who would be sitting next to you at the bar enjoying the dry and sweet nectars. In the beginning the crowd was conscious of being filmed but they didn’t seem to mind. They played their parts as best they could and only occasionally taking furtive glances a the camera. It helps that the Flip video has such a small footprint. The crowd was more into wine drinking than wine tasting so as the evening progressed they loosened up quite a bit and soon were unaware of the camera and became engrossed in their conversations. My focus for most of the night had been on the perimeter people so I turned my attentions to the people at the bar. At the center of the bar holding court was this sista named Nicole. The two of us were the only people of color in attendance and I had met her briefly a week earlier at Corkage so it was easy to get a conversation going with her. She was,without a doubt, the liveliest person in the bar. She was not a typical but a classic black woman. She was looking good with everything in place with her black top, denims, and knee high mocha colored boots. She spoke with authority and sass with her big brown eyes shape shifting to match her emotion and expressions. She had the kind of body language that would make a silent film star envious. We had completely opposite tastes in wine. She hated the two wines I liked best. She said they were too complex for her taste. She likes her wines to be simple and straightforward. Champagne is her drink of choice and she was not at all impressed with the bottle we had earlier saying it was good but not $99 a bottle good. On further discussion I found out she was a regular at Corkage and frequently purchased bottles of champagne and sake. There was a bottle on display that I had been admiring since my first visit to Corkage. It was maple colored, beaded bottle in the magnum size that sat on the top shelf front and center. She informed me it was a bottle of champagne and one of her favorites. I forget the name but not the price which stood at $157 U.S. dollars a bottle. Nicole had purchased this champagne on more than one occasion so I knew she was serious about her champagne. Nicole made me promise not to include her in any video I’d be making. She used that fallback excuse all women use, “I look fat.” She had ample derriere but she was hardly fat but you have to respect a woman’s fat issues, real or imagined, so I promised I would leave her on the editing room floor. It wasn’t really about fat, it was about sexiness. She showed me a photo of herself on her mobile phone so I could get an idea of how she liked to look, at least when cameras were around. In the photo she looked sultry and sexy. Her now short, straight black hair was long, wavy, and luxurious with hints of caramel and her face makeup was professionally done giving her that night-out-on-the-town look. Nonetheless, even though I liked the photo I told her she looked just as good in her everyday look. She gave me that “are you crazy!” look and again made me promise to keep her out of the video. I ended up leaving Corkage with two bottles of wine. One was a chardonnay from Louis Jadot, Puligny Montrachet 2004 and the other was a bottle of red, labeled embriux de vall llach 2004 from Spain. In my current state of joblessness it is neither prudent nor in the budget to purchase any wine beyond the Trader Joe’s level but the Louis Jadot was one of the best chardonnays I have ever tasted. I knew I had to have a bottle. Sometimes in life you have to live a little and not be concerned with consequences. I walked out of Corkage clutching my bottles of wine like a father holding dear to his bosom a couple of newborns. The confederacy of varietals certainly had me in the right frame of mind for my next stop so off I went.
To get from Corkage to Solstice is a straight shot north on Divis about 10 blocks which is a hop and a skip by SF standards. I walked into Solstice and it was business as usual. The place was full and the din of the diners was at maximum force. The musicians Michael and David were doing their usual thing and playing one of my favorite tunes which I know not the name of. I quickly sat down at my usual place, a mini table in front of the bar right next to the musicians. If you are there for the music it’s the best seat in the house, otherwise it’s always the last table taken. I slipped my babies under the table and set up my tripod to film the duo. Unfortunately there was not enough light to do justice but I let the camera run anyway. I turned to the bar to get my usual Maker’s Mark neat and I was met by a friendly faced brunette dressed in dark top, dark slacks, and white tennis shoes. Seeing my video camera she deduced that I was there to see the band. She was also there to see the band so I was marked as an instant comrade. We began small talking and I sat myself next to her at the bar and that is where I would be for the remainder of the evening. It was a classic moment of hitting it off instantly. After 10 minutes we were carrying on like we had been friends for ages. Daria was her appellation and she was a delightful character. She was a friend of David’s but a more recent friend because she was not too familiar with David’s legendary outfit the Broun Fellinis. David had lots of female friends which is not surprising since he is a great musician and a cool person to be around. He’s a great blend of street knowledge, music, history, and he’s a superb conversationalist with high intelligence and a crafty sense of humor… all things that most women adore in a man. He is from Chicago and New York and although mellowed by west coast living he retains his east coast sharpness. He’s known for his energetic sax playing (echoes of Branford Marsalis) but he is also an accomplished song writer and singer which he only does on cd’s. When he’s playing live in front of a crowd it’s strictly sax.
