In the Cellar at Tabla

Well, quite a lot of cocktail posts, haven't there been?

Time for some wine. A month ago, I met and interview Leo Barrera, the wine director at Danny Meyer's Indian restaurant on Madison Square, Tabla. I'd been to Tabla before and been impressed by their emphasis of bracing white wines, such as German rieslings, that go well with spicy food. Leo's story is quite inspiring. From Mexico—hardly a land of wine—he studied in New York State and just never moved back. Like many of Meyer's wine professionals, he began his career at the Gramercy Tavern, and moved up and over.

Here's the story:

From Mexico to India, the Wine Way

By ROBERT SIMONSON

Leo Barrera, the wine director at Tabla, Danny Meyer's temple to Indian cuisine, was born into the hospitality business. His family owned hotels first in Acapulco, Mexico, where he was born, and then in Cancun. Growing up, he was a south-of-the-border version of Eloise. "Until my teenage years, I resided in hotels," he said.

He was not, however, born into a world where wine held great sway. "We don't really drink wines," he said of his native Mexico. "We have a small wine industry in Baja. But for the most part, we drink beer, tequila, and brandy. The big Spanish brandy outfits have branches in Mexico. I've looked at the figures. We drink a lot of brandy."

His Mexican heritage, however, came in handy when he was put in charge of the wine program at Tabla, after stints at Gramercy Tavern and Craftsteak. Confronted with chef Floyd Cardoz's inventive Indian cuisine, he realized he was not entirely in alien territory.

"My first introduction to Indian culture was 'In Light of India' by Octavio Paz," Mr. Barrera said, referring to the book-length rumination about India by the Mexican writer and poet, who was his country's ambassador to India between 1962 and 1968. "He deduced that moles" — the traditional Mexican sauces that date back centuries — "are actually derived from curries in India. At the time, India and Mexico had a lot of exchange, cultural and commercial. The basic mole, it's ground spices mixed into a sauce. If you look at it in a very simple way, that's what a curry is."

Thus feeling a natural affinity for Tabla's cuisine, Mr. Barrera, 30, knew where he stood, wine-wise. He also know he had his work cut out for him, because another commonality between Indian and Mexican cuisines is that, in the popular imagination, they both match up best not with wine, but with beer. "People don't see this as a wine destination because of the perception of beer going with the food," Mr. Barrera said. The restaurant's ardent regulars, however, know better. When Mr. Barrera began work last October, he was surprised at how many of his patrons realized a German Riesling was just the thing to go with rice-flaked halibut served with watermelon curry, or a Shiraz was perfect to wash down a pulled-lamb sandwich served on nan bread.

He went about trimming the list from more than 300 selections to a comparatively compact 250, retaining its accents on German and Austrian Rieslings (a full page) and Rhone varietals drawn from France, California, and Australia. At the same time, he added 20 wines from Spain and Portugal, a region he's passionate about. And he brought in some smaller producers, working with twice as many wine distributors as his predecessor did, in order to lend greater variety to the cellar.

Mr. Barrera also wanted to change a few minds on the matter of demi-sec wines — a big bogeyman in the collective consumer mind-set, which equates sweet with insipid. "I feel there is absolutely nothing wrong with residual sugar in the wine," he said. "As a child, I drank aqua fresca. Whatever fruit was in season was made into a drink." During a recent trip to Mexico, he accompanied a lunch with a tall glass of watermelon water. "That's what they have in the middle of a hot day. There's a sweetness behind those drinks, and sweetness works well with spices."

Mr. Barrera's mind rarely rests in its pursuit of beverages that marry well with Tabla's spicy menu. Also in charge of the cocktail program, he is not neglecting that area. At the back of his cellar, on a wire rack, sits a collection of boutique gins. These constitute his new "project," due to be unveiled in the near future. "I find that gin, at least in theory, should work really well with the food because of the botanicals," he reasoned. He thinks a gin cocktail and appetizer pairing might make for a good match. "Cardamom, ginger — a lot of those spices are in the cooking."

And then there are those bottles of Mexican wine in the cellar that he hasn't sampled yet. Might India's and Mexico's cuisines meet yet again, this time in the wine pages of Tabla? Mr. Berrera is not committing himself. "I'm very proud of my Mexican heritage, but I'm an equal-opportunity wine guy," he said. "If the wine is tasty, I don't care where it's from. But if the wine is not up to standards, I'm not going to put it on the list, no matter where it's from."

