The Tangled Vines They Weave

The Tangled Vine wine bar is one of only reasons I'd consider living on the culturally denuded Upper West Side. Seriously, if this wonderful bar was in my neighborhood, I'd go once or twice a week, the wine list is so good, and so ever-changing (while remaining good, no matter how much it changes).

Here's the profile of the place I wrote for Edible Manhattan:

Bottle Shop: Tangled Vine Wine Bar

UPPER WEST SIDE—Victoria Levin has a ready defense for every one of your wine attacks.

Come to the Tangled Vine, the Upper West Side wine bar where she is beverage director, and ask for a pinot grigio, America’s insipid white of choice, and she’ll charm you into trying a sterling example of Gavi, the Piedmontese white. Request something in the line of a malbec, the South American reds now in favor, and you may end up sipping a Cahors, a French wine region where malbec was born.

Don’t misunderstand. These Gavi and Cahors buyers do not feel they’ve been played in some vino version of three-card monte. They’ve merely benefited from Levin’s talent for countering an everyday order with an uncommon bottle.

The South Africa Wine Conundrum

It took a trip to South Africa to get me to fully wrap my mind around the hard-to-categorize South African wine scene. But I came back with an appreciation for the area's diversity and promise, the incredible beauty of the Cape winelands, the seriousness of the winemakers and the undervalued quality of many of its wines. I went down with an established affection for Iona's excellent Sauvignon Blancs and Mulderbosch's reliable rose. I came back devoted to so many more: Sadie Family, Raats, Boekenhoutskloof, Peter Finlayson, Vergelegen and Klein Constantia, not to mention the country's version of Champagned, Cap Classique, which is super-cheap and absolutely wonderful. (Also, Andrew Gunn of Iona has a great red blend and a pinot noir in the pipeline.)

Unfortunately, a lot of the best wines I tasted aren't easy to find here. The place where you'll find the greatest quantity of them is Union Square Wines. Go and take a look. For combining price and value, South Africa has few equals in the wine world. Here's the Edible Manhattan article: 

Message in a Bottle

By Robert Simonson

Nothing about the South African wine industry is simple.

Start with their grapes. The country’s most widely planted white varietal is chenin blanc but, as in France, that grape wears many masks, from desert-dry to dessert-sweet, clean and crisp to dense and oxidized. Sparklers, too. The country’s best-known (but not most widely planted) red grape is pinotage, a cross between pinot noir and cinsault that’s grown almost nowhere else and despised as much as it is loved. The Cape Winelands are very old, and yet, the country’s categorized as a new-world wine region, its liquid bounty largely unknown to oenophiles until Apartheid fell. It’s a region that experiments with as many different grapes as any country in the world, despite being a beer- and brandy-drinking nation that largely ignores its own (ridiculously affordable) wines, exporting 50 percent of them elsewhere. This is a wine capitol that cannot even decide whether to say “syrah” or “shiraz.”

Stateside, this makes South African wine the face at the cocktail party that nobody can quite place. Even the savviest New York wine drinker’s mind can cloud over a bit when confronted with the South African section of the wine list (if, indeed, such a section exists). France is Bordeaux and Burgundy. Germany is riesling. California is cab and chard. And South African is…what, now?

A Hotel in Wine Country

This isn't really a liquor article, aside from the fact that the Hotel Indigo East End is in the middle of Long Island wine country. And that they sponsor local wine and spirit tours. And that their restaurant has a nice list of local wines and cocktails made with LiV Vodka and liqueurs. Oh, what the hell—it is a liquor article.

Riverhead Retrofit

By Robert Simonson

At the point where the Long Island Expressway meets Route 25, in Riverhead, there is a hotel. It used to be a Best Western, and had such a bleak reputation that the basement rooms set aside for conferences and other formal affairs were known by local politicians as “The Dungeon.”

Last fall, on November 17, that dungeon didn’t look so dismal. The room was filled to capacity with celebrants. A lively rhythm and blues band was playing in the corner. Cocktails using locally distilled vodka were being shaken up. Wines from East End vintners such as Sparkling Pointe, Bedell, Peconic Bay and Macari were flowing. For each wine poured, Lia Fallon, the chef and owner of Amarelle in Wading River, had whipped up some succulent finger food, including seafood crepes filled with lobster, shrimp and bay scallops.

