Hemming, hawing over evening plans.

Torn over whether to attend this happy hour, that happy hour, or the happy “ugh I wishhh! can’t tonight!” I’m all outta faith, this is how I feel…

Hesitant in the Partiful.

Non-committal in the groupchats.

Biding my time with a “we still on for later?” and playing waiting games on commutes.

Nights these days feel booked**

**spoken for until something easier, closer, or more guaranteed presents itself in my notifications.

I’ve gotten so good at keeping my options open that we’ve forgotten what it feels like to be somewhere - and nowhere else. I want to propose a simple, delicious, 13,000 year-old solution.

A bottle of wine.

Walk into a bar and ask any tipsy anthropologist - wine has been part of the social infrastructure for bonding since the ancient Greeks established the “symposium” (a gathering centered around food, wine, philosophy, music and piping hot tea).

But not just wine! A bottle!

Our by-the-glass problem.

After a New York Summer (getting angry and sweaty and then going to Europe), I’m très convinced that it’s an American thing to be bottle-averse.

A glass of wine is our $15ish exit strategy. We are a by-the-glass culture: open-to-better, efficient, hedging, optimized for individual preference and a clean exit.

The Greeks, French, Spanish, Italians, Portuguese, Georgians, etc understand that a bottle doesn’t require an occasion because it is the occasion! A bottle of wine is a Tuesday happy hour thing, a first date thing, a we-just-met-at-this-dog’s-birthday-thing-and-now-we’re-all-at-the-bar thing!

A bottle on the table is an ancient and universal signal: we are here, together, and nowhere else. We are not here to check a social hang off the to-do list, we’re here to build relationships at the bar seats! Chit chat ideas around the crowded bistro table! Make community around the fake candles on an outdoor picnic bench!

The by-the-glass list is what the restaurant needs to move. The bottle list is where the good stuff lives. More range, more interesting producers, more options at every price point - and crucially: opened just for your special little self. You chose it, which means you actually had to think about what you wanted for once, which means you might order something with a little personality instead of defaulting to whatever opened Pinot Greeej has been slowly oxidizing in the fridge since Tuesday.

Socially speaking…

Ordering a bottle for the table is like sharing a few ballsy signature entrées (anyone down to order the rabbit?) instead of ordering the known small plates and bread. You split the price and still get to taste the best expression of that restaurant.

Ordering a glass of wine is like throwing down an hourglass right there on the table. Sip, sip, slipping away. Everyone watching the glass empty until “I should probably head out.” Let’s have conversations and glasses without end. Let’s drink from the communal promise of shared time and refill little by little, then stash the bottle into the ice bucket until the next pour.

Financially $peaking…

Not sold? You cheeky American and your financial management, god love ya! Here’s an economic breakdown: the by-the-glass price is roughly what the restaurant paid wholesale, per pour. A standard bottle is five glasses. But the bottle, total, is marked up two to three times wholesale in most places, and in New York? You’re lookin’ at four.

When a bottle makes sense for 2 people.

When you want to get down to “it” and “it” may be...

• “Sooo you’re being weird! “You and the friend who had the baby, has been M.I.A. for seven months, and showed up tonight in booty shorts.

• “Can I say something so fucking true right now?” - You and the sweet friend who just got dumped by the guy who just regurgitates information from an alarming man-podcast and you have to be supportive about it for at least one glass before you say that you always hated him and he does look like Nicolas Cage on Ozempic and it’s weird that he’s in so many run clubs and bird watching groups.

• “Tell me what happened and don’t leave anything out.” - You and the chaotic friend who is living with an open couple who commented on your IG story in March”we need to catch up, I have SO much to tell you” And she included a kiss emoji??

• “Are you hot or just fun?” You and the person you’ve been texting every day for months are sitting across from the real other person. Is this a friendship? You and a new friend who is very funny on Substack but who can be sure.

• “Is this going somewhere?” You and a third date and you need to decide if you’re going to invite them to your friend’s wedding or not.

• “Lets not be in our apartment.” - You and your partner on a Tuesday because you’ve been in the same 800 square feet for four days and need to visually rest your eyes on something else.

• “Are we gonna talk about something other than the weather and my car? “You and your dad are out for a rare drink.

When a bottle makes sense for 3 people.

Apply the triangulation geometry.

• “Shouldn’t we be friends?” You, your friend from college, and her coworker who was only supposed to “stop by for a lil sip” and now you’re sharing childhood fears, municipal politics, and booking tickets and ordering bald caps for a Pitbull concert.

• “I’m not evolved enough for therapy, you are my support group.” Two down besties.

• This is the closest you get to networking. These are the collaborator friends where, by the second glass, we’re opening the Notes app and staring a new business together.

• And who the fuck invited this one? Your best friend brought someone from kickball.

