The smell inside of Una Pizza N, the spot for a pie I had long neglected on 12th Street swept over me as soon as pushed past the velvet curtain that was supposed to protect pizzaeaters from the chill outside. Salivations started immediately.

I first considered the wine list, as sweetly short as their pizza options. The wine list had four reds from the south of Italy and a $36 bottle of aglianico and I can’t remember the producer’s name. I asked for a taste. It was rustic, no oak, some roses underneath the tar. What a relief! We ordered the bottle.

The waiter popped the cork and some bottles are like that. The air around my nostrils flagged the truth. Oy, I thought. Here we go. The wine was poured. All i had to do was smell it, I didn't want to put it in my mouth.

I said, “I am so sorry, this is corked.”

He was a short, nice looking man with gentle wavy and had just given a leggy, 6' 5" woman an awkward yet enthusiastic hug. He looked at me with hostility. Then said, "I just opened it. What you smell is cork, not corked."

Oh, he's pulling THAT one on me, I thought. Alice, don't laugh. Don't pull rank. Be sweet. Do not repeat the scene at 'inoteca.

He instructed me to taste it, as if the moldy basement aroma wasn’t good enough.

“Yes, it’s a perfectly lovely wine but this bottle is corked," I insisted.

He picked up my glass and smelled it. “This is not corked. I know my wines very well."

"That may be,” I said, holding my ground firmly, “but I can’t drink it because it’s tappo. Could you please bring another bottle?”

He left burning the air behind him.

**
Several years ago I was in Rome and ordered a bottle of Barolo. It was a seven year old, and it was wildly, stinkilly corked. I tried to send it back. He refused, in a very similar attitude. He told me, "This is an old wine, it needs some air!"

As if that had anything to do with it. I was with Melissa and Ari Weinzweig (Zingermans) and I pulled out my cell phone and called my friend Elizabeth who lived around the corner. As it happened she was walking Buddy (RIP), her cute Jack Russell, and was right outside. She walked in like the princess she is, they greeted her. She called the waiter over, speaking rapidly in Italian. She bent her nose over the pitcher, she made a face, and waved her finger at the waiter, “Tappo,” she said.

Bottle whisked away. Bottled renewed.

**

And so this waiter at Una Pizza returned with a new bottle. He angrily plunked an espresso glass on the table, repoured the wine. I crossed my fingers, “You’ll see it tastes the same,” he said in his gentle Italian accent.

“It’s great,” I said after a very brief sniff. “Fantastic,” I said, knowing I was a bit hyperbolic but I was so relieved!

He tried it, “This is exactly the same wine.”

“Yes, I said, it’s exactly the same, but this one isn’t corked.”

This guy and the guy from Inoteca would probably happily team up to knock me off.

As far as the pizza? It was good, but it wasn’t Naples. It’s not even as good as Franny’s (which is one of the best reasons I know of to move to Brooklyn.)

The crust is too spongy, not enough (no?) salt. I missed the gooey, wild taste of really great fresh buffalo mozzarella. It was good. It was very good. The pie did have a purity. And if they offered a vegetable, (oh, throw some eggplant, some greens, some mushrooms into that great oven!). even with the surly waiter who doesn’t understand a corked wine, I would go back.

Una Pizza Napoletana
349 East 12th Street (between 1st & 2nd Ave.), (212) 477-9950

Hours: