I’ll be pouring seven great wines-–red, white and bubbly (including one tasty kosher wine!). We’ll talk party strategies, how to impress the boss with a gift wine, and good food pairings. NO prior wine education is necessary, just a willingness to try something new!

The session will be held at the White Wood House, a historic property on E. 29th St in New York City where the first floor is a space dedicated to wine education. Copies of my books will be available for purchase and I’d be happy to sign them–also good gifts!

So I hope to see you there on Thursday 12/10!
6:30 – 8:00 PM. Registration and details
(image)

I stopped by SD26 on a recent weeknight and things were hopping. The restaurant, opened on Madison Square in September to the tune of $7 million, boasts a wine bar in the front. Tony May, who previously owned the traditional San Domenico, told the New York Times that with SD26 “We aim for the cutting edge.”

Thus behold the 24 bottles in Enomatic, self-service dispensers. And no matter where you are in the large space, the wine list only comes in one form and–paper-be-damned–it’s digital.

It awaits on the bar, propped up by a little kick stand in the back, beckoning you with “SD26″ on the screen. The hostess said that if there were a paper edition it would be “too big” given the amount of wines available. I couldn’t resist and picked up the 9×5 tablet and started tapping the touch screen. First fields: red, white or bubbly? Then drill down: glass, half bottle or bottle? Then drill down again: a list of producers, regions and vintages.

Drill, baby, drill! But this tablet system is a dry hole. When you eventually arrive on a page you want, there is the option to sort by price or alphabetically. Despite having interactive capability, the digitized wine list remains merely a list. There are no descriptions of the wines. No ability to sort by style. Few images. No suggestions for pairings with items on the menu. No interactions such as the ability to rate the wine that you had after you tried it and then coming up with a short list of popular picks or sorting by user-generated rankings. No internet access. So you’re pretty much left where you were with a paper list: talking with the sommelier for a suggestion.

Although the inventory could be instantly updated, the wines probably don’t change too often: the server I spoke with in the front said that the 24 wines in the Enomatic machines have been there since the opening and will likely be there through the new year.

So, really, the substance of the wine list doesn’t appear to benefit form the style of the tablet. It seems to have been done just for the tech of it.

The enthusiastic, 26 year old proprietor of Le Vigne in Greenwich Village opened the door to his tiny wine store in late July. But that was the culmination of the lengthy license application process, which lasted almost a year. Before applying for the license, he had to have a lease on a space, which he signed last August. Despite having a backlog of 3,000 applications, Carlo said that the State Liquor Authority told him that the application process would take about six weeks and if there were no existing liquor store within 500 feet, the process would be smooth. Instead, the process dragged on and the space sat vacant, eating his rent. Since he had quit his job, he tried to find another but had difficulty: he couldn’t even get a job as a server at some BYOB restaurants in New Jersey where he had worked growing up. He relied on loans from friends and family.

In April, the SLA gave him a license so he had to set about designing the space. The 400 sq ft store housed a travel agency (remember those?) for much of the past three decades. Confronted with shag carpet and drab walls, Carlo knew that he had a design emergency. The only thing was that especially after the license application process, he didn’t have much of a budget: when he first contacted the design firm MADLAB, he said they all but hung up on him.

A couple of weeks later, however, they did get back to him with a proposal of furniture sourced entirely from the Salvation Army in Newark, NJ. Their plan included painting the furniture white, stacking the pieces in a jumble, and then stripping the walls and floors back to the brick and boards.

The shop stocks exclusively Italian wines and Carlo has laid out the shop by region on the furniture with the northern end of the peninsula near the door and Sicily at the rear. The 200 wines are from small producers and importers. He says the wines range in price from $12 to $184 for a mature Barolo.

Carlo worked in several restaurants growing up, but mostly BYOBs. He ate at Babbo when he was 21 and had such a great experience that he wrote David Lynch, then the wine director, a letter asking if he could work there hauling boxes. Much to Carlo’s surprise, he says that Lynch called him back. But seeing his admittedly featherweight wine resume, Lynch sent him to cut his teeth at Lupa first. He bounced around a few places including Italian Wine Merchants, Babbo and Inoteca North and briefly at sales for a wine importer.

At Le Vigne, he said that people in the neighborhood have a pretty good knowledge of wine; it’s not uncommon to have someone come in and request a vernaccia nera or something else from off the beaten path. (He attributes this knowledge to the high density of Italian restaurants in the neighborhood.) And people often want to experiment and pair wine with with non-traditional foods, such as watermelon soup, so he has to think creatively. He’ll give you a 10% discount for a case purchase and even store it in the back for you to drop in and collect a few bottles as necessary.

