Hibernating and Reading the Internets

Brrrr. It's too cold to go out and eat! While you're at home making the last pot roast of the season, here are a few interesting items from around the food and wine world:

Mark Your Calendar for Midwest Cabernet Experience: Yes, my favorite wine event of the year is coming on Friday, May 4. Only there's one huge snag. In moving this enormous Cabernet tasting and sale to a Friday night, they've forgotten to look at *which* Friday night. Not only is it Kentucky Derby weekend, but it also conflicts with Indianapolis Opera's final event of the season, Timothy Noble singing Falstaff. I hate it when event planners do this to us! If you can attend, then get your tickets at Kahn's (usually $75). No grocery store wines at this event. Look for all collector cabs and better.

Duckhorn Looses their Wine Maker: Sure, the winery is for sale and according to Zinquisition, it's one of the worst kept secrets in the wine world. But more importantly, they've lost their wine maker, Mark Beringer. He's landed at Zinfandel Lane managing the operation for Rutherford Studios.

Don't Change a Thing: While I was a latecomer to wine mega-warehouse Sam's in Chicago (thank my wine enabler), I'm a convert now. So, news that they've sold raises some concern. The buyer? A private equity group for a stake of 80%. However, founder Sam Rosen's grandson will be in charge. The idea? Expand the concept with new stores throughout Illinois. Now that could be change I can live with. (From winecanine.com)

Forbes Names Top 10 Tastemakers: Via Michael Bauer at the SF Chron, here's the list from Forbes for their top 10 most influential chefs in the US. While there are some big names on the list (Keller, Puck, Batali) there are also a few names known by foodies (Colicchio and Goin) as well some young up-and-commers who die-hards will know from kitchens they've been in around the country such as Johnny Iuzzini, Daniel Boulud's long time pastry chef at Restaurant Boulud in NYC.

The chefs are:

Eric Ziebold of CityZen in Washington, D.C.
Dan Barber of Blue Hill in New York
Johnny Iuzzini, pastry chef of Jean-Georges in New York
Wolfgang Puck of Spago, et al., in Los Angeles
Tom Colicchio of Craft in New York
Joel Robuchon, who has L'Atelier in New York and Las Vegas
Grant Achatz of Alinea in Chicago
Mario Batali of Babbo, etc., in New York
Suzanne Goin of Lacques in Los Angeles
Thomas Keller of Per Se in New York and French Laundry in Yountville.

And last but not least, Food Porn: Two words, people: Bacon Popcorn. Via Slashfood.