The 2005 Auteur Shea Vineyard Pinot Noir is a fantastic wine. Probably the best wine I have drank all year. Shea Vineyard is one of the most prestigious vineyards in New World Pinot Noir, placing it squarely among the elite terroirs. Shea Vineyards consists of 140 dry farmed hillside acres located in Oregon’s sub-appellation, Yamhill-Carlton. Yamhill-Carlton is situated in a rainshadow where storms often miss, leaving excellent dry conditions for Pinot Noir. Our Shea is harvested from the fabled Back Block of Shea Vineyard, the only other producer to get this fruit is Dick Shea, the owner of the vineyard. The soil is characterized by shallow sedimentary Willakenzie topsoil over fractured sandstone subsoil. Willakenzie soils tend to display darker fruit with concentrated blackberry and plum highlighted with notes of earth, pepper and minerals.

Dark crimson in color, perfumed with lavender, slate, and marionberry cut with mineral, anise, almond, sassafras and graphite. The explosive, weighty palate is layered with bright red berry fruit beneath delicate layers of floral, carbon and mineral. Structured with generous and supple tannins, the finish is infinite.

You can buy it online from the Auteur website

M's System is a boutique Japanese speaker-maker, with products found in Tokyo's hottest design and living shops. Japanese buyers value technology, as well as natural simplicity, and M's MS0801 speaker delivers both.

Starting from concept of speaker-as-an-instrument, the MS0801 is a vibrational speaker that fills the room with rich sound. A single speaker is all that is needed for stereo, and two speakers work great for handling four channels of a 5.1 system.

The list price is $799 and you can buy it online at Dynamism.com

Sony Mylo is the its first WiFi broadband communication and entertainment device to capitalize on the growth of wireless Internet access. The Sony mylo enables you to use Wi-Fi (802.11b) con nections found in your home, on your school campus, and at a variety hotspot locations to send e-mai l, chat across multiple IM conversations, and browse the Web. While it doesn't communicate via cellu lar networks, you can use the built-in Skype VOIP (voice over IP) software to make phone calls over the Internet via the integrated microphone or the included external mic.

This product is designed for people who use instant messaging as a primary form of communication and networking for their social life. The name mylo stands for “my life online” and the communicator lets you use instant messaging, browse the Internet, listen to music, send emails and view photos concurrently.Small enough for a pocket or purse, the slim, oblong-shaped device features a 2.4 inch color LCD (measured diagonally) with a slide out QWERTY keyboard for comfortable and quick thumb typing.

San Diego’s Gaslamp Quarter gets a hefty does of Italian style this fall with the opening of The Keating’s 35 room boutique hotel. Italian designers like to use slick surfaces and low-slung furniture, but the Keating employs that style with particular aplomb– the designers are also the guys behind Ferrari and Maserati. While it’s not a car themed hotel, the Pininfarina team did take historical and ergonomic cues from Italian vehicles. Next year a signature restaurant and eight premium suites are set to open, but until then expect the in-room espresso machines, attentive staff and sexy underground lounge to get your motor running.

The problem with things audiovisual isn’t in the audio, it’s in the visual. Putting together your home cinema, TV, DVD player, speakers and amplifier means you’ve got more wires than a 1950s telephone operator. Set that high street hi-fi beside your Tom Dixon ‘Soft System’ sofa and it’s like serving somen with sashimi — chaos on a plate. As long as a product works, technology firms seem to feel, who cares what it looks like? In developing the Esprit brand, Sony’s European design team ignored such white-coat thinking and began with customers’ lifestyles in mind.

This fall,  Netherlands Architecture Institute (NAI) in Rotterdam will explore the urban realm from the perspective of the best contemporary photography. Spectacular photographs, ranging from one to nine meters wide, will portray the beauty and potential of urban landscapes, iconic buildings and deserted streets. It is the first international survey exhibition of this work. Through these photographs, we will see how the images of our cities are changing. This photography tells us about that process and in so doing makes a specific contribution to the aesthetics of our time. These photographers do not just record their subject matter but manipulate, construct or reconstruct it. In so doing they give us a glimpse of things that may well have escaped our gaze, but are latently present in our rapidly changing world. Each of these photographers is engaged in his or her own way in photographing the future.

