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Here's a new sake term for you - Hatsushibori. These are fresh, unpasteurized sakes from the first pressing and they appear just as winter begins to wind down. They don't last long, roughly 3 to 4 weeks, so tomorrow from 4pm - 6pm is your chance to taste three of them at Sakaya (324 E. 9th Street).

New York Vintners (21 Warren Street, Tribeca) has three events next week (Feb 1 - 3) centered on biodynamic and organic wine. Events include a vertical tasting of Mooiplaas wines from South Africa and a biodynamic and organic wine tasting,  Tickets for each cost $15 and proceeds benefit Slow Foods. Details on NY Vintner's website.

Aussie drink dens Bondi Road (153 Rivington St) and Sunburnt Cow (137 Ave C) are celebrating Australia Day today with all you can drink booze - 3 hours for $20. Steak sandwiches & burgers ($3) will help soak up the booze.

Not sure how the indigenous peoples of Australia deal with a celebration of the arrival of the British, but as long as they don't run screenings of the Nicole Kidman - Hugh Jackman fiasco Australia, it should be okay. There isn't enough booze in the world to make that film palatable.

A couple intriguing Eating & Drinking events next Monday January 25 -

Astor Center is holding an "Elements of Wine Class" with all proceeds being donated to Haiti relief efforts. Tickets are $75 ($50 with discount code) and fully deductible. More info at Astor Center's website.

Edible Manhattan is holding a cocktail celebration called "Good Spirits" at Almond (12 E. 22nd Street), featuring six chefs paired with six different liquors. Participating restaurants include Gramercy Tavern and Il Buco. More info and tickets ($40) here.

Chambers Street Wines has teamed with Louis/Dressner Selections for a wine tasting benefiting Haiti relief efforts tomorrow from 4pm to 7pm. Taste some excellent wines from Louis/Dressner, Douglas Polaner, Kermit Lynch, David Bowler and Michael Skurnik and make a donation to Partners in Health (if you can't make it, donate online at PIH.org). Suggested donations are $10 per person.

Chambers Street Wines tasting benefiting Haiti relief efforts
Saturday January 16, 4pm - 7pm
148 Chambers Street

Some intriguing tastings for the weekend:

Astor Wines & Spirits (399 Lafayette Street) has a number of tastings every weekend but the best one this week will be the Laphroaig scotch tasting. Several single malts will be tasted including 18 & 25 year old Laphroaigs and an Ardmore. Friday 5pm - 8pm

East Village sake store, Sakaya (324 E. 9th Street) is celebrating its 2nd anniversary with two days of sake tastings -

Friday, December 4 from 6 - 8pm

Masuizumi Junmai Daiginjo (Toyama)

Ninkiichi Daiginjo (Fukushima)

Chokaisan Junmai Daiginjo (Akita)

Daishichi Kimoto Umeshu (Fukushima)

 

Saturday, December 5 from 4 - 7pm

Masumi Yumedono Daiginjo (Nagano)

Okunomatsu "Formula Nippon" Sparkling Daiginjo (Fukushima)

Tsuki no Katsura "Heiyan Kyo" Junmai Daiginjo (Kyoto)

Daishichi Kimoto Umeshu (Fukushima)

Union Square Wines (140 4th Avenue) is celebrating the anniversary of the end of Prohibition on Saturday December 5 from 2pm to 5pm with its "Stay Wet Mega Tasting." Taste dozens of wines, scotch, vodka and cognac and sample nibbles from Di Paolo. For more info, click here.

Tomorrow from 4pm to 7pm, Chambers Street Wines (160 Chambers Street) showcases affordable wines from Bordeaux. Sample 12 wines, mostly organic or biodynamic, all priced from $12.99 to $34.99.

Scotch is one of our big things and tonight you can taste four different single malts at Astor Wines & Spirits (399 Lafayette) including one of our faves Lagavullin 16 (which is cheaper at nearby Warehouse Wines on Broadway). In addition to the four scotches, they will be tasting a couple of wines from Austria and California.

Scotch tasting tonight 5pm - 8pm, wine tasting 6pm - 8pm
Free

Tomorrow starts Halloween weekend, which of course means three days of boozing - hopefully not all Yankee choke-induced - in addition to the prerequisite costuming.

