IF you’re looking for a special bottle of wine for the holidays – be it for a feast or a gift – you can always head to your local wine shop for a familiar label or advice on a new wine.
But you might also discover the vintage of your dreams at a restaurant, which are playing up to patrons’ adventurous streaks with growing lists of quality house wines.
Once you’ve sipped it and liked it, the trick is often tracking it down, since many of the wines come from small producers only distributed to restaurants.
That couldn’t be easier than at Morrell Wine Bar & Café, where the store supplying the restaurant is right next door.
Of the 150 wines they pour by the glass, two of the most popular since they opened nearly three years ago are Invictus Napa Valley cabernet and chardonnay.
These “pleasing, user-friendly” wines can be sipped on their own or enjoyed with food, says general manager Demetrius Fexy, who says people come in “all the time” to test the wines by the glass before picking out a bottle or case one door down.
Tasting a whole glass beats a few sips, he says, because it gives the wine a chance to build. “The longer you have a wine in front of you,” he says, “the better read you can get.”
If you’d like to make Daniel’s house champagne your house champagne, you can find it at Sherry-Lehmann.
Chef Daniel Boulud enlisted his sommelier Jean Luc Le Du to travel to France and select the cuveé that best reflects the personality of the restaurant – well-balanced, not too heavy and able to serve as an aperitif as well as stand up to the flavorful dishes at Zagat’s perennial No. 1 for food.
If you fancy one of the quartinos (one-third bottle flasks) at Mario Batali’s Babbo, Otto, Lupa or Esca, you have a good chance of finding it at the superchef’s Italian Wine Merchants on East 16th Street.
And diners at Taste, Eli Zabar’s restaurant on the Upper East Side, need only walk a few steps to W.I.N.E., the adjoining store, to find any of the 20 wines by the glass or 50 bottles from small producers.
Wine director Jonathan Laufer, who runs back and forth between the store and the restaurant, is “really proud of the list we have because it encompasses so many varietals you wouldn’t normally see in a by-the-glass list.”
He’s especially excited over the Nigi Gruner Veltliner from Austria, an up-and-coming white grape.
“It’s such a wonderful wine, so food-friendly or you can have it as just an aperitif at the bar,” he says.
Buying for both the restaurant and the wine store means he’s able to make deals with wine makers so he can have unusual and special wines to pour by the glass.
“That’s what’s so exciting,” he says. “We introduce our customers to a wine and then they come next door and buy it.”
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MAKE THEIR VINTAGE YOUR VINTAGE
THE VINTAGE:
Champagne Cuvée Daniel Brut (France)
SERVED AT:
Restaurant Daniel, Café Boulud and DB Bistro Moderne
$16 per glass; $69 per bottle
WHAT IT’S LIKE:
Medium body with balanced acidity and buttery overtones
WHERE TO FIND IT:
Sherry-Lehmann, 679 Madison Ave. (between 61st and 62nd streets), (212) 838-7500, http://www.sherry-lehmann.com; $29.95
THE VINTAGE:
Vouvray Sec, Le Mont, Gaston Huet (Loire)
SERVED AT:
Union Square Cafe
$10.25 per glass; $40 per bottle
WHAT IT’S LIKE:
Floral, fruity and mineral notes for a complex aroma and a long finish
WHERE TO FIND IT:
Chambers Street Wines, 160 Chambers St. (between Greenwich Street and West Broadway), (212) 227-1434; $22.99 for 2002 vintage
THE VINTAGE:
Bastianich Vespa Bianco (Fruili, 2000)
SERVED AT:
Babbo: $17 per quartino (1/3 bottle); $49 per bottle
WHAT IT’S LIKE:
Full-bodied blend of chardonnay, sauvignon blanc and picoli
WHERE TO FIND IT:
Italian Wine Merchants, 108 E. 16th St. (between Irving Place and Union Square East), (212) 473-2323; $25.95
THE VINTAGE:
Nigi Cruner Veltliner (Austria, 2002)
SERVED AT:
Taste
$10 per glass; $36 per bottle
WHAT’S IT LIKE:
Exotic fruits and delicate hints of spice.
WHERE TO FIND IT:
W.I.N.E., 1415 Third Ave., at 80th Street, (212) 717-1999; $16.99
THE VINTAGE:
Pommard, Robert Ampeau
SERVED AT:
Le Bernardin (starting Friday): $32 per glass; $125 per bottle
WHAT IT’S LIKE:
Rustic, traditional red Burgundy, very soft with gamey, mushroom flavor
WHERE TO FIND IT:
Columbus Circle Wine & Liquor, 1780 Broadway (between 57th and 58th streets), (212) 247-0764. $80 per bottle