• Let’s unpack - Three friends (coworkers even) unpack a truly baffling text message / email / meeting.

• “The food is supposed to be good here!” and a bottle could enhance the experience.

When a bottle makes sense for 4 people.

Odds are, yes.

• “Can someone catch me up?” - Two people arrived early, two arrived late.

• Somebody ordered fries.

• The cocktails are predictable and the martini is $26.

• It is summer.

• It is winter.

• It is unseasonably warm / cold.

SO PICK ONE!

Ordering a bottle asks this one crazy thing of you!

Which, if you’ve spent any amount of time on Hinge, Zillow, Letterboxd, Substack, Resy, Spotify, or you are a human person living in 2026, is becoming an increasingly radical act.

Be the decider! Self-appoint. Commit without consensus, workshop or back-up plan!

Picking one thing and sticking to it for an hour with these here folks. And turn into your tiny civilization at this outdoor table or cozy booth.

The Pourer pours. “I wasn’t planning on really drinking” and mysteriously has three glasses. Fries ordered. “And we should really get the chicken piccata, it’s an institution!” “Okay before you tell us the rest of this story, should we get another bottle?”

And sure, maybe this is all just me romanticizing alcohol as a social enhancer. But, respectfully, a latte could never. And if ancient civilizations, your friend’s friend, your date, and three women unpacking a seven-word text have all independently arrived at the same technology for hanging out... who am I to argue with 13,000 years of research?

So at 8am you throw on a linen dress ( no garish patterns, though stripes are permitted for the very young and the very old) and sandals with a small heel (nothing that squeaks or flops, there are standards even at this ungodly hour). You join the rest of the town at the morning market, everyone milling with at least 2 baguettes tucked in their arms, arguing over tomatoes still warm from somebody’s garden, admiring whole fish (“ooooh qu’il est beau!”), weighting local olives glistening in oil, packing cheese in paper. Everything smells faintly of thyme and lavender soap.

By 9am, you take to the shade and have your second espresso, watching the little town animate.

By 10am you’re at the beach, which in Bandol means a crescent of white pebbles and turquoise water so clear it looks digitally enhanced, hearing the specific chaos of French families who’ve brought only yogurts, sun hats, and grandparents to entertain the kids.

By 2pm, the sun threatens. Half the crowd empties for dejeuner (lunch) or une sieste (nap) out of the heat. Lucky for you, you don’t have to go anywhere for refreshment because you brought the rosé.

In Bandol, the supermarkets have dedicated aisles to the local rosé starting at around 2 euros a bottle. The complex, ageable bottles start around 7 euros, but you don’t need that until dinner.

Because in the afternoons in Bandol, everyone is adding ice to the rosé.

La Piscine. The Swimming Pool.

As the ice melts in your rosé next to your beach baguette sandwich or order of salade chevre chaud, it dilutes into a piscine in the chilled glass. At the beach bars, the wine doesn’t even arrive in a bucket, it comes in a plastic bag packed with ice, the bottle nestled inside like a very chic bodega purchase. And with your bag of ice? A bowl of ice and a spoon for piscine constructing.

FRENCH ICE IN FRENCH WINE, MAIS QUOIS? ARE YOU FRENCH NUTS?

Bebe, relax, I think Brigitte Bardot invented it! Legend has it that in 1960s Saint-Tropez, Bardot was handed a rosé in a cognac snifter, added a humongo ice cube into it, and called it a bobbing piscine in her glass.

The obvious argument against ice in wine is that it dilutes the flavor as it melts. And to that I say exaaaactly. It lowers the ABV, and keeps you hydrated because it’s 1pm and you have a long day ahead! You’re not tasting this rosé for notes of strawberry, you’re at the beach cooling off in the South of France and I lied it’s 11:55am!

But don’t go plopping your ice cube into the ultra-pale, almost-translucent Provence rosés. Those are delicate creatures built for a chilled glass and immediate consumption and they go flat and watery the second you interfere. For the piscine you need structure and salinity, something that opens up rather than falls apart as the ice chills everything out.

Bandol is Mourvèdre country, a thick-skinned, sun-loving grape that produces rosés with real backbone, a savory edge, and some minerality against the fruit.

Bandol Rosés to add ice to:

Domaine Tempier Bandol Rosé Mourvèdre-heavy and savory, dark cherry. You’ll find this one around!

Château de Pibarnon Bandol Rosé salmon-orange, silky, and lush with coastal Mediterranean scents of dried herbs, tangerine, melon, strawberry, and pomegranate. A big ol’ mouthful of rosé and completely delicious over ice.

Domaine La Suffrène Bandol Tradition Rosé Mourvèdre blended with Grenache, Cinsaut, and Carignane, watermelon and wild strawberry–scented with enough structure to carry a whole afternoon and then some!