This year, the biggest game in town is the Halloween Pub Crawl, which will span over 100 bars. Tickets get you free entry to all participating venues, cheap booze and more. Get them in advance here. $15 for one day or $30 for three. Just be sure to read the FAQ on the website since you have to print your own tickets and then register at a specific place to get a beer cup, bracelet and map.

New York Vintners (21 Warren Street, Tribeca) has a tasting of over 30 Italian wines on Tuesday November 3 from 6pm - 8pm. Tickets are $45 and available through their website.

The wines of Chile are generally labeled "up and coming" but in our opinion they have already arrived. And they also happen to be a great value. Today, a Chilean wine two-fer:

Astor Wines' (399 Lafayette Street) weekly "Astor Tuesdays" promotion features the wines of Chile today. Get 15% off their list of 36 Chilean wines, today only.

New York Culinary Alliance and Women Chefs and Restaurateurs are holding a "Chilean Wine Tasting" tonight that's open to the public. Take part in a seated, guided tasting of some of the top wines coming out of Chile, including the boutique wineries such as Aquitania and Neyen. In all, wines from seven wineries will be tasted along with a selection of cheeses from Murrays. The tasting will be led by the Chile-based wine and culinary expert Liz Caskey.

Chile Wine Tasting: tonight 6pm - 8pm, Institute of Culinary Education (ICE) at 50 W. 23^rd Street. Tickets are $35 and can be bought at the door.

Austrian wine has been a rising star in NYC restaurant circles for several years and now the Austrian Tourist Board has kicked off the first Austria Wine Month, running through November 22.

Fourteen restaurants in Brooklyn and Manhattan, including Wallse, Thomas Beisl, Seasonal, Klee, Cafe Katja and more, will be offering special prix fixe menus, wine flights and pairings, as well as some rare Austrian wines by the glass during the period. Some of the highlights:

·         At Wallsé and The Upholstery Store, guests can design their own four-course tasting menu for $68. For an additional $45, Austrian sommelier Leo Schneemann will pair each course with Austrian wine.

·         Café Katja offers a mixed flight: a trio of Austrian white, red, and dessert wine for $18. With 24 hours' notice, Café Katja will also set up a wine tasting with meat, cheese, and Schnapps, for $42 (minimum four people).

·         Seasonal Restaurant & Weinbar will pour a rare 2001 Smaragd wine by the glass: Prager Riesling Smaragd, Kaiserberg ($19/glass).

·         Klee Brasserie will have a special three-course menu featuring the rare Austrian Mangalitsa Pork, with an optional pairing of three Austrian wines ($93 with wine; $58 without).

·         At Thomas Beisl, guests can design a three-course meal that includes a choice of soup, wiener schnitzel, paprika chicken, cucumber salad, fresh strudel, and white, red, and dessert wines ($28/person, including wine).

·          Café Steinhof will offer $4 glasses of two Lower Austrian wines: Fritsch Grüner Ventliner and Berger Zweigelt (check website for times). On Mondays, the restaurant serves goulash ($6) and apple bread pudding ($3).

Even better, you can enter to win a 9 day trip to three of Austria's wine countries. Enter at www.austria.info/wine by answering a short three question quiz.

Soho standby Cafe Noir (32 Grand Street at Thompson) was the subject of some tense lease negotiations this past summer, mainly chronicled on Grub Street. But have no fear, it's not going anywhere - they signed a 10 year lease over the summer and now they're ready to celebrate.

Tonight there will be an open bar with free beers, mojitos and sangria from 6pm - 8pm along with free tapas. From 8pm till late drinks will be buy 1, get 1 free. Expect a live band and a revolving set of DJs. Not a bad way to start off the week.

Another week, another festival celebrating the food and drink of some place that is not New York. This time it's called Sud de France and it promotes the wines of Southern France - specifically the Languedoc Roussillon region. Restaurants such as Bouley, Bar Boulud, Hearth and more are doing special menus and tons of tastings are being held at wine shops around town.

Tonight Maslow 6 (211b West Broadway) in Tribeca has a tasting from 6pm - 8pm of several wines including reputedly the world's first sparkling wine.

On October 8, Columbus Circle Wines (1802 Broadway) will be tasting organic wines from Southern France from 5pm - 8pm.

