80 Cocktails at Clio

Welcome to mid-week Wednesday.

It's a good time to check in: what's been exceptional so far this week, and what opportunities you still have for weekday exceptionality.

Need some inspiration?

Stop by Clio for dinner.

There are two reasons for this:

1. Their mid-week market menu, prix fixe. Three courses, Weeknights only. Fresh and seasonal. $49.

2. Their new drinks menu, including eighty -- 80 -- cocktails.

Drink outside the box.

Exceptionality awaits.


WHAT: Mid-Week Inspiration from Prix Fixe and Drinks Menu
WHEN: Mondays through Thursdays from 5:30 to 10 p.m.
WHERE: Clio, 370 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston
MORE INFO: Click here.


DAILY TIDBIT:

"Spend the afternoon. You can't take it with you." -- Annie Dillard

Yankee Homecoming Wine Tasting, 100+ Wines and Ipswich Ale

For 53 years now -- more or less -- folks up in Newburyport have been organizing Yankee Homecoming. The program has evolved into a summer-long festival with everything from a Motown dance party to fireworks to an open house at the Plum Island Clam Plant.

And then there is the wine tasting, which happens this Saturday night from 6 to 10 p.m.

Just as Yankee Homecoming itself has been getting better and better each year, so too has the wine tasting.

This year's improvement?

A tasting of Ipswich Ale by the Mercury Brewing Company, which so happens has been named one the world's ten best beers by Wine Spectator magazine.

That's in addition to the 100 wines (put up by Leary's Fine Wines & Spirits).

And cheeses and hors d'oeuvres from local chefs and restaurants.

Time for a homecoming, Newburyport-style.


WHAT: Wine Tasting Extravaganza for the Yankee Homecoming Festival
WHEN: Saturday, May 22 from 6 to 10 p.m.
WHERE: Nicholson Hall, Newburyport
COST: $40. Tickets can be purchased online or at Leary's Fine Wines & Spirits.


DAILY TIDBIT:

Ipswich Ale was the first offering by the Ipswich Brewing Company when it was founded in 1991 by Paul Sylva and Jim Beauvais. Today the brewers, who expanded and are now known as Mercury Brewing Company, produce 47 different beers and 19 soft drinks.

Treasure Map to Wine, at Half Price, for the Spring Wine Fest. Limited Offer!

Don't you wish you had a cheat sheet to the wine world?

Some sort of map - like you're on a treasure hunt - where X marks the spot of the perfect wine for you.

Sign me up! You think. Where do I get it?

At Cyclorama, the Boston Center for the Arts on Saturday night. It's what they'll hand you when you walk in the door there on Saturday night for the Spring Wine Fest.

And -- if you are one of the first 50 people to click through and purchase your ticket to the Wine Fest -- you'll get it at HALF PRICE. $29, specifically, for the regular price of $59.

Which brings us back to that treasure map.

They call it a passport and - get this - the Boston Event Guide will have arranged the whole space in front of you geographically so that it jives with the passport slash treasure map in your hand.

All that's left is for you to find your own X.

That's the hard part.

"Hard," though, is a relative term because you've got to taste the wines in order to know which is perfect for you.

Poor you.


WHAT: Spring Wine Fest, sponsored by the Boston Event Guide
WHERE: Cyclorama, Boston Center for the Arts, 539 Tremont Street, Boston
WHEN: Saturday, May 22 from 1 to 5 p.m.
COST: $29 for the first 50 purchasers (normally $59)

DAILY TIDBIT:

Hurry! This offer is good for the daytime event using code RWB before Wednesday, May 19 at Midnight. Hurry, space is limited and this will sell out fast!!

Find Wine at the SoWa Art Walk This Weekend

Yep, the annual SoWa (South of Washington Street) Art Walk is this weekend, from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday.

Which means you will get your springtime fix of artists and galleries both traditional and very much un-.

Yep, SoWa Sundays launch this weekend too, except just this once they should call it SoWa Sat-Sun because it'll be happening both days in their new permanent site on Thayer Street.

Which means you will get your springtime fix of local veg et al at the SoWa Food & Produce Market, a mainstay of Sundays in the South End.

And yep, you'll be able to drink. That is, you'll be able to sip your springtime fix of season-perfect non-fussy wines at BRIX -- the chix there will be opening their doors to quench your thirst in a special tasting on Saturday afternoon.

Which means all your fixes will have been, well, fixed. Especially once you see the list of participating South End restaurants.

That, clearly, makes your weekend plans done done and done.

At least for the daylight hours.


WHAT: Afternoon Tasting of springtime wines to coincide with the SoWa Art Walk
WHERE: BRIX Wine Shop, 1284 Washington Street, Boston
WHEN: Saturday, May 14 from 2 to 5 p.m.
COST: $0

DAILY TIDBIT:

"I don't follow recipes. I interact with them." -- John Thorne in Mouth Wide Open

Wine Dinners (and Lady Gaga) Up for Auction at WGBH. Clock's Ticking!