In the Cellar With Solera

Solera in the east 50s of Manhattan was the subject of my May "In the Cellar" column at the New York Sun (which appeared, ahem, on June 4). I was attracted to it because of its singular devotion to Spanish wine. An exclusively Spanish wine list is a relative oddity on NYC. Wine director Ron Miller was so polished and suave that I was ready to mistake him for being of European birth. I guess you develop that gracious sheen after spending a few decades at the front of the house. Here is the article.

One Sommelier and His Pioneering All-Spanish Wine List

By ROBERT SIMONSON
June 4, 2008

'The Italians do it," Ron Miller of Solera, the Spanish restaurant on East 53rd Street, said. "The French do it. Why not us?"

Do what? Use their wine list as an expression of national pride and culinary purity, that's what.

At Babbo, you'll be looking in vain for a wine not produced on the Italian boot. The list at Balthazar has a thick Gallic accent. Such oenophilic exclusivity is common in Manhattan eateries that focus on French or Italian cuisine. For some of the city's Spanish restaurants, though, it's been a harder trick to pull off. But Solera has found success with an all-Spanish cellar for more than a decade now.

It wasn't always that way. When Solera opened in 1991, it offered diners the usual array of American, French, and Italian wines, with some Spanish bottles thrown in because — well, it was a Spanish joint.

But Mr. Miller, the self-described "maitre d', general manager, sommelier, and chief dishwasher" of the restaurant, changed all that after taking a trip to Spain in the mid-1990s. "My first impression was, this is a great opportunity. There are so many great wines here; why don't we make the list all Spanish?" he recalled.

Mr. Miller — a courtly man with a reassuring purr of a voice — and the owners of Solera made their commitment just as Iberian juice had started to capture the attention of the American market. Since then, they have profited from every trend in Spanish wine. When the intense reds of Priorat, a rediscovered region in the northeast corner of the nation, were the talk of the critics, Mr. Miller was happy to pour plenty of glasses of the inky stuff. A couple years later, Bierzo was declared the next hot region, and Solera was not caught unprepared. What about now? "La Mancha wines are starting to come in," Mr. Miller said. "And Méntrida," he added, citing the little-known wine-producing region west of Madrid. "Who knows Méntrida?" he asked. (If anybody wants to sample its wares, they can order a bottle of Arrayan Petit Verdot at Solera.)

But there is still much to be learned, despite Solera's ongoing advancement of Spanish wines for the New York palate. Mr. Miller noted that customers, when selecting a red Rioja, will almost always go for a reserva over a crianza, simply because they are less comfortable with the latter term. (Crianzas are aged for at least two years; reservas for three.)

Mr. Miller tries to gently nudge people's education along by offering tastes of wines when certain appetizers are ordered. A plate of assorted fried and marinated seafood arrives automatically with a glass of Manzanilla, the light, sometimes tangy form of sherry, a common pairing in southern Spain. He says that fino and Manzanilla sherries can be an acquired taste. "If you don't have something that complements that food-wise, it's going to be a fairly strong drink," he said. "When you pair it with food, you get a nice association."

Additionally, this leads his patrons to the idea of habitually having wine with their food, and vice versa. "A lot of Americans still enjoy wine as a cocktail as opposed to a food-and-wine match, which never happens in Spain," he said. "When you take a copita of sherry in Spain, you always have something to eat with it. That's the tapas concept. A morsel of food was placed on top of a glass of wine. It was a giveaway item. Here, I'll see someone have four glasses of wine with some olives, and that's dinner."

In another pairing, a selection of cold tapas is accompanied by a sample of Spain's famous sparkling white wine, cava. Often when restaurants opt for a one-country wine list — and that country isn't France — the sparkling category is where they break their own rule by including a selection of French Champagnes to please the crowd.

Solera, though, sticks to Spain through and through. If you want something that bubbles, there's a selection of seven different cavas — and nothing else. And there's a bonus: Cavas are notoriously cheap. The most costly of the cavas (which are made in the same method as Champagne, but with Spanish grape varietals) ring in at under $80, while the least expensive is $36.

"The price format has always been one of Spain's assets," Mr. Miller said, "and it still is, even with the dollar-euro scenario we have now. It's really refreshing for people to see such quality at such a price."

In the Cellar With Union Square Cafe

For my April "In the Cellar" column in the New York Sun, I interviewed Steve Mancini, the wine director at Union Square Cafe. Mancini once again served to impress upon me the extreme youth of New York's major sommeliers these days. The Modern, Per Se, Eleven Madison Park, etc.—they're all run by babies! But what enthusiastic, knowledgable babies! Mancini is the kind of excitable wine guy that gets you excited about wines. I was particularly pleased to discover he toys around with homemade limoncello and amaro—just like moi.