A young man of middling size and dark hair walked up to the podium and tapped the microphone. “There was a feeling when this started of ‘How is this ever going to happen?’ ” he told the crowd, gathered for the official opening of the renovated hotel, now called the Hotel Indigo East End. “This could have been a reality show. This was the most interesting nine months of our lives.”

That man was Rob Salvatico, who, along with his father, Albert, spent 2010 converting the dilapidated and despised Best Western into a branch of the Indigo chain of swanky, locally oriented, boutique hotels. In doing so, they became part of the surging interest in the nearby wine country, and the renaissance of hotels and B&B’s that will help shelter wine-craving visitors.

Today, the Hotel Indigo East End’s outer walls are clad in fieldstone and large murals boasting swirling, blue-and-white seashell imagery. The dramatically peaked, wooden carport that greets drivers outside the main entrance is echoed by the spacious lobby, with its arched, thick-timbered ceiling, illuminated by large, orange, boxy lighting fixtures. There’s a miniature gym, and further back, past the wall of flat-screen televisions tuned to various cable news networks, is the hotel’s new restaurant and bar, Bistro 72 (named after LIE’s Exit 72). For this, the Salvaticos coaxed Fallon into taking on a second kitchen. Out by the swimming pool, comfortable seating is artfully positioned around a cozy outdoor stonework fireplace. A “poolscape,” Rob calls it.

The Salvaticos started spreading the word about the hotel’s new lease on life even before Hotel Indigo East End opened, holding special wine dinners in Bistro 72 (as well as a one spirits dinner, in which every course was paired with a different libation from the nearby LiV vodka distillery), and conducting wine and spirit tours of the North Fork. Such pointedly provincial thinking is a definite plus where Indigo is concerned. “The whole concept of the Indigo brand is regional adaptation and to embrace local product and culture,” says Rob Salvatico. “We think that’s the right move. People want a special experience everywhere they go, even on business travel.”

The inn is a far cry from the Salvaticos’ first foray into lodging, the Holiday Inn Express Hotel & Suites East End, also in Riverhead. Built in 1999, it was the first new hotel built in Nassau County in a decade. The two men knew they were wading into very different waters with this new venture. “Holiday Inn Express is a very functional, attractive hotel,” says Albert Salvatico, a former insurance executive who—in contrast to his big-picture son, whose language skews toward the visionary—talks in the common-sense cadences of a career businessman. “But it doesn’t have these design features.”

Ironically, the hotel actually began life as a Holiday Inn, back in 1972, long before the North Fork was linked in the public mind with wine, let alone wine tourism. Later on, it was taken over by Ramada and finally Best Western. The Salvaticos bought it in 2004 and ran it as a Best Western for six years. When they decided to reinvent the location, they might very well have created another utilitarian hotel had the big lodging chains not been so unbending about low-slung habitations. The existing building was created when sprawling, ranch-style hotels were a common sight for businessmen and vacationing families. But such wide, unprepossessing structures long ago gave way to the space-maximizing hotel towers of today.

“In the hotel industry, two-story buildings are not favored” says Albert. “The major brands don’t want to give you a franchise.” Hilton and Starwood both said no. The Salvaticos didn’t even bother pitching Marriott, predicting what the response would be. Then the elder Salvatico took notice of the quirky Indigo chain, which was launched in 2004 and is part of the InterContinental Hotels Group. There are more than 30 locations, including one in Manhattan’s Chelsea neighborhood. “We were intrigued by this brand because of its boutique nature,” he explains. “It’s not standardized, not cookie cutter. Every one is different from the last one. It’s much more in the European style. You don’t tear a building down. You retrofit it to make things for a different purpose.”

To attract Indigo’s interest, and to compensate for the unfashionable location, they knew they had to come up with an eye-popping design concept. “Riverhead has been in a period of decline,” says Albert. “So now you got a double whammy against you. An unattractive building and a town that doesn’t have the cachet of being upscale.” They turned to Morris Nathanson Design, a firm in Pawtucket, Rhode Island, that had designed the Manhattan restaurants Oceana, Heartland Brewery and the P.J. Clarke’s locations at Lincoln Center and the Financial District.

“The colors are meant to reflect eastern Long Island, the sand, the water, very muted, even the wood tones,” says Rob Salvatico of the retro-flavored design, which, despite the building’s 1972 birthday, smacks more of the early 1960s. They wanted to create a connection to the local viticulture, but didn’t want to overdo it. Instead of blown-up pictures of vineyards and grapes, a small, understated photo of a barrel was placed by every room door. “That’s our nod to the wineries. We wanted to be modest.”