Although he still has debts, things are looking up now that the store is actually in business. “Every week gets better,” he says.

35 Greenwich Ave
(bet. 10th and Charles Streets)
(212) 255-0222
See it on the map of NYC wine shops

SIPPED: more nudity and wine
In Burgundy, 713 people take off their clothes to be photographed among the vines–all in the name of demonstrating against global warming. Randall Grahm had the bon mot on twitter: “Cotes de nue-its?” [greenpeace.fr]

SIPPED: Hong Kong
Hong Kong surpasses London and NYC as the largest wine auction market according to a story on Reuters. The Asian market for wine is “in danger of overheating” while the US is “weak” according to David Elswood, Christie’s international head of wine.

RIP: Gourmet magazine
After a review by McKinsey consultants, Conde Nast has decided to close Gourmet, the venerable food magazine. But if BusinessWeek, which lost $43 million last year, has attracted many bidders, why isn’t Conde putting Gourmet up for sale? Or making Anna Wintour stay at an EconoLodge?

SIPPED: changes in NYC dining
The new Michelin guide NYC comes out tomorrow; Daniel has been promoted to three stars, Alto rises to two stars and Corton debuts with two. Why Eleven Madison Park only gets one star is anyone’s guess. [Bloomberg]

Also in NYC dining, Chanterelle will now be closed permanently. Their long-time sommelier, Roger Dagorn, will now join Porter House according to Off the Presses.

And in NYS, the State Liquor Authority has a backlog of 3,000 applications; a report suggests a bureaucratic overhaul that may include making BOYB easier for new restaurants. [NYP]

With restaurant markups commonly 300 or 400 percent you could be forgiven for answering, “never.” But right now, there’s a restaurant in NYC where the head sommelier is clearing out his inventory. Unfortunately, he’s already blown through most of the wines that cost him less than $300. But for all (both?) the high rollers out there, the wines that he bought for north of $300 and he has multiple bottles of, he’s happy to part with them for as little as $100 above his cost. As silly as it sounds, that means that a wine that costs $750 a bottle in a store might only cost $600 at the restaurant!

Consider another example. The sommelier told me that one patron wanted to spend $900 on the Domaine Romanee Conti, Grands Echezaux, 2005. But the sommelier asked him if he would like a better wine that’s drinking better now, the DRC, La Tache, 2006 for $750. The diner readily accepted. Fancy that, a downsell! (is that even a word?)

The price reductions are indicated not on the wine list, however. The somm told me that he gives them mainly to regulars or “people who seem nice.” So if you have an anniversary, marriage proposal, big birthday, or other celebratory event coming up no matter which fine restaurant you’re in, it might not hurt to indicate your (high) price point and ask if that’s the most exciting thing in that vein (cough**cough**price) on the wine list.

Unfortunately, the sommelier requested anonymity since he said that there is no across-the-board policy. But in other NYC deals, Veritas, the wine shrine on 20th St., is offering 25% off all wines on the list. And Bar Boulud is offering a “Pannier du jour,” wherein a magnum, jerobaum, imperial or Methusalem is hauled up from the cellar, uncorked and sold by the glass for between $19 and $29 a glass. It may sound like a lot but some recent selections have included the 04 Jadot Bonnes-Mares (3L) and the 1978 Ducru Beaucaillou (mag). Maybe if you get the last glass you could take the bottle home?

At the lower-priced value end, Perry Street, Jojo, and Vong each offers a red and a white bottle of wine for $20 at lunch time as well as a $5 wine by the glass.

Hit the comments with other deals you know about!

SIPPED: lobbying
The Village Voice looks at the jockeying behind the legislative initiative to allow supermarkets to sell wine.

SIPPED and SPIT: growth (of the viticultural kind)
The AP offers more reporting on the coming harvest “under economic cloud.”

SIPPED: a second life for those OWCs
Wine crates as serving trays.

SIPPED: tree planting
An Australian winery will attempt to offset its carbon emissions by planting up to 10,000 trees worldwide. Let’s hope the trees fare better than those planted for Coldplay! [Perth Now]

SPIT: a tip of the hat
In the recent double issue, NY mag ran a long piece about ethical eating that included a mention of the carbon footprint of wine. Ditto Newsweek in their current double issue.

SPIT: bottled water
Mother Jones has a long article on the making of FIJI bottled water.

