Latest news with #Luevano
San Francisco Chronicle
24-04-2025
- Business
- San Francisco Chronicle
This wine's wild popularity is baffling Bay Area restaurant owners
The chilled red is unstoppable. Even at a time when Bay Area restaurants are seeing lagging red wine sales, the chilled-red niche appears to be thriving. Many establishments report that anything marked as 'chilled red' on a menu becomes their most in-demand wine — notable continuity for a category that's so malleable. 'Recently, oh my God, it's like everybody wants a chilled red,' said Lalo Luevano, an owner of the San Francisco bars Bodega, Key Klub and Celeste, all three of which count chilled red as their best-selling category. The popularity inspired Luevano to create a custom chilled red for Celeste, in partnership with Richmond winery Les Lunes. They went through 15 cases of the wine — a blend of Nero d'Avola, Valdiguie and Grenache — in its first weekend. They then decided to create a second Les Lunes collaboration for Bodega (a Zin-Cabernet rosé-Carignan-Chardonnay), and it sold out too. 'We burned through 320 cases in a matter of 2 ½ months,' said Luevano of the Bodega red. 'That's just pallets and pallets of chilled red.' But what is a chilled red? Of course, any red wine can be put in the fridge, and all reds should ideally be served at least a little below room temperature. But some are better suited to a deep chill than others. The ideal candidates will be light in body and low in tannin. The concept proliferated in recent years thanks to natural wine bars, which sometimes serve reds cold because the chill can mask certain flaws. Yet the phenomenon is not confined to natural wine bars populated by youths. It's even happening at fine dining restaurants. Last year, red wines by the glass were slumping, but Saison wine director Molly Greene put a chilled Beaujolais on the menu, 'and that helped,' she told me in December. 'We sold out of that by-the-glass in two weeks whereas it would normally take us a month.' Dan Polsby, an owner of Best Friends in Albany, posits that we may have reached 'peak chilled red.' Five years ago, getting people to drink cold red wine was a tough sell, he said, but 'now 'chillable red' may be the single most requested category' of red wine at his bar. 'Anecdotally, it seems like the only thing the youngsters are asking for,' said Charlie O'Leary, an owner of Rampant Bottle + Bar in the Outer Richmond, where chilled reds have been the highest-selling items since opening night last September. Rich Table wine director Kevin Born said the wines have 'way eclipsed' the popularity of orange wines, which looked ascendant a couple of years ago. Chilled reds seem to be more universally embraced than orange wines ever were: 'People who would have had a white are having a chilled red now.' The current craze, however, risks sweeping up some wines that are not meant to be cold. 'If you're putting a California Zinfandel that's made in a classic way into a bucket of ice,' said Andew Nelson, owner of Golden Sardine in North Beach, 'I don't think (the people) know they're not supposed to drink it that way.' Cold temperatures will make a big wine's tannins feel harsher, and they'll mute some of its nuanced aromas. Just as a frosty temperature can disguise a wine's shortcomings, it can also subdue its charms. No wine should be served hot. But perhaps not every red wants to chill.
Int'l Business Times
24-04-2025
- Politics
- Int'l Business Times
Uvalde School Shooting: Families of Victims Reach $2 Million Settlement Over Robb Elementary Incident
The families of the victims of the Robb Elementary School shooting in 2022 reached a $2 million settlement on Tuesday. The final agreement comes almost a year after it was first announced and only a month before the incident's third anniversary. The shooting involved a teenage gunman who stormed into two adjoining classrooms in Robb Elementary School, in Uvalde, Texas, killing 10 kids and two teachers. Uvalde School Shooting Settlement The settlement will have Uvalde paying the families of the victims a total of $2 million from its insurance coverage as part of the agreement. Previously, the victims' families said they would not seek a higher payout from the city to avoid bankrupting the city they call home. The families are also seeking damages from other institutions, including the Texas state police, involved in the failed response to the mass shooting. Josh Koskoff, an attorney representing 19 victims' families, said that they worked with the community to make things right without creating deeper economic hardship, according to CNN . Koskoff said they are hoping that the agreement enables families of the victims who lost so much during the incident to continue to heal. Uvalde Mayor Hector Luevano said that nothing could make up for the losses and grief that the families endured on May 24, 2022. However, the mayor said that the settlement marks a crucial step forward in advancing community healing. Luevano added that it also helps ensure that the city forever honors the lives that were tragically lost during the horrific tragedy. Additionally, Luevano said that the city also plans to work with committee representatives of the families for a permanent memorial. Following the mass shooting, several lawsuits were filed seeking accountability for the law enforcement response to the incident, NBC News reported. Supporting Law Enforcement The mayor added that the settlement also affirms the city's commitment to supporting the Uvalde Police Department's Guardian initiative. This includes enhanced emergency training and evaluation for officers as well as mental health support. Families of the victims of the shooting have many other lawsuits pending in federal and state courts. One of these is a $500 million lawsuit against Texas state police officials and officers for their failed response to the incident. There is another suit against social media company Meta Platforms, the company that made the video game "Call of Duty," and Daniel Defense, the maker of the rifle that the gunman used in the attack in 2022, as per the Associated Press . Originally published on