And on Friday October 9, Chambers Street Wines (148 Chambers Street) will have a tasting from 5pm - 8pm.

More info on the rather poorly conceived website. Note to festival organizers, make your websites easier to navigate and give the restaurants some love. We couldn't find a list of who was doing what and that's just wrong.

Today is Nihonshu No Hi (Sake Day) in Japan and Sakaya (324 E. 9th Street) will be commemorating the day with tastings of 6 sakes from Prestige and Nishimoto Trading Co. Tastings will be held from 6pm - 8pm at the store.

Chambers Street Wines (160 Chambers Street) welcomes organic winemaker Robert Sinskey tonight from 5 - 7pm. He'll be pouring 8 different wines at the store.

We dropped into Le Fooding this weekend - attending both nights, paying our way for the regular admission - and came away less than impressed.

Le Fooding, if you were out of town or hiding out in a cave, was a two-night festival celebrating the new French cuisine, which is less haughty and more accessible to common folk. Whatever. We were there to check out the French chefs and also to get our hands on the fabled Minetta Tavern burger.

Overall, the experience was mixed - each night there were good dishes as well as terrible ones, but there were also logistical issues and the drinks were a big problem. You see, if you paid an extra $30 you got VIP entrance and one hour unlimited Veuve Clicquot champagne. But starting at 7pm everyone (VIPS along with regular 7pm ticket holders) had to buy drink tickets, which were a steep $12 each. Drinks included the aforementioned champagne, wine from M. Chapoutier and cocktails from Le Plaza Athenee in Paris and Dutch Kills. The latter was pretty egregious since cocktails at the bar, just 5 blocks up the street, are only $10.

Booze turned out to be a bit of an issue in general. While in line for one of the dishes, we heard a guy complain about the wine pours. Apparently, when he got the first cup (plastic, naturally) it was almost full and the second cup was much less so. So he asked the pourer and she told him that she was told to get 6 pours out of a bottle (pretty skimpy since most restaurants & wine bars such as Gramercy Tavern or Terroir get more like 4 - 5 pours). He managed to beg another inch of wine out of her - this is for $12 don't forget - but we found this quite obnoxious even if proceeds are for charity. (As it turns out, we didn't even bother with drinks and headed to Dutch Kills afterward.)

Food was seriously mixed - on Saturday the Minetta Tavern burger was good, the barbacoa taco from General Greene was very good (as was their ice cream) while Daniel Boulud's Moroccan couscous was a headscratcher (wasn't this a French event?). The worst dish of the two days was the chicken skewer from Fogon in Paris - it came with a carrot puree that was way heavy on the lemongrass and the chicken was seriously undercooked. On Friday, David Chang's Bo Ssam was dry but the fried corn with scallop butter (Diner) was pretty tasty and the barbecued sirloin from Bigarrade in Paris was very good. As for Wylie's chicken necks, we have one word for you - bones. Not much meat to be had. Best in show was Saturday nights steak with charred aubergine from Le Chateaubriand in Paris. The aubergine (eggplant) was actually a cream on the side and worked perfectly with the juicy, tender meat.

We have no idea if they will do this event next year but after the jump some things they need to do better.

This Thursday 9/24 is the annual Joy of Sake, one of our favorite tasting events of the year. Again taking place at Webster Hall, The Joy of Sake is the largest tasting of sakes outside Japan.

Imagine 270 sakes spread over 3 floors - a veritable adult playground. On top of that, you'll get to sample dishes from 15 top NYC restaurants including newcomers Matsugen and Ajna Bar. No word if Top Chef Hung himself will be in the house but we bet he likes a good party.

Tickets are $80 in advance and can be bought at JoyofSake.com or at 888-799-7242.

Opal (251 E. 52nd Street) has gone football crazy this year - see below.

We haven't been to Fort Defiance (365 Van Brunt Street, Red Hook) yet but we hear good things. This Saturday they may just tempt us down to that odd little neighborhood with their wacky celebration of the 233rd anniversary of the Battle of Brooklyn. Starting at 5:30pm, they are roasting a pig and $15 gets you a plate of food plus a piece of apple pie. Drinks promise to be "colonial-era," which considering there was no ice yet should prove interesting.