Roll out the barrel

Recently I visited a wine bar in San Francisco called Barrique, aptly named because they serve wine out of barrels. They vinify some of their own wine, either from purchased grapes or juice, or they acquire bulk wine and barrel age it and blend it themselves. They only make 60 gallons of any wine - enough to fill one barrel. They then serve it from these barrels behind the bar. Interesting business model. The barrique-to-glass system is patent-pending, so they couldn't tell us anything about the delivery system, but I imagine there must be some sort of airtight bag inside that keeps oxygen out as the wine level goes down.

The wine list features their own wines plus a couple of well known bubblies to get your palate ready for these big California wines. I recommend the Sommelier's flight of 3 wines to get a good sampling. I started with the J Russian River Valley Brut Rose sparkling wine and then tried some of the Barrique Selections. I thought the Cabs were the best of the bunch, but the offerings change frequently so there's always a reason to go back. The truffle popcorn was a fantastic accompaniment to the wines :)