I hit a winemaker’s dinner last night at Harris’ in San Francisco.  The steaks were fine but the wines, the wines were spectacular. The 2005 Benziger Tribute Sonoma Mountain Cabernet Sauvignon was extraordinary, and still on my mind: clean with soft tannins, a lingering chalkiness in the mouth and a full and luscious bouquet of grapes and soil.

Yes, you’re not going to get a flowery list of berries out of me on this one. The fifth installment of the winery’s biodynamic Bordeaux blend tastes the way it should. Like fermented grape juice nurtured from a vineyard that is treated like a unique, living, breathing organism, where the roots are a nervous system that is soothed by valerian and chamomile, not antidepressants.

Well worth the $80 for tasting older than its time; for easily lasting five days when I recork it and leave it on my counter, ungassed; for a pleasure that is consistent velvet from entry to finish. And for not singeing my nose hairs.

If you haven’t stumbled upon True Sake in Hayes Valley, I suggest you make a specific trip. The owner’s tasting notes are some of the best I’ve seen in the City, including those at wine bars.

What’s brilliant is he makes sake accessible by listing not only aroma, flavor and mouth feel descriptors, but he also includes what kind of wine and what kind of beer the sake it most like. We bought an unfiltered Nigori that’s akin to Chardonnay. I’ll let you know. For now, check out the store!

Anyone tried Wal-mart’s answer to Charles Shaw? The big box store’s under $3 label goes by the name Oak Leaf, and whispers in the wine blogosphere indicate it’s “not that bad.” I believe they make a Chardonnay, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.

I’m thinking of doing a public blind taste off between Oak Leaf and Charles Shaw. So I need some preliminary comments about the wines. Has anyone tried them who can give me some opinions? Share them here. Thanks!

A friend of mine is looking for a relatively affordable red wine from the 1997 vintage. It’s a gift for someone.

It was a good year for Sonoma Cabernet Sauvignon and Central Coast Pinot Noir. I’m not crazy about Paso Robles when it comes to more than five years of age, but I know she could get a reasonable price on a bottle of Justin Cab. Anyone got other ideas? Post them here. Thanks a lot!

Finally, a flip in the winery ownership trend. Last week, five California wine brands were returned to a local company after being orphaned and snatched up by huge beverage companies over the years.

The brands are: Geyser Peak, Atlas Peak, Buena Vista Carneros, Gary Farrell and XYZin. You can read about it in detail here. But the most important thing to take from this news is that the company, Ascentia, will be a stone’s throw from the vineyards that produce the wines. This is the way it should be, but rare. They bought the wineries from Constellation Brands (based in New York) as part of a $209 million deal that includes Washington wineries Columbia and Cove Run and Idaho’s Ste. Chapelle.

Some of these wineries have really suffered as a result of all this back and forth, but I’m confident that under local ownership — Ascentia is based in Healdsburg — they can get back to making the best wine possible.

The City of Walnut Creek is trying something new, and I commend them. From 6 to 9 p.m. on June 25, merchants from North Broadway to Locust Street will open their doors for wine consumption.

Modeled after the Pleasanton Wine Stroll, which draws a good 1,000 people, folks behind the Downtown Wine Walk tell me they’re shooting to sell 400 tickets ($20 a piece) for their inaugural wine event. For $20, you get a glass and a map of the 32 retail shops and restaurants participating.

They don’t have a complete list of participating wineries yet, but I’m told it’s reds and whites from Napa Valley and includes Trefethen and Raymond. The one-ounce pours must be consumed indoors, btw. For more information and to purchase tickets, go to the web site of the Walnut Creek Downtown Business Association.

Anyone been to Candybar yet? Joel and I checked it out last night and while we were impressed with some of the eclectic flavors, we don’t think they’ll last. Not at those portions and prices. And not in Western Addition/NOPA.  Chef Boris Portnoy should’ve stayed at Campton Place, where the customer gets more than two bites for his buck.

We’d just come from a barbecue in South Park so after some chicken and beans we were ready for dessert. We selected three items off Candybar’s menu, which is broken up into savory and sweet categories and from there, fruit and chocolate: we had the savory mackarel with beets and popcorn, a goat cheese cake with toybox carrots and rosemary marshmallows with white chocolate and coffee ice cream.

Surprisingly, for a dessert bar, the fish was the best thing we had. And we each wouldn’t have minded another few bites. It was probably two by two inches. The place was so New York it was San Francisco.

The marshmallows left much to be desired and the cake was spare and lovely, but again, a few more bites would’ve been alright by us. And I don’t mean to hate on our waiter, but it was so ironic. Here is this small eclectic menu with strange combinations (feta sorbet, anyone?) and he hadn’t tried any of them, so he couldn’t tell us what they tasted like!

The wines were grossly marked up and I was surprised to see only one off-dry sparkling wine by the glass. That’s the perfect wine in my opinion for this kind of savory-sweet food, especially if you can’t afford the $66 bottle of Sauternes for a few bites of food. Er, dessert. Oh whatever.

What gets me are the 96 entries on Yelp singing the praises of this place. It’s mostly groups of girls who must make six times what I do going in and nibbling on goat cheese cake (which, btw, has cow’s milk in it, just in case you’re lactose intolerant and were excited to see something with goat cheese in it on the menu) and being OK with that.

Lately, after a debacle over a sketchy yoga studio, I’m starting to think Yelp plants its people. Thoughts?

Got some great feedback from my May 28 centerpiece “Good to the last drop.” One reader, Christa McLoy of Newark shared what she does with leftovers, since her hubby doesn’t drink wine.

When Christa opens a bottle, she uses breast milk storage bags to save wine. She says almost all of the air is removed in the bags.  She keeps up to three in the refrigerator for my drinking and freezes the rest in pre-measured amounts. Apparently, she makes a pretty mean pot roast in a tomato and red wine reduction sauce with the thawed wine.

Thanks for sharing, Christa. Anyone else got a good preservation tip? Post them here.