They can be really a fun and informative aspect of wine life in the city. They’re free because stores can’t (easily) charge for tastings on their premises with the off-premises retail license. Many stores have regular free tastings, check out my NYC wine shop map for my favorite stores. Here’s what’s happening at a few of them:

Chambers Street Wines: Italian white wines, Friday, 5-7; Summer favorites from local distributor, Polaner, Saturday, 4-7.
Crush Wine & Spirits: Free tastings Thursday, 5-7; annual “War of the Rosés” June 11, (session one 5–6pm, session two 6:30–7:30pm; R.S.V.P. to events@crushwineco.com)
Moore Brothers: there’s always something open in the back.

Hit the comments with some other worthwhile ones you know about!

I was fortunate enough to have been able to give a talk there last year for my other book, Wine Politics, and the turnout was great and the discussion was excellent. Because A Year of Wine dovetails on the seasonal food movement by suggesting varying the wines you drink with the seasons, I’m thrilled to be heading to this gastronomic institution for this discussion. Hope to see you there!

Wednesday, June 10, Noon – 1 PM
167 W. 12th Street
Suggested donation: $20; students free. Event page on their site.

SIPPED: wine as a tax revenue source
New York State will raise the excise tax on wine sold or made in New York from $0.18 a gallon to $0.30 a gallon, effective May 1. This rate increase of roughly two cents a bottle may be too little to pass on to consumers thus may fall to producers or wholesalers. In order to avoid channel stuffing, there will be a “floor tax” levy imposed on warehouse inventory as of May 1. So will there be mega sales in NY wine stores between now and then to draw down said inventory? [NYT]

SIPPED: fraud
Fraudsters posing as buyers for British wine retailers have bilked French producers out of an apparently large amount of wine. Sad. [Decanter]

SIPPED, surprisingly: Bordeaux 2008
If in 2008 grapes were, in the words of Jancis Robinson, “swollen with summer rain,” vineyards are “ravaged by mildew and threatened by rot,” would that make for a good vintage in Bordeaux? Despite all odds, Robinson in the FT and Elin McCoy on Bloomberg attest to finding some surprisingly good wines. McCoy asks the money question: “But dropping prices dramatically in a good vintage? It’s not in the Bordelais DNA.” But some have gotten the message as she quotes Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou, owner Bruno Borie: “We have to go back to basics, go back to the consumer, instead of the speculators.” Subsequently, Decanter reports several releases down 20 – 40% from last year’s prices. What will happen ultimately to the weak and expensive 2007 vintage? A caution against buying wine as futures…

In an op-ed in yesterday’s NYT, wine shop owner Marco Pasanella makes the case that he and other independent shops should be allowed to expand to have more than one location and be able to sell bread, cheese, microbrews, and, yes, recyclable bags, which they are not allowed to currently sell. I’ll drink to that! In fact, it is absurd that this corollary is not in the proposed reform legislation and should be corrected immediately.

I stopped by Pasanella & Son last week for a book signing. It is a handsome shop with an antique Fiat on the floor; the wine selection is excellent. The staff did a fantastic job setting up the event and it was great to see so many people, particularly from the neighborhood turn out. In his op-ed, Marco says that the staff at a local shop will remember a customer’s name. In fact, one woman there that evening told me that the staff member actually remembered which wine she had bought on her previous visit when she couldn’t. Bet that won’t happen at D’Agostino.

Also check out their clever and popular free wine and movie nights, Sip ‘n Cinema!

“If You Sell Wine, Then Let Me Sell Cheese” -NYT op-ed
New York City wine shops, a map

March 12: I’ll be signing my book, A Year of Wine, at Pasanella & Son near the South Street Seaport, 7 – 9 PM. Four free wines! Hope to see you there.

March 21: Several producers from one of my favorite importers, Louis/Dressner, will be heading to Chambers Street Wines. Includes: Jean-Paul Brun, Domaine des Terres Dorées;Marc Ollivier, Domaine de la Pépière; Pierre Breton; Matthieu Baudry, Domaine Bernard Baudry; Evelyne de Jessey, Domaine du Closel; Catherine & Claude Maréchal; Jean Manciat; Alain Coudert, Clos de la Roilette; François Pinon; Eric and Christine Nicolas, Domaine Bellivier. There are also a couple of interesting winemaker dinners around that time arranged through the store, although they’re not free.

March 24: Several producers from another of my favorite importers, Kermit Lynch, will be heading to Thirst Wine Merchants in Fort Greene, 6 8 PM. Includes: Reynald Delille from Domaine Terrebrune (Bandol) in Provence, Laurent Barrera from Dupéré Barrera and Domaine de la Procure (Côtes de Provence) in Provence, Isabelle Champart from Domaine Champart (Saint-Chinian) in Langedoc-Roussillon, Cinzia Sommariva from Sommariva (Conegliano) in Veneto, Guido Porro from Azienda Agricola Guido Porro (Serralunga d’Alba) in Piedmont, and Jean-Yves Bizot (Vosne-Romanée) from Domaine Bizot in Burgundy.