The Mad Scientist of 16th Street

By ROBERT SIMONSON

In the wine cellar of restaurateur Danny Meyer’s perennially popular Union Square Café, there are a few large mason jars of neon-yellow liquid. The contents are not radioactive: The jars contain housemade limoncello, created from a family recipe provided by the restaurant’s youthful, experiment-loving wine director, Stephen Mancini.

The lemon-based Italian liqueur, mixed with grappa and citrus juices, is used to make the Forza Totti — one offering from the new cocktail program Mr. Mancini has been developing since last fall. The 27-year-old puts much stock in family recipes. He and his father cure their own prosciutto every year, and his first exposure to wine was the garage brew whipped up by his grandfather. Mr. Mancini’s uncle has now assumed the family winemaking duties, aging the alcohol in glass, which lends it a bit of carbonation. “It’s not as much about making an amazing product as it is about tradition,” Mr. Mancini said.

Noting that his staff could similarly benefit from firsthand exposure to winemaking, he said he’s discussed with Union Square’s general manager the possibility of making wine at the restaurant — not for patron consumption, but for educational purposes. The idea came to him last fall when he voluntarily assisted Californians Bob Foley and Abe Schoener with their harvests. “Who knows? We could make the worst wine ever,” he said. “But being able to share that experience I had with Bob Foley — drinking juice that was not fully fermented out of his 10-ton steel fermenters, seeing how that wine has evolved — it was brilliant.”

Mr. Mancini hails from Italian immigrant families on both sides: His father was born outside of Rome, and his mother’s family came from Calabria. After graduating from Villanova University, he worked his way up to captain from busboy at Mr. Meyer’s Gramercy Tavern, and learned about wine under the tutelage of former Gramercy Tavern sommeliers Paul Greco and Karen King. Union Square Café is his first gig as a full-out wine director.

He tends to look at Union Square’s wine list as something like a many-layered archeological dig. “I’d say that I’ve definitely been able to put my fingerprint on the list,” he said. “That being said, this list is different than a lot of lists in New York City. It still has purchases that Danny Meyer put on the list originally. Every wine director since Danny has made a contribution.”

One of Mr. Mancini’s major innovations is a full page of grappas. They hail from a range of Italian regions and include a 1984 Bric Del Gaian from the Piedmont ($50 a glass). “I think sometimes people have a preconceived notion of what grappa is,” he said. “We have such great Armagnacs and Cognacs here. Since our list is very much an Italian list and our restaurant very much has an Italian soul, if we’re going to support the after-dinner-drink lifestyle, it’s only right we have a grappa page.”

Another new aspect is the aforementioned cocktail menu. Each cocktail contains an Italian ingredient made in a different area of the country, and Mr. Mancini has arranged the menu in the manner of a wine list, ordering the drinks region by region, running from the top of the Italian boot (a Venetian Spritz made with prosecco and Aperol) to the bottom (a Sicilian Wallbanger, made with imported Sicilian blood orange juice, vodka, and Galliano liqueur).

“I didn’t want to just make drinks and say, ‘These are our cocktails’ — a drunken cranberry spritzer or whatever,” he said. “So I made it all Italian. We find our inspiration for these drinks from an ingredient from a region.”

Future cocktails may benefit from Mr. Mancini’s mad-scientist proclivities. He’s experimenting with homemade versions of the Italian herbal liqueur known as amaros, as well as a juniper-infused gin. At this rate of invention, the Mancini grandchildren will have considerably more family recipes to choose from.

In the Cellar at The Modern

My February "In the Cellar" column in the New York Sun too a look at Belinda Chang, the talented new wine director at The Modern, who comes to New York by way of Chicago and San Franciso. One of the rare women in the business, she is also one of the most vivacious sommeliers I've ever met. She's wears on her sleeve the enthusiasm for wine most sommeliers hold in their heart.

Chang was open and generous enough to let me sit in on a Wednesday tasting with various distributors, who were all trying to get their wines on The Modern's list. This was fascinating, and not only because of the wide variety of wines sampled, but because of the wide variety of salesman that paraded by. Every type from the typical, nervous flop-sweat hawker to representatives that reeked icy-cool confidence, gracious and long-winded Europeans to former Garment District workers who could do their job blindfolded.

The Perkiest Sommelier in Town
In The Cellar

By ROBERT SIMONSON
February 27, 2008

The new wine director at the Modern, Belinda Chang, presides over what may be the most global dining room in New York City. Situated in that tourist haven known as the Museum of Modern Art, the Danny Meyer restaurant attracts not only the blue-chip businessmen and publishing executives from Midtown, but also the hordes of art-loving European and Asian travelers who are taking full advantage of the low dollar.

