Dr Vino’s wine blog

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In 2006, Astor Wine moved from Astor Place. Granted, it didn’t move far–just one long block away. The store’s owner was able to buy space in the handsome De Vinne Press building so they should be there a good, long while.

I visited the store when it first opened (and many times since then), but I recently went where I’d never been before: underground! Through a secret stairway behind the cognac display if you push the wall on the third shelf from the bottom…OK, there’s actually an open staircase with a conveyor belt on the side of it right behind the tasting bar.

The basement storage area is even larger than the store and extends under Lafayette Street! Lesley, my guide, said that the storage space at the previous location was even bigger, extending multiple levels below ground.

A room in the cellar is climate-controlled and they put the good stuff in there. Another walk-in, restaurant-style fridge has the sakés in it.

To power the cooling units as well as the store and portions of the building, Andrew Fisher, the owner, has purchased two Capstone microturbine generators. In short, they are powered by natural gas and produce both electricity and heat, allowing the store to live off the grid. Mayor Mike likes microturbines.

Despite the mayor’s enthusiasm, city bureaucracy has kept the microturbines unhooked for over year since they were installed. The gas meter has not been connected and the gas turned on. “Every time we ask ‘when,’ we get an answer of 2 weeks,” Fisher wrote me via email. Do turbines improve with age? Doubtful.

More photos after the jump. Read more…

Welcome readers of the New York Times who saw my op-ed today. If you’re looking for some bullet points and discussion of my research with Pablo Paster on wine’s carbon footprint, check here. Consider subscribing to the site feed or the monthly email updates on the right sidebar.

If you’re a regular reader and wondering what I’m talking about, surf on over to the NYT where you can check out my op-ed in today’s paper. I suggest drinking local this New Year’s Eve if you are making it a resolution to turn a new, greener leaf in 2008. Local wines have a small carbon footprint because of minimal transportation, which is carbon intensive. And, heck, locavore is the word of the year according to the Oxford English Dictionary, so it’s trendy too!

Be sure to check out my maps of NYC wine shops and NYC wine bars if you’d like info on where to find local wines in the city. If you’re looking to find the Lieb blanc de blancs, click here to find it at stores.

But since it is a big bar night, a few places specialize in local fruits of the vine. The two branches of Vintage New York pour exclusively the wines of New York. Borough Food & Drink, which opened this past summer at 12 E. 22nd St., highlights–you guessed it–food and drink from the Empire State and has about 40 NY wines on its list. Home Restaurant (20 Cornelia St.) is a cozy West Village restaurant focusing on local food and wine and is owned by the couple that owns Shinn Estate Vineyards. The wine list has 30 selections from New York State, including two sparklers.

If you have some favorite places for finding local wines in the City or are a big fan of a certain local winery, feel free to hit the comments. And whatever it is you raise in your glass tomorrow night, may it be a happy new year!

Buckle your seat belts for more wine classes in 2008! And should I tell you to stow you tray table and bring the back of your seat to a full and upright position?

Well, you might not have to get on a plane, but I do. On February 23, I’ll be offering a seminar at UC Berkeley. It’s a non-degree, non-credit (too bad!) program and all are welcome to enroll. Over four hours, we’ll swirl, sniff and discuss the topic of just how natural wine is in a seminar entitled “Red, White and Green wine: can you taste the difference?” We will blind taste several pairs of wines, comparing organic and conventional and see if you can taste the difference (no advance knowledge of wine appreciation is necessary). Saturday, February 23, 1:00 - 5:00 PM. Further details and registration now online. I hope to see you there! I hasten to point out that this same class is 25% less expensive than when I offered a similar course at the University of Chicago last spring–a rare discount in California?!

Registration is also open for my next six week class at NYU, Becoming a Wine Expert. This course has enrollment limited to 25 because of venue size–the wood-paneled Torch Club. Last time the wait list was 75, most of whom were probably trying to get into Richard Brown’s Movies 101 course but clicked the wrong box or something. Feb 27 - April 9 Details and registration.

And look for more one-session classes in 2008!

Thanks to all of you who came out and packed the beautiful room at Astor Center on Friday. It was a great time and fun to see so many participants from my NYU classes of semesters gone by. Many people won prizes! The wines were tasty. But since not all blog readers could fit in the 36 seats, here was our lineup of wintry wines:

1. Col Vetoraz, Prosecco NV. Light, fun, bubbly and $13 (find this wine). A good party wine especially when the party is about things other than the wine.