Domaines Ott Château Romassan Bandol Rosé salty richness behind juicy ripe fruit on a glossy, energetic palate.

Clos Sainte-Magdeleine Cassis Cassis is Bandol’s neighbor (worse beaches, more tourists, imho) but its rosés taste more genuinely of the sea than almost anything else in the region. Bright citrus, white flowers, a saline minerality that makes you want to keep on sippin’.

Not joining us in Bandol? Tant pis pour toi but the next best thing!

Pour yourself a large glass of any of the above over a big cube and watch Jacques Deray’s 1969 film La Piscine. Alain Delon, Romy Schneider, a sulky 22 year old Jane Birkin, a villa in Saint-Tropez, a pool, and an unconventional love triangle. Unlike this French heat, it’s a slow simmering thriller. Very French, very sexy, very much the right thing to watch with a piscine in your glass.

And if the water is cold enough (good luck in the Mediterranean) , you won’t need ice.

AND OK FINE! A few rosés not from Bandol.

Château d’Aqueria Tavel Tavel is another one of French rosé appellation dedicate to their rosé. Transparent scarlet in the glass, flouncy strawberry and raspberry!

E. Guigal Tavel Guigal holds its Tavel rosés for a year or two after vintage, and that extra time tastes fab.

Thibaud Boudignon Rosé de Loire This is rising star who made his name with laser-focused whites.

At a stadium in New Jersey that we are calling New York!

The British are coming! Brazil está chegando! Les Francais arrivent! The world is descending on the tri-state area and it brought its flags and its national pride and its very specific opinions and traditions!

And for the tri-state residents, Manhattan assemblyman Tony Simone has introduced a bill that would let us drink outside during the entire thing. If enacted, the HOST Act (Hospitality and Open Space Transformation Act) would allow cities, towns and counties to opt into the act to set up zones where visitors will be able to enjoy a drink outside (and not be crowded in a small bar) from June 1 through July 31. The bill may or may not pass in time, but hey we are drinking outside regardless! Wine in hand, ball on the pitch, your city transformed into a village square in the south of France except it's July and it smells and feels like a steaming hot subway grate!

So, what to drink? So glad you asked!!

The World Cup is not one emotional experience, it’s 17 highly emotional experiences before a goal is ever scored. So let’s please be specific.

The 6am Kickoff

You set four alarms. You are standing in your kitchen at 5:47am wearing a jersey over your pajamas waiting for the coffee to brew and why would anyone wake up this early to watch the sunrise when you could be watching Jordan vs Algeria?

Lassaigne "Les Vignes de Montgueux" Extra Brut Champagne (~$60, Leon & Son) Chalky, bright, ridiculously alive so you’ll wake right up. If you're going to make questionable decisions before sunrise, they should be French.

You find yourself in Kansas City for the World Cup.

Tickets were cheaper. No problemo, let’s bring the European vibes to you.

Clos Cibonne Tradition Rosé (~$40, Astor) Hard working rosé that goes with sun, bbq, friendly strangers, futball.

Sudden National Pride for Your Great-Grandfather’s Country

Okay so no, you’ve never been there. Great-grandpapa left in 1891. But you do own a jersey you bought from Etsy three weeks ago, so let’s fucking go. That’s your team, your people, your blood. You’ve never felt so Czech / Swiss / Haitian / Scottish / Norwegian / Ecuadorian / Japanese.

Wine wise, drink something from whatever country you’re claiming.

The Underdog is Winning

Everybody loves a Rudy.

Pheasant's Tears Rkatsiteli (~$24, Chambers) The World Cup always gives us an unexpected love. Georgia knows a thing or two about that! Baked apple, sweet honey, sweet sweet victory.

Wow, Brazil’s doing some beautiful things on that field.

These boys have undeniable style, rhythm and FLAIR!

Folias De Baco Uivo Renegado (~$24, Flatiron) A chillable blend (half red, half white) from Portugal that’s light on its feet, joyful, energetic!Your Team Is Up 1 - 0 with 40 Minutes Left

40 minutes left and your team is up 1-0

40 minutes in a World Cup match when you’re winning is a different kind of time. The lead is real, and yet disaster feels imminent. You can’t totally enjoy this, but try!

Nikolaihof Grüner Veltliner (~$32, Flatiron) Crisp minerality, and a balance of citrusy acidity with textural richness and characteristic white pepper and herby-ness. You’ll need all the stability you can get!

When you have 5 minutes during the “hydration break” and your thirst also need quenching.

This year, FIFA has implemented mandatory 3 minute “hydration breaks” where the ref will pause the game around the :22 so that players can counteract the effects of climate change with some Gatorade.

AMEZTOI ‘RUBENTIS"‘ TXAKOLI (~$30, Vine Wine) will hydrate you. Cold and salty for electrolytes and only 10.5% alcohol so it’s basically a sports drink! Choose from Lemon lime (white) or wild stawberry blast (rosé)!