Indigo went for it, and construction began. Soon, the Salvaticos’ busy minds turned to food. They had an arrangement with a local caterer, but weren’t happy. “I went downstairs to the computer,” remembers Albert. “I couldn’t sleep. I typed into the computer: ‘Hampton Caterers.’ I came up with four names,” including Black Tie Caterers, then co-owned by Lia Fallon. He called up each of the businesses to see if they’d be interested in taking charge of a new hotel restaurant. “Lia was the only one who called back.”

Fallon wasn’t really looking to take on a second eatery. “It’s hard enough running one restaurant,” she says. “I told them, ‘I’ll get you started.’“ But Rob Salvatico was determined. “I begged,” he jokes. “Then we locked the doors.”

If Fallon was hesitant at first, she’s committed now. “My style is simple American cuisine with a little bit of a spin. I was French trained. At Amarelle, it’s fine dining. Here we want to keep it upscale casual,” with burgers, pull pork sliders, lobster rolls, grilled shrimp, and fish and chips (the whitefish beer-battered with local Greenport lager) on the menu. Many of the dishes incorporate local produce, cheeses and berries. As for the wine list, 30 percent of the 70-plus selections hail from Long Island. Shinn, Lenz, Channing Daughters and Wölffer are all represented.

“We cherry-picked everything,” says Fallon, who also gives Long Island wines pride of place at Amarelle. “We have a lot of great relationships with wineries.”

Rob Salvatico, meanwhile, strengthened ties with the vineyards by organizing wine and spirits tours that commence at the hotel and stop at vineyards like Sparkling Pointe, Bedell, Peconic Bay and Castello di Borghese, as well as at the East End’s sole distillery, LiV. Riders, who are given a box lunch to offset their vino intake, are ferried by either town car, limo or shuttle bus, depending on the number that sign up. Rob likes to make LiV the final stop on the tour. “It is the best possible finish,” he explains. “After all that wine, you get a little tired. You have some vodka, it brings you back.”

LiV vodka, in fact, is at the heart of the hotel’s signature drink, the Indigo Black and Blue cocktail. Many of these were shaken and poured at the November opening bash. As partygoers exited the hotel, they were greeted by a gourmet coffee truck, serving late-night, barista-pulled espressos. The Hotel Indigo in Chelsea couldn’t have thought up a more cosmopolitan grace note.

Russell McCall and the Pinot Noirs of Long Island

I enjoyed interviewing Russell McCall, the creator of the first truly fine Pinot Noir to come out of Long Island. His company was good, his wine was good, the bucolic scene in his East End tasting room (a converted barn) was good. The interview would have been a complete pleasure if he had agreed to pose for a photograph. But he became dodgy when the subject of art came up, and in a burst of false modesty combined with familial price, offered up his progeny. So what Edible East End had to settle for was incongruous shots of his two sons, who have little to do with the McCall winery. It's one of the oddest things that's happened to me in 25 years of journalism.

For this post, I have dug up a web photo of Russell for this post, because it's my blog and I insist. Here's the article:

The Wine Growler Cometh

I've written about beer growlers. I've written about wine on tap. And now it all comes together in this:

Growlers for Grapes

By Robert Simonson

If you live and drink in a major city, you have probably encountered wine on tap, and the proliferation of growlers, those glass hillbilly jugs that enable you to take draft beer from a bar or liquor store to your home. But unless you live in Greenville, S.C., you may not have met the lovechild of those two trends: the wine growler.

Last week, the Community Tap, a liquor shop in Greenville that sells wine and craft beer, dedicated one of its taps to take-away wine. The principle is the same as with beer growlers. You purchase a 32-ounce or 64-ounce vessel and fill it up with the keg wine on tap.

“One of the reasons that we wanted to start the store was we wanted to do beer growlers,” said the co-owner Ed Buffington, who opened Community Tap last July and now has 10 taps devoted to American microbrews and some European beers. “There weren’t too many people doing it in South Carolina.”

A visit from Dan Donahoe from Silvertap wines in California, which specializes in tank wine, prompted Mr. Buffington to think beyond beer. “I’ve been doing this for a long time,” said Mr. Donahoe, whose clients are almost all restaurants. “From my experience, they are the only place doing wine in growlers retail. A lot of people have wine on tap. I’m in discussions with very large grocery stores about it. But nobody’s really pulled the trigger and done it until they did.” (In recent years, wine growlers have cropped up in tasting rooms in places like California, Michigan and Pennsylvania.)