2. Domaine de la Pepiere, “Granite de Clisson,” Muscadet 2005 (about $20; find this wine). Marc Ollivier is a leading quality producer in this region. This particular bottling is an effort that sees a lot of time on the lees (dead yeast cells that are natural), which gives it more richness than his $9 bottling, which is great for summer since it is more zingy.

3. Saxon Brown Semillion, Casa Santinamaria 2006 ($27; find this wine. A field blend from an old vineyard in Sonoma. It’s a wonderful example of a an aromatically intense wine that is unoaked and people liked the acidity on the palate. Goes great with brown sugar baked ham, I would imagine.

4. Joguet, “Les Petites Roches,” Chinon 2005 (find this wine). Quite tannic so probably needs at least a year in the cellar. Nonetheless, it was good to show an example of tannins in the mouth. Good fruit and good acidity save the wine — one participant remarked how the piave cheese really improved it. Yay, it gets better with food!

5. Rene Rostaing, Cuvee Clasique, Cote-Rote 2004 ($50; find this wine). From this “legend” of the Cote-Rotie, this wine from the syrah grape was subtle and restrained in classic (classique?) old world style. Paired well with the epoisse.

6. Broc Cellars Syrah, Dry Stack Vineyard 2004 ($30; find this wine). I wanted a wine to contrast with the Rostaing and this Broc fit the bill nicely. Quite modern in style, it helped show the difference of new oak on the same grape. In a rough poll, the Rostaing edged this one out by a narrow margin.

7. Dow’s Late Bottled Vintage 2000 port. ($19; find this wine) This wine really was a big surprise–people loved it! They thought it was in the $40 - $60 range so when I told them it was under $20, I had to restrain them from stampeding for the port section. Paired it with a Stilton.

Look for more one evening events in 2008! And I hope to see you there!

We’re less than a week until Friday 12/14! What’s that, you ask? Why, it’s the day of my holiday wine class at the so-new-it’s-not-even-open Astor Center! With only nine seats remaining, it’s time to buy tickets before they’re gone so you can swirl and spit (or not) seven great wines. Oh, and here are some more reasons why you should:

* It’s more fun than sitting at home watching re-runs on TV during the writers’ strike!

* Being able to know which end of the bottle to open the only prior wine knowledge needed!

* Robert Parker will make an appearance and I will thumb wrestle him!

* Get a gilt-edged, collectors’ edition of Dr. Vino’s holiday wine survival guide!

* Isiah Thomas will stop by and reveal his master plan of how the Knicks will become NBA champions this year!

* Find some excellent wines to give as gifts to your friends and co-workers–and buy them with a discount!

* Find out which wine is the perfect match for roaring fires and chestnuts!

* Discover the perfect wine pairing for the weather condition known as “wintry mix”!

* Meet fellow wine enthusiasts!

* Find out which vineyard Brangelina are buying together with Jennifer Aniston!

All right, some of these may be true and some may be totally made up. Stop by and find out the truth for yourself!

Buy tickets in advance here
Friday, Dec 14, 6:30 - 8:00 PM, 23 E. 4th Street (at Lafayette, above Astor Wine & Spirits)

“Choosing one Vino Volo wine flight has a sneaky way of begetting another,” wrote Pete Hellman in the NY Sun in September. He was doing some recon at the new wine bar at inside Terminal 8, on the right side of security. He tried the “Taste of New York” flight for $9 and mentions talking with a Finnish traveler who was taking his wine education seriously and on his third flight already. Good man.

Wine bars around America have been warming up to flights, a series of three or four small pours around a certain theme, say, a region or a grape variety. I like flights. If you’re going to order wine by the glass, which is generally an enormous rip-off, I figure why not use it to experiment. Who doesn’t love having multiple glasses in front of them? Well, it does matter what they contain, of course. And, to a certain extant, once you’ve had the flight once, you can move on to your faves.

One of the oddities about the vibrant NYC wine bar scene is that there are so few flights available. Wines by the glass, yes, with some places offering over 100 selections. Why not make some of those into flights? Comments are open for your theories on why flights have crashed and burned in NYC. And feel free to post the names of places that do have flights. Here, I’ll get the ball rolling: I Trulli, The Monday Room, Vino Volo…

See my map of NYC wine bars.

