Minnesota wine? Minnesota wine!

You've heard for years about the gimmicky little vineyard down in Hastings that bottles funny little Minnesota vintages. "Our grapes can suffer," says the label on every bottle of Alexis Bailly wines, ha ha ha.

So, being a wine drinker who enjoys a good glass of Spanish Rioja or perhaps a New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc, you might be forgiven for dismissing Alexis Bailly out of hand. We don't grow olives or oranges in Minnesota, why the hell try to grow grapes?

You, my friend, would be missing out on some delightful and innovative wines. Last weekend and next, the vineyard is hosting an open house: For $7.50, you get to taste all nine wines-- from the juicy table white to the subtle and rarified ice wine; from a buxom country red to the elite Voyageur. Our favorite turned out to be the Seyval Blanc, a citrusy and dry white with grassy undertones that compares favorably to some of the best Sauvignon Blancs from California and Down Under. After you've tasted all the offerings, you can go down to the casking room and buy a bottle of your faves.

What a delightful way to spend a Sunday afternoon: Bring a picnic, buy a bottle of wine, and hang out in the vineyard with its sculpture garden, natural prairie, and its bocce ball courses that are bedded with real sea shells.

Alexis Bailly Vineyard, http://www.abvwines.com/

Drinking for a cause

He still remembers the moment he fell in love with her. It was over a cheese plate. Her face was consumed by candlelight. His belly was warm with Merlot. (It was eight years ago, before Sideways made the poor grape gauche.) She laughed at his horrible Y2K joke. And the giggle wove satin ribbons around his heart.

Wait....it wasn't over food. And it wasn't a candle illuminating those rosy cheeks. It might have been fluorescent lights. Nope, it was sun light. Or perhaps it was dark? And maybe it wasn't a Merlot after all, but a Bordeaux. Or a Burgundy. Ah, hell. Maybe it wasn't even red wine. Maybe it was a Viognier...

Whatever it was that caused his heart to become satin-stitched forever, tonight he's planning to relive the moment all over again. He's taking his girlfriend to the wine tasting at the Cedar Cultural Center (6:30 pm till 9:30 pm), an event hosted by Zipp's Liquors. With more than 150 wines to choose from and yummy food served up by the Seward Co-op, thirty bucks per person feels like a steal to this romantic gentleman. Best of all, the proceeds from the tasting benefit Youth Farm and Market Project, a local organization that promotes urban agriculture and youth organizing.

So when he squeezes her hand and whispers in her ear, "This reminds me of the time I fell in love with you," he won't be feeding her a line. With 150 different wines, the one they shared that lovely night (or maybe it was day time?) is bound to be among the bunch.

Zipp's Liquors: http://www.zippsliquors.com
Youth Farm and Market Project: http://www.youthfarm.net/

Photo: (CC) By Andre Karwath

The greatest double date of the week

You can think of at least 738 reasons to ditch work early today. And while perfecting your skills at bird whispering and watching the algae grow in your fish-less aquarium are totally valid reasons to call it quits, here are at least six more excuses to pack up your bags before the whistle blows: The Riverview Theater is showing the four Academy Award-nominated documentary shorts at 4:30 today through Thursday. And the theater's across-the-street neighbor, the Riverview Wine Bar, serves up the best wine flites and thin-crust pizzas in town.

Whether you're going solo, with a date, or with a friend, this pairing makes for a great double date. The famous art-deco theater is charging only five bucks for the quadruple feature of The Blood of Yingzhou District; Recycled Life; Rehearsing a Dream; and Two Hands. The award-nominated short films—ranging from stunningly heartbreaking to feel-good—run about 20 to 40 minutes each.

Afterward, head on over to the Riverview Wine Bar, where you can reflect on the four films. Cozy up to the fire and check out one of the bar's 12 different wine flites, a two-oz. sampling of wine varieties that comes with its own card so tasters can keep the names straight. There's a sampling of un-oaked whites and un-oaked reds. Funky whites and K-Syrah, Shiraz. No Merlot, Only Pinot and Cotes du Rhone, a selection of light and full-bodied wines from the French region first to turn grapes into vino.

You don't have to be a wine connoisseur or even know the difference between a bottle of fine French wine and a box of Franzia to enjoy toasting at this cozy neighborhood restaurant. In fact, drinking wine at the Riverview is a learning experience. The prices are cheap enough—and the selection deep enough—that a few tasty flites can make anyone feel like a wine critic.

The Riverview Wine Bar also has delicious pizzas like the Neufchatel and Goat Cheese, which also comes with pesto, roasted tomatoes, and pine nuts for $10.50. The sweet curry dressing on the roasted beet salad is so scrumptious you just might want to pour it into a glass and pretend it's Pinot. And to top off the evening and make you further dream of begging off work and sleeping in the next day, the desserts (like the cocoa-dusted homemade truffles) go great with the dark-roasted coffee from the Riverview Cafe next door.

Riverview Theater: http://www.riverviewtheater.com
Riverview Wine Bar: http://www.theriverview.net

Bacchus goes high tech and hits the road

We have decided that beer is the cause of a great deal of flatulence in our world. It took a little while to make the full conversion to wine, but now we are happy. We have found the perfect compromise:

Boxed wine. Specifically Hardy's Shiraz. Don't mess with the Cab, don't go near the Chardonnay. The Shiraz is an awesome, drinkable, affordable wine. At roughly $18 for a box, it breaks down to about $4.50 a bottle. Plus, you don't have all the extra weight and waste of four bottles.

The stigma of boxed wine? Three answers: 1) It's hip to be square. Huey Lewis said it 20 years ago, and it's still true today. 2) Wine box technology comes from, like, NASA. If you can actually make a box last for six months, you'll find it just as drinkable when you return to Earth as when you left. 3) If you manually carry your wine as we do (in the old courier bag), one box is lighter than four bottles BY FAR.

Where to get it? We like South Lyndale Liquors, where they seem to rotate their stock nicely. Thomas Liquors over on Grand Avenue in St. Paul is also a nice wine shop. In our experience, Surdyk's is hit or miss, when it comes to box wines--they don't keep the stock up, and can run for weeks without a reliable supply. Also, the only two boxes we've ever had that had turned bad came from Surdyk's, for whatever that's worth.