The Community Tap’s debut growler wine is Silvertap’s 2008 cabernet sauvignon. Both Mr. Donohue and Mr. Buffington see two main advantages to growler wine: a smaller carbon footprint and a smaller tab. A 32-ounce growler of Silvertap cab goes for $16.99, the same cost of Donahoe Teira Cab in a 750-milliliter bottle. “That’s 25 percent more wine at the same price,” Mr. Buffington said.

Charles Bieler, a founder of the New York-based keg wine company theGotham Project is hoping wine growlers can find their way to New York, if Albany can be made to see the light.

“Every state has a different set of laws,” Mr. Bieler said. “From a retail point of view, this is something we’ve been looking into. There’s a law that says, with wine, it’s illegal. But it’s never been challenged.”

“I know a lot of retailers in the city who would jump on it in a second,” he added.

Morrell Wine Bar, the 12-Year-Old "Stately Classic"

Several years back, when I was taking coursed at the International Wine Center in New York, it seemed no class went by without the various instructors invoking some wine they had recently drunk at the Morrell Wine Bar. Times have changed since then. Dozens of additional wine bars have opened in New York, boasting every imaginable focus, and no one needs to go to Morrell anymore for a good by-the-glass experience. 

And, indeed, it doesn't seem like many oenophiles who considers themselves in the know do go there. It's become like Sardi's or the "21" Club; too traditional to even think about. While researching this article, I found it devilish hard to find wine critics or experts to speak on the record about the place. The fear of sounding un-cool is a great and terrifying motivator for the cultured New Yorker. They dread the stigma one might earn in naming the wrong restaurant or bar or book or play as a favorite. In asking oenophiles if they liked Morrell, I felt like I was asking theatre critics if they'd been to "Phantom of the Opera" lately.

That's a shame. Morrell may not be cutting edge, but I find it still serves a purpose, and that purpose is in part an important one: introducing the average person, even if they be a tourist (!), to a wide variety of good wine by the glass in an elegant setting. 

Here's the article I wrote for Edible Manhattan:

Morrell Authority

By Robert Simonson

Last October, a wine bar called V-Note opened on the Upper East Side. It was trumpeted as a “vegan wine bar,” and offers biodynamic, organic and sustainable wines to pair with its animal-free food.

No New Yorker blinked.

Why would they? Gotham is awash in wine bars of every stripe, and has been for some years. They have become so idiosyncratic and specialized that it’s possible to find one precisely catered to your taste no matter how specific your oenophilic tendencies. Like South African wines with your South African cuisine? Head to Xai Xai in Midtown for your dose of pinotage. Think the wines of southern Italy are undersung and underdrunk? Point your feet toward In Vino in Alphabet City, where Basilicata and Calabria are never forgotten. Worship riesling? Terroir Tribeca, where Germany’s noble grape is on tap even, is your fatherland.

Two Bottles of 1959 Latour Wasted on Charlie Sheen

A few years ago, I wrote an article about the fabulous wine cellar holdings at Daniel, the posh Upper East Side restaurant. At one point during my interview with then-sommelier Philip Marchal, he lifted up a $7,800 bottle of 1961 Latour and showed it to me. I remember wondering what sort of person ordered such a pricey item.

Now I know. Charlie Sheen.

The addled actor continued his long and glorious history of alcohol and drug abuse during a dinner at Daniel last week. I'm not so upset that he snorted cocaine in the bathroom, or that he tried to use the same facility as an impromptu bedroom. But did the restaurant have to sell him two bottles of the exceedingly rare Grand Vin de Chateau Latour 1959, at $5,900 a pop? Pictures shown the actor holding the bottle by the neck. No doubt he slugged it back like a bottle of Thunderbird.

Back during my interview, I was told Mr. Boulud has a special relationship with the owner of Latour, Francois Pinault. He is a frequent guest at Daniel and a fan of the chef. Thus, diners with the wherewithal can choose from among the otherwise hard-to-find '09, '59, and '70 Latour vintages. What a waste.

Four Whites From Friuli and One Red From Calabria

Italian vintner Venica & Venica's covers Italy's boot from tongue to instep.