Size of store: 320 sq feet, possibly the smallest in Manhattan [66 West Broadway; Tribeca]

Style of selections: well-edited! My version of the well-stocked wine closet: including daily essentials, quirky finds, and higher end treasures. Selection skews toward the Southern Hemisphere.
price average: 50% of stock is $20 or less

A cool bottle: “Syrocco” Syrah 2006 (Zenata, Morocco) – eye-rolling aside at the clever, rhyming name, the wine is a great value at $16.99. Alain Graillot of Northern Rhone fame is the man behind this project.

Date store opened: December 14th, 2007

Position on proposed reform to allow food stores to sell wine: There’s a Whole Foods around the corner, so the possibility that this will pass, combined with the current economic environment does worry me. Prior to opening my wine store, I ran the national business for several wine brands, so I understand that independent wine/liquor stores can co-exist with large, corporate grocery chains that also sell wine. However, given the current economic environment, this is probably not the best time to test the entrepreneurial spirit of the existing independent retail base to adjust to a drastically changed regulatory landscape. What I find interesting about this proposal is that the benefit (or possible lack of benefit) to the consumer barely enters into the discussion. The proposal was issued as a way to raise state funding, and as such, I think the financials need to be given real, detailed scrutiny.

I’ve seen top-line numbers from both sides, but the devil is in the details – and the only detail I have seen is the written testimony submitted by Whole Foods on 11/30/07 in preparation for last year’s budget (found herein pdf). I hope that unlike the scenario in that document, the State’s calculations take the negative consequences of existing store closures into account. I hope that “700 full-time-equivalent jobs” are enough to off-set the jobs lost due to those closings. And I hope that if passed, the actual franchise fee per location isn’t actually 10% – 0.2% of location sales for small stores ($500K or less per year) and only 0.05% – 0.06% of sales for the largest stores.

My suspicion, although I welcome hard numbers that firmly indicate otherwise, is that this plan will transfer wine sales from small, local retailers to large, corporate chain grocery stores at the time when these retailers have the least chance of success to successfully adjust their business models.

What you might do differently if passed : I already focus on smaller, boutique brands and offer a very high level of service. Ideally, the legislation would allow me to sell high-end beer and a small selection of gourmet goods – without turning myself into a full-on grocery If a grocery store gets to tag wine onto their existing business model, I should think I should have the opportunity to tag beer and cheese onto mine.

And if grocery stores are now allowed to sell wine in multiple locations under the same corporate license, shouldn’t wine stores be given the same ability to gain scale and compete? I’d love to see Frankly Wines logos in locations across the city….I bet I can pick up some old Starbucks leases on the cheap…if only I could find the funding.

February 21 & 23: natural wine Nirvana. Hirsute and Birkenstock-clad natural wine wine producers, vignerons, and “nature’s assistants” will descend on NYC next weekend. The first, smaller (and cheaper) event will be at Astor Center, which will feature seven natural wine producers. (Feb 21, 3:00 PM – 6:00 PM; $15)

The main event is the Return to Terroir tasting of 76 biodynamic wine makers from thirteen countries. They will be pouring what are some of the most exciting wines made today. It’s principally a trade event but it does open to the public from 4:00 – 6:00 PM on Feb 23 for $100 admission. If you’re curious about the slow-motion collapse of the French appellation system that I discuss in my book, Wine Politics, the iconoclast Nicolas Joly of Coulée de Serrant will be giving a talk mostly about biodynamics and perhaps a bit of appellation politics at 4 PM. I will also be signing copies of my books there from 4:00 – 5:00 PM and earlier in the day (if you’re in the trade). Stop by and say hi! Registration (For DC readers, the event will be held there the following day.)

March 7: At $1,400, my initial reaction to the La Paulée Burgundy bacchanlia is, “Holy crud! People still have that kind of scratch to blow on one evening?!” But fortunately the festivities also include a tasting of top Burgundies Saturday afternoon from 12 – 3. Even though it is still pricey at $300, Daniel Johnnes, the force behind the event, has lured Jean-Francois Coche to these shores for the first time ever, which means the big three of Meursault will be pouring that afternoon–Coche, Lafon, and Roulot–along with many others (see the complete list). Given what just one of those wines would cost, it actually might just be a bargain–and a must for Burgundy buffs. (reservations and details)

March 12: I’ll be signing copies of my practical guide, A Year of Wine, at Pasanella & Son, a wine shop at 115 South Street. Drop by, sample some of the free springtime wines and see if the 1967 Ferrari is still in the store! Map it

For more NYC wine events, be sure to check out localwineevents.com.