My new friend Daria and I were hitting it off nicely. She is honestly enthusiastic about hearing what I have to say and earnestly prods me for more details while she herself excitedly relays to me the details of her life. She is a thirty something mother of two. Tonight her husband is at home taking care of the kids. This is her night out and she is enjoying every minute of it. She keeps tabs on the hubby and kids by breaking out her Blackberry every ten minutes or so to read and send texts and emails. Just about everybody at the bar is eating an appetizer. Like great minds thinking alike we both come to the conclusion that a tasty treat would fit perfect with our drinks and conversation. We order and share a plate of mini tacos, two carnitas, and two carne asada. She tells me she is a bad Jew while scarfing down one of the delicious carnitas tacos. She’s playful and self depreciating at the same time. We quickly finished the plate and I could tell she could go for some more as her appetite had been whetted. Her energy and verve told me she was a woman with appetites. I suggested another round of tacos which she kindly balked on. She said she had to watch her figure which she was proud of being the mother of two. She went skipping off to the bathroom and it was true, she did have a figure to be proud of but I knew she desired more tacos so I ordered another plate. The tacos arrived shortly after she bounced back on to her barstool and she was not at all displeased. After refusing and refusing to eat a taco she finally gave in to the temptation and had another carnitas which she ate happily but she was serious about her figure so she only had one. I was so enthralled hanging out with Daria I didn’t notice Ubi enter the building. Daria asked me who was the strange looking guy who had just arrived and was setting up his bass next to Michael and David. I had to explain to her who Ubi was (see Summer at Solstice). She asked me if he was part of the band and if he was getting paid. I told her that Ubi likes to drop in on the guys and it was all off the cuff and nothing that was mandated or official. Ubi helped David and Michael close out the set and afterwards they joined us at the bar. David ordered his usual, Sliders, which are three micro burgers and seem to be getting more popular around the City these days. The bartender Jeff put on a mix tape (yes I still use antiquated terms) and the first song was an old Smiths song (I guess all Smiths songs are old now) and Daria and I delighted that we were both huge Smiths fans. I never stopped listening to them, I hear Morrissey and the lads everyday. That led me to relate to her one of the best live shows I have ever experienced which was in 1987 at the Universal Amphitheater for the Queen is Dead tour. Morrissey in his prime was something to behold and the tab of Ecstasy I dropped definitely added to the flavor (this is back when Ecstasy was still pure, hard to get, and not being made in someone’s garage). By now Daria had shifted her attention to David, the reason she was at Solstice in the first place. I was ready to roll as the wine and the Maker’s were taking their toll. Daria whipped out her Blackberry and secured my full name, email address, and phone number. Not only is she fun, she’s organized. I gave her a big hug, said my goodbyes to the fellas and headed for the door. Ubi and Michael being sharp eyed reminded me not to forget my babies. I scooped up the bottles and began the journey home.
On the walk home I reflected on my Perfect Day. Why couldn’t everyday be like this? Lack of work has led me to question my personal magnetism and worthiness. I often defer going out to meet people and socialize because I don’t want to invade people’s space with the gloom and spectre of unemployment. Perfect Day allowed me to forget about that and just go out there and be who I am. It worked because I was positively connecting with everyone I experienced at Corkage and Solstice. If I had dice I would have been rolling sevens all night long. When I arrived at home I checked my email and was pleasantly surprised to see an email from Daria, it was a classic “remember me?” email which I found amusing. Of course I remembered her. I would remember Daria for all times even if I never saw her again. She’s in my archives as being an important part of my latest Perfect Day. I do hope to see her again someday because I am very sure I would enjoy her company, Perfect Day or not.
On the walk home I reflected on my Perfect Day. Why couldn’t everyday be like this? Lack of work has led me to question my personal magnetism and worthiness. I often defer going out to meet people and socialize because I don’t want to invade people’s space with the gloom and spectre of unemployment. Perfect Day allowed me to forget about that and just go out there and be who I am. It worked because I was positively connecting with everyone I experienced at Corkage and Solstice. If I had dice I would have been rolling sevens all night long. When I arrived at home I checked my email and was pleasantly surprised to see an email from Daria, it was a classic “remember me?” email which I found amusing. Of course I remembered her. I would remember Daria for all times even if I never saw her again. She’s in my archives as being an important part of my latest Perfect Day. I do hope to see her again someday because I am very sure I would enjoy her company, Perfect Day or not.
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