While most of its bottlings are white from the Collio section of Friuli, in the northeast corner of Italy, near the Slovenia border, it also produces a beguiling red from Calabria. The winemaker Giampaolo Venica recently hosted a tasting of his line on the outside patio of The Modern restaurant, where a couple of his wines are regularly poured by sommelier Belinda Chang.

Venica & Venica wines are grown on 28 hectares over seven hills in Collio that boast, according to Giampaolo, 55 different micro-climates.
Both Chang and Giampaolo told me that the winery holds by the "Ronco Del Cero" Sauvignon Blanc as its best, and signature, wine. Which I (and Chang) found somewhat odd, since another Sauvignon Blanc, "Ronco Delle Mele," was the real stunner. An amazingly tropical trip of tart orange, lime, lemon, resting on a bed of chalky minerality and wrapped in bracing acidity, it drank like a superior New Zealand S.B. (In a blind tasting, I would have sworn it came from that country.) Cero was in the same ballpark, but seemed less stunning, simpler, less bright than the Cero. I would be totally happy with the Cero at any meal—until presented with the Mele. At which point I would switch.

Of the other whites poured, the Friulano was full, with tangerine and lime flavors; and the Pinot Grigio "Jesura" was well above the average PG from almost anywhere else in northwest Italy. But the most interesting wine on the table was arguably the Terre di Balbia "Balbium" 2008. This is V&V's only bottling from Calabria, made from 20-year-old vines of the native varietal Magliocco. Magliocco was once widely planted in southern Italy, but is almost extinct today. Bottled after a year in old casks, Balbium is 14.5% alcohol, but tasted much lighter. It has a rich, musky nose. Medium-bodied and wonderfully drinkable, it tastes of plum, dust and cherry, the texture somewhere between silky and sandy. A wonderful food wine, I'm guessing.

The Sipping News

New York cocktails crowd the $20 mark. While this is true at some new places, like the Lambs Club, the article—typical for the sensationalistic Post—is misleading. At most of the bars they mention (PDT, Pegu Club, Milk & Honey, etc.), the average price is still around $14. However, that is an increase from the $13 price tag that was the norm a year ago. [NY Post]

It also now costs more to drink on the Long Island Railroad. [Gothamist]

Another boast from the Post: Sherry is popular again. I wish it were so. [NY Post]

West Village cocktail joint Little Branch will be adding a cafe upstairs (aka street level). [The Villager, via Eater]

Jimmy, a new rooftop cocktail bar in the James Hotel, has opened in SoHo. This, unfortunately, is one of those places that offers $18 cocktails. Since it's partly founded by Hotel Griffou's Johnny Swet and Larry Poston, whose cocktails I've tasted at Griffou, I'm not sure the price is warranted. But I will reserve judgment until I try them. [Eater]

Japanese wineries (huh?) are trying to turn table grape Koshu into world-class wine. [Times]

A Little 21-Year-Old Birthday Riesling

About a week ago, the day after my birthday, I was preparing dinner and thinking, quite selfishly, that not enough had been done to celebrate my natal day. So I walked back to my teeny "cellar" and looked over the selections, seeing if one was ripe for the plucking. I had been worried about a 1989 Bert Simon riesling for a number of months. Wines from Simon from that year were particularly praised. I didn't want it to go south and start to fade, all because I hesitated in breaking it open. A recent call to the store where I bought it, Crush, assured me the wine, a Serrig Wurtzberg Auslese, was probably at its peak, and well worth sacrificing. So in the fridge it went to chill.

I wish I had more than one of those Simon '89s. Was a delish treat from top to bottom it was. And believe me, I drank it top to bottom in one evening. It wasn't hard. The alcohol was only 10%. But beyond that, the flavor made it impossible to put down. Honey, ripe orange and tangerine and clementine, orange blossoms, more honey, a little lick of diesel at the end, and a dusty edging of slate. And an afterthought of apple pie.

The firm structure and good acidity all served to spotlight those wonderful fruit flavors. There was no flabbiness to the wine. It was in its prime. Fresh. The color alone was a pleasure: a sunny yellow-tangerine hue.

I went to Crush the following week in hopes of finding another bottle. No dice. But I did pick up four other rieslings to lay down and take the Simon's place. Future birthdays must be thought of.