"I have those whole days in the dining room where I don't hear any English," Ms. Chang said, with a laugh. "I got to practice my Chinese tonight, spoke a little French there, a little German over there." Catering to so many nationalities means keeping a wide variety of wines on hand. New Yorkers are happy to choose from among the classic Burgundy and Rhône and other European selections that have been the list's mainstays since it opened in 2005. But vacationing Europeans don't want to order what they can easily get back home. "We have a lot of internationals who are all looking for California and Washington and Oregon wine because they're visiting the States." As a result, Ms. Chang, who only arrived in New York three months ago, is beefing up the New World side of the list.

The peripatetic nature of many of the Modern's patrons shapes the list in other ways as well. Leisurely diners may want a bottle, but passing tourists on their way from MoMA to the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and business people cooling their heels after a long day, are looking for an intriguing glassful. "We go through so much of our wine by the glass, we never have any problems with anything going stale," she said.

On a recent afternoon, while tasting the wares of a parade of wine distributors, she peppered the sellers with requests for magnums. She believes the big bottles add a bit of drama to the by-the-glass game. "I think that they're gorgeous in the dining room," she said. "People see them be poured at the table and they get thirsty for them. I'm definitely obsessed with magnums. They're so fun to pour!"

She said this, as she said almost everything, with a wide smile and a burbling laugh. To say she is bubbly is an understatement. It's little wonder that such an exuberantly cheerful person has no trouble selling barrels of vino to strangers. But anyone who thinks her giddy manner and tendency to label wines "super" and "neato" are the earmarks of a lightweight will be quickly set straight. Ms. Chang knows her stuff, bandying wine terms and winemakers back and forth with lightning speed, and twirling a pen around her knuckles at a rate that would rattle any salesman.

Ms. Chang has a reason to be impatient. There was a bit of a lag between her predecessor's departure and her arrival, and though the Modern's cellar contains 10,000 bottles, she's still got some holes to fill. "They drink a lot of wine here," she said simply. And "they" are not just anybody. They are New Yorkers, who are among the most demanding oenophiles in the world.

Ms. Chang, who was born in Massachusetts, has worked at restaurants in Houston, San Francisco and Chicago, where she handled wines at Charlie Trotter's."New Yorkers were always my favorite restaurant diners to take care of," she said. "They're good at it. With a guest in Chicago, we'd be futzing around with what they want to drink. Everyone's sort of a professional here, and really well-dined. They've seen everything. They know what they want. We're definitely striving to still surprise you."

Toward that end, she is keen on snaring every "exclusive" she can for the wine list — "cherries" as one distributor called them. "So many of our regulars are the Café Gray regulars, are the Daniel regulars," she explained. "They don't want to drink the same thing everywhere they go."

Ms. Chang has been so enmeshed in her new work that, even though she can see MoMA from her apartment window — where her closet if stuffed with innumerable black suits — she hasn't yet had time to actually tour the museum. But that doesn't mean she hasn't been thinking about what's hanging on the institution's walls.

"I'm putting a lot of thought about how the art in the museum has to do with the wine in the cellar, because I think that could be interesting to explore," she said. "I look at wine as art. It's about choosing wines for our list that are varietally correct and terroir-specific."

She added: "We've all had that Pinot Noir that tasted like Syrah, or that Cabernet that was too light to be a Cabernet. What was happening there? That was manipulation — not purity, not art."

In the Cellar With Four Seasons

http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifI've interviewed enough sommeliers and wine directors by this time that I'm rarely intimidated by the prospect of meeting them. But I had a rare case of butterflies before meeting Julian Niccolini, the longtime co-owner and wine man at the legendary Four Season. The majesty of the restaurant's landmarked interior is enough to cow anybody but the Pool Room regulars. And the suave, beautifully tailored, Italian-born Niccolini's taste and palate is celebrated.

Turns out, I worried for nothing. Niccolini was one of the most relaxed and open interview subjects I've encountered in the wine world. He did not censor or overly think out his responses. He said what he thought, and he laughed often. He also displayed a healthy sense of humor for the haughty and high-powered world he polices.

A little side story that I did not include in the interview: toward the end of our talk Niccolini leaped up to greet a friend who had just climbed up the stairs. It was restauranteur Jonathan Waxman, whose Barbuto had receive a good review in the New York Times that very day. The two took a seat at the bar and Niccolini opened up a bottle of Krug to toast the happy news. Julian was considerate enough to send a flute of the bubbly stuff my way. I was happy to toast Waxman's good fortune, particularly since it meant a glass of free top-flight Champagne sipped in the empty, peaceful environs if mid-afternoon Four Seasons.

