Category: Best Of

The Most Quoted Man in the Wine Business?

Originally published on December 30, 2008.

Paul Grieco is a co-owner/wine director at Hearth, Insieme, and his very cool wine bar Terrior. Terrior has one of those wine lists that wine people can spend hours reading. This “reading of the wine list” activity can often be extremely annoying to the dining companions (a.k.a the husband) of certain wine people. This is because most wine lists are exactly that – just big lists of wines. Not so at Terrior – Mr. Grieco’s list is fun, or at least not completely boring, for non-wine people to read. There are pictures and stories and cool fonts, and it’s all bound up in a three-hole punch binder with graffiti scribbles on the front. And the last time I was there, it included an entire page on Chateau Musar, which is the way straight to my heart. So wine people can pour over the actual list, while the non-wine-people-husbands are reading the other stuff.

But I digress.

  • Mr. Grieco may be the most quoted person in the wine business today. At least the New York wine business. He was quoted by Eric Asimov in last week’s The New York Times “Dining” section. This is when it occurred to me I had seen his name a lot over the past year. And then there he was again, in this week’s “Dining” section, quoted in an article on Sherry by Florence Fabricant. That sealed the deal. Twice in the same publication in one week and a day. If this rate maintains, we’ll see Paul Grieco quotes 52 times in 2009. Which wouldn’t be a bad thing – his quotes are pretty good…quite “quotable”.

New Year’s Resolution #1? To be quoted just once in the New York Times. Or even mentioned…quotes are not even required. Eric Asimov, Florence Fabricant…can you hear me?

Maybe it would help if I actually sent out a press release.

A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: It took a while, but it happened. I’ve been mentioned and quoted in The New York Times more than I can count. OK, that’s a lie. I know exactly how many times I’ve been in the NYT:

  • The 2010 article about new, cool wine shops
  • Two different pieces about Serge Hochar and Chateau Musar during his 2012 tour
  • And finally, starting in 2014, six different Wines of the Times Tasting Panels

And you know what. It never gets old. It. Never. Gets. Old.

Thanksgiving Wines: Lopez de Heredia Rosado 1997 (for the adverturous)

A NOTE FROM THE FUTURE: Many vintages later, this wine is extraordinarily allocated. Like “here’s your six bottles” allocated. Which is less allocated than some wines, but for those of us that remember when we could buy as much of this wine as we wanted, whenever we wanted it, this hurts. Sure, it’s cool to see a new generation of going gaga for this wine, but still, it hurts, just a little.

Originally published on November 21, 2008.

Imagine Thanksgiving dinner (the food, not your crazy uncle or your tispy cousin-three-times-removed)

The cranberry sauce, the turkey, the yams, the turkey, the stuffing, the turkey. It’s a wine-pairing nightmare. But this is the wine that can handle it all. Delicate enough to handle the turkey (which let’s face it, is pretty bland), a little fruit to deal with the cranberries and exotic enough to stand up to the stuffing, yams, and even pumpkin pie. It’s perfect.

But it’s not exactly your typical rosé – it has some of the tangy-ness you’ll find in a good fino sherry, only a hint of fruit, and lovely exotic spices like cardamom and ginger.

So if you’re intrigued and looking for a little adventure, track down a bottle and include it in your turkey day wine spread. You should be able to find it for less than $30 which may be a lot for a typical rosé, but not this rosé (which is from 1997!)

How to Keep Corks Happy Once Screwcaps Rule the Earth

Originally published on September 16, 2008.

The most commonly asked questions in my wine shop don’t involve wine. They don’t involve the parking rules for the spots outside the store. They don’t even involve directions to the World Trade Center (although that topic comes close.)

Surprisingly, the most commonly asked questions in my shop involve corks.

Look at how clean that counter is!!

Actually, it’s not so surprising, because the back wall of my store is covered almost entirely in corks. Lots and lots of corks. And if you think it looks cool in the picture, it looks even cooler in person.

People are drawn to it, literally – drawn right behind the counter to where they can touch it. (This is a problem, because the staircase to the basement is right there as well, and if they don’t look where they’re going, they’ll be drawn right into a big hole.)

Children are especially fascinated by these corks. A few (including mine) have written their initials on a specific cork and come to visit it from time to time.

Top 9 Cork Wall Questions Heard at Frankly Wines
  1. Q: Are those corks. A: Yes
  2. Q: Have you drunk all those bottles? A: No.
  3. Q: So where did they come from? A: eBay. Yes, you really can buy anything on eBay.
  4. Q: How many are there? A: About 15,000. That’s one bottle a day for 40 years. That’s why I bought them on eBay. Even wine industry people don’t drink that much and I wanted the wall to be done before my lease was up. I thought it would take about 5,000 corks, max. I was a little off.
  5. Q: Are they just sitting there? A: No, they’re glued. With plain old Elmer’s glue
  6. Q: How long did that take? A: About 30 hours. But it would have only taken 20 hours if we hadn’t needed cut and piece together corks covering the fuse box.
  7. Q: Did you do that all yourself? A: No, my father did. Nothing beats free family labor!
  8. Q: Did you come up with that idea? A: No, my architect did. Carlos Rodriquez at Rodriguez Studio. Can’t recommend him enough. We needed a cool way to hide the fuse box and he came up with this masterpiece! Check out some more arty pictures of the corks on his site.
  9. Q: Why didn’t you put your logo into the wall using different colored corks? A: I wanted to preserve just a little bit of my father’s sanity. After all, there are other projects I need him to work on!