Sundays were made for burgers and red Burgundy.

Spruce in San Francisco sure thinks so. The glam restaurant is offering a “Burgers and Burgundy” menu every Sunday through November in the lounge or dining room.

Chow down on the classic burger snuggled inside a house-made English muffin with pickled onions, zucchini, and remoulade, while sipping one, two or three rotating selections of Burgundy. The burger is $14; the Burgundies are available at $12, $25, and $50. A flight of all three wines also is available for $40.

Big spenders can add foie gras to their burgers for an extra $13.

Cheese more your thing? Then, you’ll be glad that the postponed sixth annual “Cheese & Wine Dinner” at Parcel 104 in Santa Clara is back on for Nov. 8.

Parcel 104 Executive Chef Robert Sapirman will be joined by chefs Chris Schloss of Cin-Cin Wine Bar in Los Gatos, Mark Dommen of One Market in San Francisco, and Arthur Wall of The Restaurant at Wente Vineyards in Livermore. They will prepare a five-course dinner, each showcasing a different artisan cheese, and paired with an appropriate wine.

Local cheese authority and cookbook author Laura Werlin will be on hand to answer questions about cheese. The night’s appetizers will be made from recipes from her cheese books. The dinner is $145.

For those watching their pennies, Togo’s has a deal for you. Wednesdays through Nov. 26, participating Togo’s shops will roll back the price of a different select sandwich every week to the original 1970 price of $1.99. For Northern Californians, you’re in luck, because every Togo’s in Northern California is participating in the promotion.

During “Flashback Wednesdays,” with every $1.99 sandwich purchase, Togo’s will make a donation to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Togo’s, though, has not yet stated how large a donation that will be.

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Sure, you know Domaine Chandon in Yountville for its lovely sparkling wines. But did you know you can also sip a hip cocktail there, too?

Indeed, Domain Chandon has become apparently the only winery in the country that serves cocktails in its tasting room. Being a pioneer is nothing new to the winery, which also was the first winery to establish a fine-dining restaurant on its premises. The winery worked with a London mixologist to come up with the $8 cocktails that incorporate its sparkling wines, such as the Chandon Luscious Peach, made with bubbly, fresh peach slices, mint leaves and simple syrup.

Oct. 2 is a great time to visit the winery, too, if you want to dance the night away. That night, the winery will host “Drink Pink: A Bubbly Benefit For Breast Cancer Research.”The winery’s restaurant, Etoile, will serve appetizers and small bites alongside glasses of pink sparkling wine. DJ Dukes will provide music under the stars.

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Examining a bottle of St. George Spirits eau de vie gives little hint of all it took to make it. 

A clear, colorless liquid, eau de vie is French for “water of life.” It is a brandy distilled from fermented fruit juice. In the case of this Alameda artisan, small-batch spirits maker, each slender 350ml bottle took all of 15 to 20 pounds of fresh, ripe, often organic, fruit to make. 

Producing eau de vie is a slow, labor-intensive process. For St. George Spirits founder Jorg Rupf, it’s also an absolute labor of love. And that’s no truer than at this time of year, when summer fruit is at its best and the gleaming copper stills at St. George are in full swing to distill pears, cherries, and raspberries down to potent yet smooth, thrillingly fragrant digestives. 

St. George Spirits is housed in an old airplane hangar on the grounds of the decommissioned Alameda Naval Air Station; hence the moniker of another of its famous spirits made there, Hangar One vodkas. 

Aqua Perfecta (eau de vie) was its first product, when Rupf founded the company in 1982. A native of Germany, Rupf was that country’s youngest constitutional law judge at age 28. While on a research sabbatical in Berkeley in the late 1970s, he fell in love with the Bay Area, and its burgeoning farm-to-table philosophy in food and wine. 

Those beliefs resonated with Rupf, who was born in Alsace, home to the world’s best-regarded eaux de vie, which were initially made by farmers who were seeking another outlet for their bumper crops of fruit. Indeed, Rupf often helped his grandfather distill the family’s eau de vie. 

Transplanted to the Bay Area, Rupf couldn’t believe nobody back then was making hand-crafted eau de vie in this country. 

“I figured there were so many Europeans living here that it would be a good market,” he said. “Plus, I was so excited about the quality of fruit here.” 

When it comes to eau de vie, fruit matters. Big time. Rupf sources the best fruit from California, the Pacific Northwest, and Canada. Black cherries don’t have enough intrinsic aromas for him, so he uses pie cherries instead. Bartlett pears sit in huge bins off to one side, waiting for just the precise moment when they turn yellow and perfectly ripe to crush. The flesh of the fruit is used to make eau de vie, as well as the skin, which contains a wealth of aromatics. Rupf explained. 

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EPIC Roasthouse on San Francisco’s waterfront is now serving weekend brunch. Cornmeal waffle with crisp apple-smoked bacon, Bubble & Squeak with jalapeno gravy and poached eggs, and Dungeness crab Benedict are sure to wake you up in style. 

The EPIC Bloody Mary with house-pickled vegetables and a lavender sea salt rim or a non-alcoholic Gold Rush (homemade watermelon syrup and seltzer water) will quench your thirst as you take in the view of the bay.

If you’re more a night person, Jack Falstaff in San Francisco has just launched a new Happy Jack Hour, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. Wednesday through Friday. Specialty cocktails like the Chef’s Side Car are $5, and can be enjoyed with bar bites such as spiced lamb meatballs and farmers market heirloom tomato salad.

In downtown Napa, Elements Restaurant & Enoteca has opened. It’s a project by former Intel executive Rich Poliak, Chef Charles Weber (formerly of Zuzu in Napa), and Noel Burke (former general manager at Julia’s Kitchen at Copia in Napa).

The menu features global small plates, such as oxtail terrine with a salad of summer roots ($9), “liver and onions” (foie gras and onion confit, $16), and fruit soup with eucalyptus syrup ($7).

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Apparently, suds rule over vino among today’s imbibers, ages 30 to 49. That, according to a recent Gallup Poll that showed beer’s lead over wine and spirits has returned to double-digits for the first time since 2002, particularly among drinkers in that age group.

The annual Consumption Habits poll shows that in combined data from Gallup ’s 2004 and 2005 surveys, drinkers between the ages of 30 and 49 were about as likely to prefer wine as beer.  Now, drinkers in this age bracket have shifted back to beer, with an average of 47 percent in the combined 2007-2008 data saying they most often drink beer.  Drinking preferences among adults ages 21-29 have remained stable in recent years, with the majority showing a wide preference for beer.

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