I’m about to be auctioned off — not for a date (these bidders wouldn’t be interested in me), but for a wine class. The auctioneer is the Lesbian Herstory Archives (LHA), a Park Slope museum and community organization. The theme of the course is Wines by Women. There are more female vintners in the […]
Yearly archives for 2014
Sorel: Zack from Brooklyn meets Jack ...
Jackie Summers was hosting an in-store tasting at the wine shop I help manage in Brooklyn, and I was badgering him with the usual questions: What inspired you to start distilling? What’s your secret recipe? What’s your favorite flavor of ice cream? Etc. I forget his favorite flavor of ice cream, and he was less forthcoming with his […]
A Case of Vitis Vitiligo: Zýmē “...
Azienda Agricola Zýmē sits in the heart of Valpolicella. where Amarone, Italy’s grandest red, is produced. Zýmē, the brainchild of Celestino Gaspari, produces an excellent Amarone and a phenomenal Amarone Riserva, but my wallet’s not deep enough to enjoy them. Luckily, due to a genetic mutation, Zýmē also produces a wine that is not only affordable, […]
A Lucid Afternoon in New Orleans
Our last afternoon in New Orleans found Michael Graves and I drinking absinthe around the corner from Faulkner’s house. It was early November — the sunny, dry sort of day that lends itself to open-air alcohol consumption, a cultural staple of the Big Easy. A professionally trained chef, Mike is the food guy to my booze […]
Bruno Trapan “Terra Mare”...
Monday night, after a day spent glued to the keyboard, I went to Amali, a sustainable Mediterranean restaurant on the Upper East Side, to taste a few wines by Bruno Trapan, the winemaker at Trapan Winery in Istria, Croatia. I went in knowing as much about Croatian wine as I do about neurosurgery, but I […]
Industry Standard: A Vodka to Redeem ...
If wine is the intersection of art and science, vodka is a hairy man with a mean uppercut. At least, that’s what I believed until last Monday. After a couple hours and a couple more drinks at The City Foundry in Sunset Park, David Kyrejko and Zachary Bruner managed to convince me otherwise. Kyrejko and […]
Flying Home
Hours before the sun, Francis picked up Luke and me from Cumberland House and drove us to London-Gatwick. Going through customs was easy, because this time Luke didn’t have a six-pack of Cascazilla in his bag (I offered to chug them all at JFK clearance, but the TSA wasn’t having it; lucky bastards probably drank […]
Biking to Kazakhstan
Over his time in Europe, Luke’s family has tripled in size. Since we arrived, Rosemary has commandeered his social calendar – he sees new relations every day. Keeping track of all the second, third, and fourth cousins he’s met has been difficult for him, and impossible for me. That one was arrested at an environmental […]