My interview with him, in the , is below:

Supply & Demand
In The Cellar

There is no question as to the provenance of any of the wines to be found on the list at the Four Seasons restaurant. At the top of every page, in italics, is a proclamation that reads, for example, "Julian Niccolini's Selection of American Wines." Mr. Niccolini is co-owner of what may be Manhattan's most awe-invoking restaurant (architecturally, culinarily, and monetarily); the wine list there has been an intimate concern of his since he developed his palate at the elbow of his late mentor, Paul Kovi, who co-owned the restaurant for more than two decades.

Ask Mr. Niccolini about his role as cellar tastemaker, however, and he strikes a modest, even self-deprecating, note. "It's entirely up to me," he said, waving his hands grandly during a recent interview at the restaurant. "If I have a customer who likes one particular wine and comes in all the time, I make absolutely sure he has this particular wine."

Thus, while Mr. Niccolini may be in charge, it's the appetites and the wallets of the celebrated clientele at the Four Seasons that call the tune. "You want a wine list that's selling on a daily basis, not a cemetery," he said.

This reasoning dictates many of Mr. Niccolini's decisions. For instance, the 49-year-old restaurant — its list was, in early days, dominated by the classic French wines — used to buy Bordeaux futures. But no more. They have become too expensive, Mr. Niccolini said, as collectors troll the auction houses, causing prices to spike. Furthermore, you have sit on the bottles for years before they can be drunk.

Another example: Spanish wines are very hot right now, but they're not to be found in the restaurant's Pool Room dining area. "The wine list today is basically 30% California wines, 30% French wine, 30% Italian wine, 10% of the rest," he said. "We still don't have any Spanish wine on the list yet. When we have more customers request Spanish wines, we'll bring it in."

It's all very pragmatic. But wait! What about that 30% of Italian wine? Could it be that Italy is so well represented because Mr. Niccolini was born in Lucca, in northern Tuscany, and has a soft spot for that country's wines? He says patriotism doesn't enter into it: "Sure, I'm Italian. But, in the 1980s, there was a tremendous request for Italian wine, for Barolo, for Barbaresco, for Brunello."

If he is unsentimental about his native country's wines, he is even less so about those of his buttoned-down, Swiss-born business partner, Alex Von Bidder. (The two men bought the restaurant in 1995.) When questioned about whether there might be room on the list for one little Chasselas — the obscure varietal that Switzerland has made it own — Mr. Niccolini laughs so hard one wonders if he is going to stop."We tried a couple times to have Swiss wine on the list," he said, noting that the Swiss are producing some fine Cabernet Franc and Merlot. "But there's never been any requests."

And Mr. Niccolini is not about to give his customers a wine they don't want. He has great faith in the taste of the diners he serves. "We believe the customers should make up their own minds when it comes to wine," he said. "We think the customer is smart enough. Not to be a snob, but when they go to a restaurant like Daniel or Four Seasons, I'm assuming they know what they're doing."

He'll back his customers to the end, even if they drink Taittinger Comtes de Champagne on ice, as one customer has been doing for 30 years. "It is fine with me," Mr. Niccolini said. (As for the late architect, Philip Johnson, who designed the landmark and had his own table for many years, he was a vodka drinker.)

It may seem odd for the majordomo at such a high-flown, power-lunch see-and-be-seen place as the Four Seasons to be so unpretentious about wine. But, then, Mr. Niccolini is of humble origins, being the son of the owners of a small osteria that served food and wine to local families. Furthermore, he has seen a lot of oenophilic bubbles burst in his time. The Four Seasons, after all, was among the first New York restaurants to begin carrying fine California wines in the early 1970s, when most restaurateurs and winemakers looked down their noses at the Golden State's output. And Mr. Niccolini was present the fateful night in April 1989 when a New York retailer sought to impress the owners of the old Bordeaux house Chateau Margaux by showing off a bottle of Margaux reputed to be from Jefferson's collection — only to watch in horror as a waiter's elbow sent the vessel crashing to the floor. The Jefferson bottles have since fallen under suspicion as likely frauds, a circumstance that further fuels Mr. Niccolini's mirth as he recalls the incident. "I tasted it," he said. "It tasted like mud."

In the Cellar With La Pizza Fresca

One of the best things about writing my "In the Cellar" column for the New York Sun is it causes me to discover restaurants that I otherwise might pass by. Several people had recommended La Pizza Fresca to me as a destination not only for superior pie but great wine. But I didn't make it there until I assigned myself to cover it. The wine list is as impressive as everyone says, and goes startling well with the pizza, jacking up my already high opinion of that food.