Picture Mate Flash is the ultimate personal photo lab solution. It gives you the power to view and print pro quality, 4x6 photos and save them to CDs with just one touch. Do it all yourself — without ever turning on your computer! With PictureMate Flash, you’ll enjoy all the features of a full-service photo lab, at home or on the go.

White Cube Gallery  is presenting  'Now is the discount of our winter tents', an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Neal Tait. For this exhibition, Tait has made a total environment, an installation with painted walls and a bench where visitors can sit and contemplate the works (a re-make of a distinctive 1980s design). The bench echoes the strange conjunctions of craft and technology that is a key concern in Tait’s paintings and the installation as a whole can be seen as a reaction to the inert nature of the ‘white cube’ or gallery space.

  ]]> http://www.urbanzeitgeist.com/art/neal_tait_at_white_tube_gallery.html http://www.urbanzeitgeist.com/art/neal_tait_at_white_tube_gallery.html art Wed, 18 Oct 2006 10:04:59 -0800

The Outdoor Artisan Pizza Oven is hand fabricated entirely of stainless steel, with a painstaking double-wall insulated design. The baking surface is a professional composite baking stone. Its heat transfer performance exceeds that of natural stone, and it will never become brittle like quarry stone can after repeated heat cycles. The convenience of the 30,000 BTU stainless steel gas burner means the oven is always at the ready, while the integrated smoking drawer imparts the flavor of a wood-fired pizza oven. The 30,000 BTU stainless steel gas burner, integrated thermometer, liquid propane or natural gas, counter-top design for an easy fit into existing outdoor kitchens.

Available this October 2006 for $3,990

Nicholas Butterworth, former CEO of MTVi is in the process of starting a to develop a new online travel channel called Travelistic . He describes it as YouTube meets The Travel Channel, meets YouTube. I think it sounds like a good idea. There are so many sites out there to post your travel pictures online, why not a place to post travel movies so that your friends and family can watch them. They are in private beta at the moment, so I have nothing in regards to interface or features, but I’ll keep you posted.

Paris Muse offers high-quality private tours in front of the world's greatest art collections. Their instructors are trained and experienced art historians. They are native English speakers, with teaching experience at top American universities, including Harvard University, New York University and University of California at Berkeley. They live in Paris because they are preparing publications and/or writing their Ph.D. dissertations in art history. After taking a look at their website you will see their impressive list of gallery and walking tours throughout Paris. You can even book your tours online.

The Napa Valley Vintners are coming to San Francisco for one night only. Join them for a wine tasting with a nightclub vibe: try wines from big bottles from more than 60 Napa Valley wineries, meet the people behind these incredible wines, enjoy hors d'oeuvres, and listen to the DJ spin while you sip, savor and mingle.

Tickets are $25 per person. If you pay with your American Express card, you will receive a $5 discount for each ticket. Tickets will only be sold online - no tickets available at the door.

Nightlife Napa Valley
LIMN Gallery in San Francisco
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
8:00 - 10:00 pm
292 Townsend St
San Francisco, CA 94107

Designed by Barber Osgerby, this sophisticated coffee table sits low and is made of angled dual-walled ribbons of gray high-gloss molded polyester with a glass top. Items placed on the glass table top appear to be suspended in the air. You can buy this table at the MoMa store

L’Hotel du Nord is a slick new old restaurant with yummy plates and classic, white-tiled interior complete with wooden bar and uban atmosphere. If any of the places situated along the picturesque Canal St. Martin provide the perfect setting for a romantic dinner for two, then this is it. Also highly recommended for a late-night dessert on a balmy summer evening..

]]> http://www.urbanzeitgeist.com/travel/lhotel_du_nord_paris.html http://www.urbanzeitgeist.com/travel/lhotel_du_nord_paris.html travel Wed, 04 Oct 2006 12:41:34 -0800

Suissa Computers designs and builds desktop computer systems that stand out and challenge preconceived ideas. Suissa Computers are made with domestic and imported solid wood, metal and other accent materials. The highest quality wood is selected based on furniture woodworking expertise. All models are designed with liquid cooling and air-flow systems that ensure the technology is symbiotic with the materials ]]> http://www.urbanzeitgeist.com/tech/suissa_computers.html http://www.urbanzeitgeist.com/tech/suissa_computers.html tech Mon, 02 Oct 2006 12:11:02 -0800