That’s why he has proposed to allow food stores to sell wine, a subject we discussed the day the idea was floated. To recap the budgetary logic, he proposed to more than double the excise tax on wine and increase the points of sale beyond the 2,400 wine and liquor stores in the state and allow the 19,000 grocery stores to sell wine. The Governor’s office estimates that it will bring in an additional $150 million over three years, presumably from new store license fees and excise taxes rather than an increase in overall purchases. The deficit for next year alone is forecast to be $15 billion.

Shortly after I moved to New York State from Chicago four years ago, I was looking for a supermarket wine for a story and wondered where you found “supermarket wine” in New York. The answer is epitomized in this store I saw the other day, which we can call “Wines & Liqu” since that’s the only part of the neon sign that was illuminated. It’s these stores, uninspiring package stores, that don’t much invest in human capital and stock high-volume brands that will be most threatened by the impending change.

But alongside the Wines & Liqu stores are thriving boutiques that is probably the best concentration of wine stores in the universe. Check them out on my map of NYC wine stores if you want to explore some of the rich tapestry that blankets NYC. In the best of times, these stores would have little to fear from Costco, Whole Foods, Trader Joe’s, Food Emporium, and Fresh Direct (oh wait, they already do) selling wine. But this is not the best of times; it is the worst of times economically so an erosion of even a small percentage of these stores’ business could bring them to the edge of a precipice.

So the challenge for these stores is to make this into an opportunity. One option is to take a page from the Chicago store playbook and add cheese, cured meats, and craft beers, sort of a gourmet deli with a strong wine focus. Another option is to continue to invest in staff training, since big box retailers all too often let the flaps of paper do the talking. In my view, the staff represents one of the great assets of small stores; forming a good relationship with someone on the staff can be worth it’s weight in, well, Cabernet. A final strategy that requires more capital (you remember back when banks made loans, don’t you?), would be taking a winning wine store and expand it to other parts of the city or state.

Many stores offer a discount to purchases of 12 bottles or more, in part because they get volume discounts when they buy from wholesalers. But food stores selling wine could siphon off the one or two bottle customer. Far be it for me to want to clog up my wallet any more, but perhaps a loyalty card scheme might come in handy and apply a discount retroactively after twelve bottles purchased. Or take a page from the air miles rewards program and offer customers tiered service through loyalty discounts or other perks based on total expenditure in the year. Price competition is likely to be more acute in the next chapter of NY wine retail, particularly if interstate wine shipping becomes a more widespread reality (but even this holds within it the opportunity to legally expand the market for boutique wines to states that don’t have such a varied selection).

Could interesting wines end up on supermarket shelves? Absolutely; I’ve certainly gotten interesting wines in supermarkets in Chicago and California. But supermarkets often operate with a regional buyer who sets up an approved list. And the list at even the best may not be extensive and small wineries, often the source of tasty bargains and interesting splurges, may not on the list since they don’t have sufficient volumes to supply a regional or national chain. As to drinking locally made wine, it’s probably a fair guess that since most wineries in New York don’t produce a lot of volume, they wouldn’t be winners under the reform either.

It will be fascinating to see what New York wine retail looks like in five years, assuming the proposed legislation passes. But to survey what the situation looks like now and hopefully generate some ideas, I’ve talked to several wine shop owners about their stores and their thoughts going forward. Check back for the first in our 2,400 part series, Better Know a Wine Shop.

The diminutive shop at 66 West Broadway has a selection that skews toward wines from the Southern Hemisphere and wines under $20. But perhaps the most distinctive feature of the shop is what might well be the world’s largest cork board made entirely from corks pulled from wine bottles.

Christy says that the covered portion of the wall, approximately six feet by eight feet, has about 15,000 corks affixed with wood glue. It took a total of 30 hours of labor to adhere them all. The original inspiration was to tastefully cover a fusebox but it grew to cover the whole wall.

The amount of corks that she actually pulled herself is a relatively small, she told me gesticulating at a small corner of the space. Instead the bulk of the corks came from purchases on eBay where she said there is a thriving market for corks.

Christy says that kids love the tactile nature of the wall and some have written their initials on the corks. Take that Facebook: people can write on Christy’s real wall.

Related: “I just saved you $40 at Pottery Barn”
13,500 bottles of wine are the wall
Map of the best wine shops in New York City