One thing I didn't get into in the article is the actually cellar. (Ironic, no?) That's because the owner, Brad, is a little sheepish about it. The place is an endearing mess, boxes upon boxes piled on each other, unpacked, with almost not place to walk. It would take half a year to sort it out. "I don't even show it to my friends," he told me.

Eating Pizza, Sipping Sassicaia

By ROBERT SIMONSON

The owner and managing director of the Flatiron district restaurant La Pizza Fresca, Bradley Bonnewell, was staring across the room at a dark-haired man in an expensive-looking suit. The diner, seated at a table near the bar, was lustily enjoying his meal. Mr. Bonnewell had never met him and didn't know his name, but he recognized the face — and for good reason. "The guy comes in at least twice a week," he said. "He spends maybe $100 on food and $1,000 on wine."

If you possess the wherewithal, this spending ratio is easily achieved at La Pizza Fresca. The restaurant is known for having forged an unusual, yet happy, symbiosis between excellent, inexpensive Neapolitan-style pizza and superior, quite expensive top-drawer Italian wine. The suited big spender's taste in pizza was quite common — Pizza Marinara and Margarita. His taste in wine, however, skewed toward premium Barolo and Brunello.

La Pizza Fresca (31 E. 20th St. at Broadway, 212-598-0141) is made for the lover of Italy's finer culinary achievements: coffee, pizza, and red wine. Mr. Bonnewell, a onetime advertising executive, fell under the spell of these three delicacies in that order. He entered the food world as the owner of the Manhattan Espresso Café in Midtown East. While on a coffee-buying trip in 1993, he followed a visit to Naples' Kimbo Coffee with lunch at a local pizzeria. "It was just 11 a.m. or 11:30 and they were just getting the fire going and getting the dough out," he recalled. "It was so theatrical. You see all the fresh ingredients and the whole set-up. Finally, you taste your pizza and it's unbelievable. I thought, 'What the hell.'"

He gave up the idea of expanding his café empire, and set his mind on opening a Neapolitan-style pizza restaurant in New York City. La Pizza Fresca opened in 1996, complete with a new brick oven built by an Italian pizzaiolo-bricklayer (a hyphenate profession that could only have been hatched in Naples). One thing Mr. Bonnewell didn't copy was the Italians' habit of eating their pizza with beer or soda. The newborn La Pizza Fresca featured a small wine list.

So, then, how did that list grow to 750 selections, including multiple vintages from the top Piedmont and Tuscany producers? Mr. Bonnewell shrugged, as if the circumstance were the most natural thing in the world. "If you like quality, it's just easy. You drink the cheap wine and then you drink the great wine, and you say, 'Hey, why am I drinking the cheap wine?' I just kind of progressed."

Progressed is one way of putting it. Three-quarters of the list's Barbarescos come from Angelo Gaja, arguably the most famous and highly lauded winemaker in Italy. There are three densely packed pages of Barolos. The famed Super Tuscans Sassicaia and Tignanello are also here in force, as well as a nice selection of wines priced under $75. All this to accompany food you eat with your hands.

The seeming dichotomy doesn't faze Mr. Bonnewell in the least. By now, he's had years of practice defending his particular food and wine-pairing mission. Still, he's willing to prove the argument's validity one more time for a skeptical journalist, opening a bottle of 2004 Moccagatta Barbaresco to wash down a Pizza Savoia topped with mushrooms, pancetta, Fontina cheese, and bufala mozzarella. The bottle and pie, both brimming with Piedmontese character, went amazingly well together, existing in a kind of class-neutral epicurean harmony. The humble meal and heralded wine clearly deserved each other's company.

Mr. Bonnewell's wine world is basically one of beautiful Italian reds. He knows there are people out there with differing palates. He's willing to cater to them, but only just so much. "We're not trying to be so democratic," he said. "We basically buy what we like to drink, and I personally am not a huge white wine fan. With the brick oven, we're pretty much a winter place. We're pretty dead in July and August. Also, I've never had a complaint that we don't have enough whites."

As for people who — ahem — insist on drinking something not produced anywhere on the Italian boot, there is a last resort. Mr. Bonnewell calls it the "Rest of the World List," and it's not immediately shown to guests. This list is where you'll find the wines made in Spain, Argentina, California, and elsewhere. La Pizza Fresca's owner admits that not even he is completely immune to the charms of these wines: "Of course, I love some of the great wines of the rest of the world, but I'm not satisfied."