The Sipping News

Cocktails boasting lower alcohol contents are now trendy, sez the San Francisco Chronicle. If true, I am in favor of this trend. [SFC]

Jason Wilson of the Washington Post likes the Alaska cocktail, which seems to be experiencing a little revival lately. Me, I've never taken to this particular concoction. [WP]

Burgundy man Daniel Johnnes has begun to import Bordeaux. [Dr. Vino]

Eric Asimov writes about the wonderful winemaker Josko Gravner, master of weird aged white wines, loved by some, puzzled over by many. [NYT]

Bartenders on the Move: Noted mixologist Toby Cecchini is no longer putting in Friday shifts at Red Hook's Fort Defiance.

The Sipping News

An argument in favor of bartender copywriting cocktails and techniques as intellectual property, which may be one of the most unenforceable ideas I've ever heard of. Thankfully, legally, this is impossible. I've always thought the cocktail world's willingness to share recipes and idea was always one of its most likable and noble aspect. [The Atlantic]

There seem to have been a rash of high profile bartender departures in recent months. The latest include Owen Westman, who will leave the San Francisco bar Rickhouse to open his own place all the way over in Melbourne. Westman, who was born in Melbourne,  couldn't say where the bar is or what its name will be (details are still being finalized). But the cocktail list will draw on his experience at Bourbon & Branch, Rickhouse and other bars he's visited throughout the world. (Rickhouse recently lost Erick Castro to Pernod.) He calls Melbourne "by far the most cocktail and food forward city in Australia." Meanwhile,  Nico de Soto is leaving Dram in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to go to London to work at a London branch of Paris' Experimental Cocktail Club.

Toward a lighter, and greener, Champagne bottle. [NY Times]

A lengthy piece on the legendary Mai-Kai in Fort Lauderdale. [Wine Enthusiast]

"Alcohol is not a flavor," says John Ragan, sommelier at Eleven Madison Park. Agreed! [Grub Street]

Talking Turkey

Turkish wine. Name a winemaker.

If you said Kavaklidere, aside from your pronunciation skills being highly advanced, you are a sharp observer of the Turkish wine scene here in the U.S. Of course, that doesn't take much study, because the wines of only one Turkish winemaker currently make it into America: Kavaklidere.

Kavaklidere is also the largest winery in Turkey, with 550 hectares in land holdings throughout Anatolia in five different regions: Ankara, Eastern Anatolia, Thrace, Aegean and Central Anatolia. Along with rival winemaker Doluca, they rule the industry. They produce a dizzying array of bottlings, using many different grapes, both native and, increasingly, international. Their output is eight million liters a years, 80% of which is consumed in Turkey. Still, with all its advantages, Kavaklidere's wines are little known in this country. Basically, unknown, outside Turkish restaurants. (France imports quite a bit of Turkish wines.)

George DuBoeuf Finds His Vintage of a Lifetime

When George DuBoeuf, de facto king of Beaujolais, says he's found his Beaujolais vintage of a lifetime, you tend to listen, even if you are a bit skeptical. After all, he can only get away with saying such a thing once. And who knows more Beaujolais vintages, and knows them intimately, than this eminence grise of the Gamay grape?

Monsieur DuBoeuf and his son Franck said the 2009 vintage was the sunniest in long memory, resulting in very mature grapes upon harvest. Beaujolais Villages, in particular, exceeded their expectations, which a darker-than-usual hue to the wines.

Wine Bar Tangled Vine Adds Brunch Cocktail List

Tangle Vine, the new Upper West Side wine bar focusing on biodynamic, organic and sustainable wines, has inaugurated a Saturday and Sunday brunch and, with it, a brunch cocktail menu. It features the usual Bloody Mar, Mimosa and Bellini spins, but also a Pera Espumosa, made of Cava, Kabinett Riesling, Brandy, pear nectar, fresh cinnamon; and El Alba, made of Francois Mantand sparkling wine, fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, and Gus cranberry lime soda. The drinks will probably not expand to evenings in order to keep the focus on wine. 

On the wine list, meanwhile, Tangled Vine has added a quintet of roses for the spring, as well as an orange wine (a Savagnin from Jura), all by the glass. I like that the wine list has a permanent category called Orange Wine—wines mainly from Jura and Friuli. Also, that the separate their Rieslings into "Dry" and "Sweet" categories, so as to alleviate some of the confusion about those great wines. The Gamay category—as opposed to a Beaujolais section—is also an astute twist.

