A Wine Story

Wine Bars: Lower East Side

The famous Dr. Vino, an active player in the blogospher, invited his fellow nyc bloggers to meet up at Jadis a few months back. This is a wine bar in the Lower East side, more casual than wine bars midtown and uptown, with lots of interesting choices under $10. The atmosphere is a bit rustic, but the energy pulsates and crowd is hip and somewhat Euro. In addition to wine, you can order cheese, quiche, and other light French fare. (42 Rivington St., York, NY 10002 nr. Forsyth St. 212-254-1675)

I bring up Jadis because of today's NYT story on the Lower East Side, which details its new "hip aura." A dealmaker named Misrahi is interested in resucitating the bargain-shopping culture originalted by immigrants by creating a historic district -- "a old-time theme park with pushcarts."

I spent the day in the Lower East Side yesterday with the New Museum, which will have its new home nearby. The art scene is really heating up, and we visited three terrific galleries, including the Sunday Gallery (stirusfreeus.com) Rental, and Canada (212 925-4631).

Given its reasonable square per foot rental and surge of wine bars and galleries, excited to see what the future holds!

Fun at Varietal Wine Bar

                       So when fellow NYC wine blogger Dr. Vino posted a meet up at Varietal on his blog earlier this week I had plans and couldn't attend. Yet intrigued by the positve review, a friend and I checked it out the next night.

You can read his write-up here - he raved about the choice of flights, and I have to agree.

First we started with the "master of wine" flight ($18) -- if you guess the 3 wines correctly, it's on the house. Then we went on to the Shiraz/Syrah/Cote du Rhone flight, which included one of the best Shiraz wines I ever tasted, the Jim Barry McCrae Wood 2001. The other two wines, Alain Voge "Les Peyrouses” Cotes-du-Rhone 2004 and Montes Alpha 2004 Syrah Colchagua Valley Apalta pretty much played a supporting role, serving to showcase how differently regions and winemakers treat the same grape.

At Varietal I met owner Greggory Hockenberry (who also got a good write up in NY Magazine) and we chatted about popular wines. I also had a peek into the dining room - menu looked good, and lots of wines by the bottle for just a bit more than you'd pay for a flight.

According to Dr. Vino, two fellow NYC bloggers, Terry from Mondosapore and Keith, the East Village Wine Geek, were there as well. Happy there will be a next time! Below is a pic from our flight ...

Varietal

138 W. 25th St., New York, NY 10001
nr. Seventh Ave.
212-633-1800