Have your say in the latest poll!

On this day, December 5, in 1933, they partied like it was 1999.

Prince wasn’t even born, tech stocks hadn’t been invented, and the dreaded Y2K bug hadn’t yet terrorized the land. No, 74 years ago today, wine, beer and spirits flowed freely for the first time in fourteen years as the ratification of the 21st Amendment ended Prohibition. Can you imagine–fourteen years of a (legally) dry country? [shudder]

You can read more about how this complicated period affected the story of American wine in my forthcoming book, Wine Politics: How Governments, Environmentalists, Mobsters and Critics Influence the Wines We Drink.

Until then, let’s raise a glass in honor of having the ability to do so–providing you’re over 21, of course.

By complete coincidence, one friend wrote me yesterday saying that he had just enjoyed a bottle of 1933 Justino Malmsey Madeira (find this wine), saying it was “really, really good…still had enough acidity for another 74 yrs.” Now that’s toasting in style.

After the jump, find a list of bars in NYC that are celebrating Repeal tonight. In the comments, post bars in your city that you know of or any plans you have for tonight. Read more…

If the bling is the thing this holiday season, check out this Methuselah (6 liters, or the equivalent of eight regular bottles) of Dom Perignon champagne on display in a midtown Manhattan wine store. The elegant photo and lighting is thanks to my cameraphone.

Care to guess the price? I imagine the glass case is included. Be the first to guess correctly and you will win…OK, not the bottle. Just our respect and admiration this time–or maybe an hour in Mark’s Petrus cage?

FYI check here for a baseline price on the regular bottle, sans white gold.

UPDATE 12/1: Read more…

Friday 12/14, the wine world will change forever. OK, not really. But come and take my mini wine class then! (buy tickets) Here are some reasons why you should:

* With Colbert and Jon Stewart in re-runs and the stage hands on strike, what else is there to do?

* Being able to tell red from white is the only prior wine knowledge needed!

* Buy enough wine–with a discount–to be able to endure the relatives during the holidays!

* Find out which wine is the perfect match for Christmakwanzakuh!

* Taste seven great wines!

* Marvin Shanken will stop by and shave his beard before a live audience!

* Learn essential wine miscellany that you can use to impress people over eggnog at holiday parties!

* Be the first to check out the cool new space!

* Meet fellow wine lovers!

* The HHilton sisters will be there to lead the session in case I can’t make it!

All right, some of these may be true and some may be totally made up. Stop by and find out the truth for yourself!

Buy tickets in advance here
Friday, Dec 14, 6:30 - 8:00 PM, 23 E. 4th Street (above Astor Wine & Spirits)

The hipsters at NY mag asked for help. Their reporter, Emma Rosenblum, went to eight different wine shops and asked the clerks for their wine pick under $25 for a steak dinner. (Steak? Come on, in this day and age of extracted fruit bombs, that’s no impossible food-wine pairing!) Then she poured the eight wines for three of NYC’s top sommeliers who gave them raspberries–and were not just talking “hints” of raspberry, these were full-on, nasty and slobbery. It’s a fascinating story that raises lots of issues. Among them:

1. Lame clerks. The clerks in the story were lame. That can happen, particularly this time of year as stores add temporary help. If you’re not convinced you’re getting great service, talk to another clerk, possibly the wine buyer for that department since you’re sure that he or she will be there to throttle come January, if necessary.

2. Shelf-talkers. Could the reporter have gotten better wines by keeping mum and letting those flaps of paper do the talking? I have an ongoing discussion with a cranky friend who says that store clerks are more reliable than wine magazines because: (a) magazines have compromised their ethics and (b) wine stores have their skin in the game because they want you to come back. Judging by this line-up though, not many stores in NYC are likely to have repeat business!

3. Sommeliers. It was an interesting idea to have restaurant wine sales people (sommeliers) judging the picks of store wine sales people. Is the sommelier more likely to steer you right be cause he or she is around to fear your immediate wrath or bask in your lavish praise after you drink the wine? (Btw, I hope NY mag does an encore edition, pouring sommelier selections back for wine buyers at stores. And with seasonal food this time!)

4. Friends. NY mag didn’t talk about them. But let’s add them to our poll for laffs.

So have your say in the latest poll!

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