 

Here's the cocktails list:

Organic Smoked Bloody Mary $11

Crop Harvest Organic Tomato Vodka, Organic Tomato Juice, Victoria’s secret smoked blend, burnt tomato and eggplant

Fresh Mimosa $9
Francois Mantand sparkling wine, fresh squeezed orange juice

Mint Peach Bellini $9
Prosecco, peach nectar, fresh mint

Pera Espumosa $10
Cava, Kabinett Riesling, Brandy, pear nectar, fresh cinnamon

El Alba $9
Francois Mantand sparkling wine, fresh squeezed grapefruit juice, Gus cranberry lime

Review: Lini 910 Lambrusco Bianco

Every now and then, a wine seller will try to push a Lambrusco on me. I'll be surprised to see a bottle on the shelf and ask something like "Lambrusco? Really?" And the store owner will go into some tap dance of "Yeah, I know, most of them are so insipid. But not this one! This is a really good Lambrusco, the way the wine can be. I wouldn't have it in my store if I didn't think so."

And, being fairly gullible, and always fond of an unlikely buy, I'll take one home. Then I open it, drink it and think, "Lambrusco. Eh." It's fizzy, it's simple, it goes with food, it's uninteresting. Leave it in Emilia Romagna.

Well, I got talked into a Lambrusco again last week, this time at Dry Dock, the new Red Hook, Brooklyn, wine store that is going a long way toward filling up the hole left by LeNell's. I was intrigued because the store had a Bianco, Rose and Rosse Lambrusco, all by the same producer, Lini 910. (The white and rose are achieved by having little contact with the skins of the grape which, in this case, is actually Pinot Nero.) The owner who talked me into it also confessed she loved the white best, red second and rose not so much. I like a bit of honesty in my sales pitch.

So I took the white home and, for once, didn't regret it. This wine is easily the best Lambrusco I've ever had, with an unlikely complexity that robs the wine not a whit of its refreshing sparkle. There are fruit and herbal notes and a slight oxidized character. The bottle barely lasted through dinner. Lini 910 is a 100-year-old vintner, having been founded in 1910. The producer is Alicia Lini, and she also makes a white version called metodo classical, which is bottle fermented like Champagne. Now I'm curious about the Rosso and Rose.

All Greek to Me

To appreciate Greek wines, you have to eat them with food. Preferably, good food.

Back in March, I went to a wine tasting for the importer VOS selections, and tasted through their fairly extensive line of Greek wines. I thought, "Good." But I wasn't all that excited. I've gone through this before. I'm a fan of good Greek wines. I think they present excellent value, as well a sense of taste adventure, given the innumerable native and obscure varietals in Greece. But I was first won over to Greek wines by buying cheap bottles and then having them over dinner. When I went to Greek wine tastings, where no food was served, I wasn't as wowed. These wines are made for food, and somehow don't show as well when they're on their own.

The Friuli Wines of American

I wrote a small item for Tasting Table last week about a tight group of American winemakers with whom I share a passion for the white wines of Friuli. There are only four that I know of in the U.S.—Abe Schoener, George Vare, Christopher Tracy and Steve Matthiasson—so it wasn't difficult to become acquainted with them and their wines. These wines are not for the novice drinker. They challenge you and make you think more than relax. What else can you expect from a white wine that looks orange and tastes like a red?

As Matthiasson pointed out (and I was not able to fit into a 200-word article), there are differing schools of thought among Friuli winemaker. The whites that spend a lot of time on the lees, or get buried in the ground in amphoras—think the wines of Gravner and Radikon—get the most attention. How could they not? They're bruisers, yeasty and tannic and provocative. But there's another, subtler school of white, strongly mineral but crisp and refreshing, that are best represented there by Schiopetto and Villa Russiz, and over here by Matthiasson Napa Valley White.

Of the wines I list below I most strongly recommend the Channing Daughters Rosato. Unfortunately, it seems to already be sold out.

Tough Love

A small-but-fierce group of winemakers embraces northern Italy

It's easy to embrace the popular kids.

In the wine world, they're well-known regions like Bordeaux and Burgundy, which have plenty of American winemakers crafting bottles in their likeness.

But for the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region in northeast Italy--known for its idiosyncratic, niche pours--acolytes are harder to come by.

Among its small-but-vociferous ranks are California vintners George Vare, Abe Schoener and Steve Matthiasson, who discovered Friuli's white wines on a trip together in 2005. Since then, the trio has experimented with native Friulian varietals and unorthodox aging methods, which have yielded robust, yeasty white wines. They are exceptional in their eccentricities.