In the Cellar at Capsouto Freres

My November edition of the "In the Cellar" column in the New York Sun appeared on Dec. 5. (Don't ask. Scheduling problems.) I was attracted by Capsouto Freres when I heard of the Tribeca restaurant's emphasis on Israeli wines, which, to my knowledge, is singular outside kosher establishments. I spoke with Jacques Capsouto, the world-weary but warm wine director. Here is the article:

An Ambassador of Israeli Wine

Read the wine list at any high-end restaurant in Manhattan and you'll get a good idea of the wine director's likes and dislikes, and perhaps a hint of what kind of food is being conjured in the kitchen. The wine list at Capsouto Frères, the breezily elegant TriBeCa restaurant, however, could be interpreted as a compact biography of its creator, Jacques Capsouto, who, along with his brothers Albert and Samuel, in 1980 installed the restaurant in a remote, former spice warehouse at the corner of Watts and Washington streets.

Jacques and his brothers were born into a French-speaking Jewish family in Alexandria, Egypt, fled in 1957 to Lyon, France, after the Suez War, and then immigrated to New York City four years later. Fittingly, the Capsouto Frères wine list is made up of bottles from only three countries: France, America, and Israel.

American and French wines can be found in almost every restaurant cellar in town, of course. It is Mr. Capsouto's collection of Israeli wines that has caught the attention of critics and imbibers. He doesn't just have a token red and a token white, as is often the case. His 150-bottle selection includes 20 wines from Israel, such as a Yarden Brut Blanc De Blanc sparkler and a Yarden muscat sweet wine, as well as a Dalton sauvignon blanc and Yarden Merlot. (In case you haven't noticed yet, Jacques Capsouto is a passionate advocate of Yarden, whose role in the Israeli wine boom he likens to that of Robert Mondavi Winery in California.)

"I actually had a Yarden on the list, a chardonnay, when it came to the New York market in the early '80s," Mr. Capsouto, who still retains an Old World accent and a certain air of charming Weltzschmertz to go with it, said. But it wasn't until a 2004 trip to Israel — his first in decades — that he discovered the strides the country's wine industry had taken in recent years.

When Mr. Capsouto talks of Israeli wine, he talks of "two evolutions." The first was spurred on by Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild, a Zionist member of the famous French wine family, who traveled in the 1890s to Palestine and began buying plots of land from the Turks. The acres, mostly along the coast, were then given to local farmers, who planted vines. (Carmel was one of the wineries born at this time.) The second big movement came during the 1980s and continues to this day, paralleling similar drives toward higher quality wine in other countries across the world. Among the newer, generally smaller Israeli wineries now garnering praise and attention are Margalit, Domaine du Castel, and Bazelet ha Golan.

Mr. Capsouto makes it clear that, by supporting the country's vineyards, he's expressing his enthusiasm for the region's wines, not the particular style of wine for which that region is best known. "I'm representing Israeli wines," he said. "I'm not representing kosher wines." He points out that a number of the Israeli bottles on the list bear no hecksher, or kosher certification. "Of the boutique wineries in Israel, about 70 to 80% are not kosher."

The restaurant isn't the first business to bear the name Capsouto Frères. A sign with that legend once hung above a small women's accessories shop in Alexandria. It was run by the siblings' father and his brothers, who specialized in such delicate sartorial luxuries as silk stockings and scarves.

"When we were opening the restaurant, we were trying to come up with a name," Mr. Capsouto said. "My mother came out with this picture of the store and said, 'Why don't you call the restaurant Capsouto Frères?' That's why it's called Capsouto Frères instead of Watts on Washington." Black-and-white shots of the old shop now sit on a table near the restaurant's entrance; the store's wares are advertised on the façade in English, French, and Arabic.

Another bottle on the Capsouto Frères list betrays yet another chapter in the family's story. It's a wine from Gundlach Bundschu, a Sonoma Valley winery with an unwieldy Germanic name and a long history.

"Seven or eight years ago, the Bundschu family was looking at their records and they were trying to figure out where their New York warehouse had been," Mr. Capsouto said. "They had abandoned the warehouse after the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco, when their winery got burned." The ancestors of Bundschu (a Bundschu married Gundlach daughter, thus the name) came to Jacques armed with a couple of king-size blow-ups of old documents and the conviction that the home of Capsouto Frères was none other than their long-lost warehouse. One of the documents was an etching of the 1891 landmark neo-Flemish building. Albert Capsouto pointed out a horse and cart laden with boxes in the foreground of the picture. "That looks like wine to me," Albert said.

Jacques Capsouto was convinced enough to host a tasting that re-introduced Gundlach Bundschu to the New York market a few years ago. He also put one of their wines on his list. Was he, perhaps, being sentimental? He pursed his lips ever so slightly, and replied: "If it wasn't good, I wouldn't put it on the list."

