The big city magazine in town asked me to find them the juiciest wine bar for their upcoming ‘best’ issue. As a result I’m sitting here on my Aeron chair on a chilled Saturday morning contemplating a pathetic situation. We're New York City after all, home of the U.S. Wine Geek. Instead of the best wine bars in the world, I see mediocrity linked with expensive prices.
(Am I the only one who noticed the new norm? The $15 glassl? Rule #1--buy the bottle.)
Somehow the necessity of wine adventure as prerequisite hasn’t seeped into the grey matter of most who open these NYC bar a vins. Its kind of like anyone who has drunk a glass of something as exotic as sauvignon blanc (yet has never stepped into a vineyard), thinks they can write a knowledgeable wine column full of authority.
Back to the wine bar: thank goodness for Cru, Le Pere Pinard and Enoteca I Trulli--those places have a wide range of good wines at various prices. But, but, but....had any other worthy destinations popped up while I was looking the other way? Trying to open my heart to the possibility, I took on this task on with optimism.
Cute Jack on Mott Street, so close to me, was a disappointment. Expensive. Pedestrian.
Epistrophy further down on Mott looked scruffy enough to be similar to the cutting edge Parisian wine bars. Sigh. Nothing there either.
I don't need to mention the others. On the whole, I saw the same story dressed in different color schemes, decor and budgets; wine lists put together by non-helpful wine salespeople or bar owners who choose by high scores by the score meisters and forget that wine should deliver a good story.
Last night, out of professional responsibility I checked into a wine bar on a deserted block in Chelsea some wine folk insisted, “Might even be the best in New York.”
The place is 1980's Elle Decor-- driven by white Lucite. As far as the bouvables? The prices were choking. Why go there for a $20 glass (mostly a 3.5 oz pour) of Seghesio Old Vine Zinfandel or even a $24 Leitz Schlossberg Spatlese when you could go to Cru, get a bigger pour and spend less money for wines that truly excite? The $20 Joly was tempting but pricey and it was the 2003. I would consider it for $12, but at $20? I'm nuts, but not that nuts or desperate.
I believe the cheapest or most expensive glass should be equally compelling, but there is something very wrong when the best wines by-the-glass are the cheapest. The only wine that appealed to me was the ’04 Joguet for $12 (delicious). But who the hell orders the Argentinean Catena Chardonnay for $20? Out of their three sommeliers whose bright idea was that one? I wouldn’t order it for $6. Is this aspirational wine? What’s the point? Where is the audience?
Exercises like this depress me. It’s winter. Where’s the Zoloft? Where are the beta-blockers? Where is the hope? Where is the optimism? Where is my cynicism? Ah, the cynicism is in full bloom.
So sad. The owner of the Lucite place seems so heartfelt, so earnest, so determined not to lose his shirt with this restaurant. And he loves wine. But I wonder does he love wine or is he in love with the idea of loving wine just as someone is in love with love but has fear of intimacy. Can you really love without a capacity for passion? Hmm. Ah, I think I’m on to something here.
There is a happy note, however…I have found some place rather exciting and the wine bar is just a few steps from my apartment.........
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