Christopher Tracy, winemaker for Bridgehampton's Channing Daughters, is another Friuli fanatic. He's fingered Long Island's climate and soil as ideal for the production of Vino da Meditazione, a thickish, cerebral wine that has been called the best white offering in America.

Sometimes the difficult ones come out the best. Here are three bottles that make for a good introduction to Friuli, American-style:

2009 Channing Daughters Rosato di Refosco ($19) A rare and delicious rosé, this bottle is light and creamy with hints of almonds and strawberries (click to buy online).

2008 Matthiasson Napa Valley White ($32) Dominated by Sauvignon Blanc and Ribolla Gialla, this flinty, crisp wine smacks of lemon, pear and light stone fruits (click to buy online).

2008 Scholium Project The Prince in His Cave ($43) Abe Schoener's flagship bottle is a crash course in on-the-lees orange wine: tangy, spicy, yeasty and a feast for those with an adventurous palate (click to buy online).

Drinking in Brooklyn

I spent a good deal of the early part of the year talking to anyone and everyone who has anything to do with the cocktail, beer and coffee scenes in Brooklyn. The canvasing was in service of a feature on the Brooklyn drinking scene for Imbibe magazine. It wasn't difficult to research; a Brooklynite for 16 years, I had been doing casual, unscripted research for such a survey two or three years by simply paying calls on the new Brooklyn bars and cafe as they opened in waves in 2008 and 2009. And most of the people I interviewed for the piece I had already come to know. Nothing quite as pleasurable as doing an in-depth piece on your own hometown.

Here's the article. There are also lists of places to go for  cocktails, coffee, beer and wine (yes, wine does get a mention in the piece, though not a thorough going over, thank God—adding that aspect to the article might have killed me), all put together by yours truly. But I won't print those here. I have to leave some reason to go out and buy the mag.


A SCENE GROWS IN BROOKLYN

By Robert Simonson

IN THE LATE 19th CENTURY, BROOKLYN WAS A GLORIOUS PLACE TO DRINK. The borough (then a full-fledged city in its own right) boasted 48 breweries and lent its name to The Brooklyn, one of the country’s most popular cocktails at the time. Two of America’s largest coffee roasters of the area—R. Buckle Brothers and the A & P company—called Brooklyn home, and the venerable, gas-lit Gage & Tollner restaurant on Fulton Street served coffee so strong, some customers asked for it to be diluted.

Then came Prohibition, the Depression, high taxes and rising labor costs. The Breweries—Trommer’s, Piels, Rheingold—closed one by one. The last, Schaefer, turned off its Brooklyn taps in 1976. The Brooklyn Cocktail died from memory as an essential ingredient, Amer Picon, fell into obscurity. Gage & Tollner closed, its landmark interior eventually invaded by TGI Friday’s and then Arby’s.

In the last decade, however, craft breweries, cocktail lounges and coffee bars have been cropping up from Greenpoint to Bushwick. The shift took root in the ’90s, when New Yorkers crossed the East River in droves to escape rising rents and encroaching homogenization bred by Manhattan’s bear hug of chain stores and luxury condos. Some of those transplants became entrepreneurs, opening bars and cafés over the years to slake the thirsts of the new locals. That trend has steadily gained steam, and today Brooklynites have reclaimed one of the most enviable drink cultures in the country.

Gary Farrell Returns to Russian River Valley

For years there, Gary Ferrell was once of the golden names in Russian River Valley pinot noir, making juicy, sought-after wines prized by collectors and those fond of Parker-astic, big-ticket reds. Then he sold he winery in 2004 and cleared out.

Now he has returned with Alysian, his new "back to his roots" wine. Again, his stomping ground is the Russian River Valley, and again he's producing pinots. He's just released his initial 2007 vintage of Alysian, including two pinots. If Ferrell is going back to his roots, they dig into artistic ground remarkably similar to what he left behind at his big commercial winery. In other words, fans of the Farrell style won't be disappointed. The wines are alcoholic, fruity, fragrant and juice, the single-vineyard Floodgate Pinot Noir 2007 (only 440 cases) slightly more restrained than the sweet, big-boned Russian River Pinot Noir 2007. The Chardonnay was not available for tasting at the event I attended, but, at 14.1%, and 10 months in new and used French oak barrels, I wouldn't expect a lot of subtlety.