In the Cellar at Tribeca Grill

The months New York Sun "In the Cellar" column focused on Tribeca Grill, that often overlooked quasi-institution that helped get that downtown neighborhood up and running back in the early '90s. I must confess, they don't have my kind of wine list. They like their big reds (Zinfandel is featured) and prestige wines (a list of Wine Spectator's wines of the year for the past 20 years). Whites get short shrift, and places like Germany, Austria and Greece barely a nod. But I did like the openness and unpretentious air of the wine director, David Gordon. He's make a fine drinking companion, I'm certain.

Here's the full text of the article:

Dave's List

By Robert Simonson

The wine director at Tribeca Grill, David Gordon, sips what he sells.

The restaurant's list purports to have more Châteauneuf-du-Pape — roughly 300 bottles — than not only any restaurant in New York City, but any restaurant in the world, including those in the southern Rhône Valley, from whence the wine hails. ( Mr. Gordon admits that this boast is anecdotal — not scientific.)

When asked what he drinks at home, however, Mr. Gordon does not reply "riesling," as many sommeliers who manage red-heavy lists often do. He says " Châteauneuf du Pape," without any hesitation. "I really like those wines."

Mr. Gordon is the only wine director Tribeca Grill has ever known; he began his tenure when fellow Cornell University graduate Drew Nieporent and actor Robert De Niro opened the eatery in 1990. Since then, he has found myriad ways to keep himself interested in his job.

After a few years hawking a selection of about 60 wines, he itched to expand the list. Waiters began handing diners a supplementary "all-American reserve list," which proved a hit; tables were ordering $100 bottles rather than $40 bottles. It got Mr. Gordon thinking. "In our group, Drew owns Montrachetand Rubicon. These were two wine destinations. Why can't we be a wine destination? Maybe Tribeca Grill is a big place and it's more casual, but there's no reason why we can't have great wine."

And so he started buying. Did Mr. Nieporent approve of the new expenditures? "Oh," said Mr. Gordon, not missing a beat, "we didn't tell him." Tribeca Grill now has 1,800 wine selections.

In contrast to many wine directors, who often ooze self-conscious refinement, Mr. Gordon comes off as a man of the people. He has the straightforward, unaffected demeanor of a garrulous garment district sweater manufacturer. The Tribeca Grill list begins, after all, with a populist-spirited page called "Dave's Picks." It's unlikely you'd find a similarly named feature at, say, Le Bernardin.

"For the customer who comes in and doesn't care about wine, or doesn't care that much, he can go to the first page and see we recommend 30 or 40 whites and reds," Mr. Gordon said.

Mr. Gordon has a touch of P.T. Barnum in him. The Tribeca Grill wine list didn't grow in a simple, linear fashion. Instead, it began to sport what could be called "added attractions." In addition to the Châteauneuf-du-Pape cache and the "Dave's Picks" page, Mr. Gordon began spotlighting zinfandels and — in a sentimental move — vintages from 1990, the year Tribeca Grill was born. (By a nice coincidence, the vintage proved to have been a good one in many parts of the world.)

"I don't want to have just a laundry list of wine, page after page after page," Mr. Gordon explained. "It's kind of boring. So I tried to make certain categories. I was just trying to find ways to differentiate this list from other lists."

Among his first such special sections were pages of 1994 and 1997 California cabernets. Those wines have since been exhausted, so the pages are gone. But the 1990s hang on. "They're higher-priced," he said. "We keep trying to find them but we're looking for bargains. The market is very high. It's not a time to buy."

Toward the end of the Tribeca list is yet another notable invention of Mr. Gordon's — a tallying of all the bottles Wine Spectator magazine has named "Wine of the Year" from 1988 to the present.

Mr. Gordon already had some Spectator wines in stock when he hatched the idea, and soon after started looking for the others. Of course, when the Wine Spectator crowns a product "Wine of the Year," its readers — who tend to view the magazine as a gospel of vino — quickly buy up that wine. "It becomes very hard to find the wine all of a sudden," he said. "The price increases, everyone wants it."

The wine Mr. Gordon has had the hardest time keeping in the cellar on a regular basis is not any of the rare and pricey reds from Bordeaux or Napa, but the once-plentiful Beringer Private Reserve Chardonnay 1994. "No one's putting it away to collect," he said. "It's white. It's being drunk. Even Beringer doesn't have any of it. But I'm still finding some."

Another white wine Mr. Gordon makes a point to always have on the list is the Hermitage Blanc by the renowned Rhône wine producer Jean-Louis Chave. It's not a Wine Spectator wine, or a Dave's Pick. It just happens to be one of Robert De Niro's favorites. And so a case arrives like clockwork every year. "He likes whites," Mr. Gordon said. "He likes what he likes. He's not a snob."

The two men must get along well.