It's true that the wine lots at the WGBH auction don't go up for a few days yet.

(We'll keep you posted on the details. Stay tuned.)

But right now on WGBH.org you can find auction lots that will interest you anyway.

Whether "what interests you" is a 2011 Volvo C30.

Or an Amtrak trip to Washington, with a two-night stay and a Pops concert.

Or loge tickets to Lady Gaga at the TD Garden.

And then there are the wine-related options, such as:

• 2010 Nantucket Wine Festival stay
• Wine dinner for six at the Hungry I
• Five-course wine dinner for six at La Morra
• Five-course wine dinner for six at Upstairs on the Square
• Etc Etc Etc
  

Check out the full list of options in the Chef's Tasting/Wine Dinners category.

And be sure to check out everything else too (restaurants, travel, art, fitness...).

There's A LOT. But the clock is ticking on time left to bid.

Best get on it.


WHAT: WGBH Auction Online
WHEN: NOW through Saturday, May 22
CATEGORIES OF INTEREST: You name it! See Wine Dinners and Restaurants for starters.

DAILY TIDBIT:

Though it isn't technically about wine, you may want to know about an event happening this Sunday at 2 p.m. at the Yiddish Book Center in Amherst. Jayne Cohen, author of Jewish Holiday Cooking: A Food Lover's Treasury of Classics and Improvisations, will talk about Jewish food in the New World since the early 20th century.

Pinot Noir Like You've Never Seen It Before, Tonight at Fresh

It's perfectly understandable that you would attend tonight's event at Fresh simply for the skin care.

(That's what Fresh is, after all. Located right there on Newbury Street between Clarendon and Dartmouth, Fresh sells its own high-end fragrances, soaps, skin- and haircare products.)

It is, however, NOT perfectly understandable that you would attend tonight's event and skip the wine.

But what's wine doing in a skincare shop on Newbury Street, you ask.

Good question.

Here are two very good answers:

1. Tonight's event highlights Fresh's line called... wait for it... Citron de Vigne. The scent of the soaps, perfume, and lotions of Citron de Vigne is meant to evoke the Pinot Noir grape of the Champagne region of France which -- understandably -- so inspired Fresh's creative director.

2. You simply can't have a launch of Pinot Noir-inspired products without serving Pinot Noir. That's where Jo-Ann Ross comes in. She'll be the one pouring the wines (from Champagne, of course, and Burgundy) and sharing her love and passion for what makes Pinot Noir so intriguing.

In other words, it's an evening dedicated to Pinot Noir, both its essence and its flavor.

So go for the skin care. Stay for the wine.

Or vice versa.

WHAT: Citron de Vigne Wine Class
WHERE: Fresh, 127 Newbury Street, Boston
WHEN: TONIGHT from 6:30 to 8:30 p.m.
COST: $0
RSVP: Click here.


DAILY TIDBIT:

Fresh aren't the only ones to put wine and perfume together. Tom Ford's Black Orchid fragrance from 2006 contains Cognac oil, playing off what's luxurious and exotic. Citron de Vigne is said to be more subtle, but that's for you to decide!

Fine Wine Auction This Thursday. Free to Look.

Part of the appeal of a wine auction is that it's just so gritty.

The bottles could be 100 years old. They could have been through the war (literally). They could have yellowed labels, or curled foil, or they could even be in pristine condition after some 40 years of solitary confinement in a cave in Burgundy.

Every bottle has a story. And every bidder at an auction has one too.

It's fun to watch these stories unfold. Which are bidding in order to complete a vertical? Which are bidding just to say they have a Petrus? Which are bidding because they actually intend to drink the wine?

Those are the ones to look out for.

Be one.

A watcher, that is, or -- better -- a bidder.

Because there are more deals to be had at wine auctions than you'd guess at first.

It just takes a little homework, and a little timing.

Just show up. This Thursday at 6.

Drinks after.


WHAT: Skinner and Lower Falls Wine Co. Fine Wines Auction
WHEN: Thursday, May 13 at 6 p.m.
WHERE: 63 Park Plaza, Boston
COST: $0 to attend or bid.

NOTE: Online preview is available, as is absentee bidding and online bidding


DAILY TIDBIT:

Here's another use for leftover red wine: use it in a caramel sauce. Make the caramel by bringing granulated sugar and water to a boil over medium heat. Then remove from heat, add the red wine, and cook again for a few more minutes. (Full, easy recipe is here.) Lasts a month! At least, it would if only it weren't so good drizzled over fruit sorbets, or as a dip for dark chocolate, or or or.