The Commentator Will Not Stop Saying One Specific Word

Magnificent. The throw-in was not magnificent. The substitution was not magnificent. But hey, a drinking game!

Julien Braud Muscadet (~$22, Leon & Sons) Salty, refreshing, crowd-pleasing, and dangerously easy to keep drinking. In a word, magnificent.

You are drinking with English fans / are an English fan

Blast the “It’s Coming Home” or some Chumbawumba. Maybe next year, lads.

Folklore Tinto. Castel Pujol (~$22, Astor) Black fruit and spice. Guinessy-dark, brooding, slightly bitter at the finish. Go on and split the G (glass).

89 Minutes. Still 0-0.

Yes, things have happened, but in the official sense, in the scoreboard sense, but also nothing has happened.

Les Dolomies Savagnin (~$50, Chambers) Rich, exotic, slightly strange, deeply compelling, and somehow operating outside the normal laws of “time” (a construct anyway).

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW REF?!

God, it feels good to collectively yell at a screen! Be explosive and a little zesty!

2017 Monterosso, “Volcano” Etna Bianco (~$25, Chambers) Volcanic, Sicilian chaos. Ripe, zesty, smoky, slightly unruly! The perfect wine for righteous outrage.

You Have a New Portuguese Crush

He’s so fast! He’s got that hair! He does this thing where he looks slightly devastated after a near-miss in a way that suggests emotional depth and also cheekbones. You are now a Portugal fan!

Niepoort Redoma Branco (~$38, Astor) So sophisticated, so full bodied, so Portuguese. Peach, apple, melon, ripe lemon. Subtle toffee and spice from the oak in aftertaste. Yum.

The Last-Minute Loss at 90+4

Oh nooo girl you were winning! You were winning for eighty-nine minutes and forty-seven seconds and you already kind of won in your heart and even planned a a celebration thing oh nooooo!

López de Heredia Viña Tondonia Reserva (~$62, Astor Wines)Let’s go out with grace, dignity! Honorable dried orange peel, optimistic cherry, noble wood! This wine is still young and powerful, with undeniable age worthiness. Maybe in 4 years, it’ll be just right.

Penalty Kicks

Your wine-free hand has a death grip on the shoulder of the person next to you.

Radikon Ribolla Gialla (~$54, Leon & Sons) A white wine because you (me) will be spilling it everywhere. Complex enough to demand your full attention so you can focus on tannins and texture, though this strategy has never worked before.

Second Place

You made it to the final! But you lost the final. The world form of heartbreak available to a sports fan. And now the other guys lift the trophy. They are lifting it right now. Ugh! Everything you went through!

Ar.Pe.Pe. Rosso di Valtellina (~$41, Astor) Crushed berries, crushed, rose petals, just so totally crushed. Nebbiolo grape with the finesse of a Pinot Noir. Delicate enough to break your heart twice, with a firm tannic grip and the end that feels like a hand lifting ya back up.

First Place

Oh my god. GET THE WINE! GO OUTSIDE!! MAKE NOISES!! KISS STRANGERS!!

Agrapart 7 Crus Champagne (~$75, Flatiron Wines) Electric, exceptional, joyful, unforgettable!! Or any bottle you've been saving!!

For the last decade, the Aperol Spritz craze was inescapable. The bubbly orange tidal wave that swept through every rooftop bar, every Instagram feed, every restaurant patio from Venice Beach to Venice, Italy. It’s photogenic! So easy to sip! Aperol Spritzes are the bright, universal shorthand for I am having a good time in the sun! I’m very fun and fizzy okay??

From 2010 to 2022, case sales skyrocketed from 9,000 to 390,000. And then, slowly, quietly, like all things that become too ubiquitous, your feed became slightly less orange.

Maybe the cloying sweetness? Maybe dirty martinis just look chicer on a feed? Our palates are saltier, maybe a little more serious. But can we still make it summer?

Yes! Let’s go salty! Let’s go Spanish! Let’s go for a Vermouth and Tonic!

New for vermouth? No you’re not! It’s in your Martini, your Manhattan, your Negroni! Vermouth is a fortified wine, spiked with a neutral spirit and steeped in botanicals, herbs, citrus peel, and spices. It’s been an anchor in Spanish culture for centuries. La hora del vermut (the vermouth hour) is a sacred pre-lunch ritual across Spain, served over ice with an olive.

Vermouth and tonics have that same low ABV (most vermouths hover between a cute 15–18%, meaning over ice with tonic you’re looking at something comparable to a glass of wine) and the same refreshing Euro fizz. But instead of cloying summer sweetness, you get something herbal, a little bitter, a little sophisticated. The tonic cuts through, the ice keeps it cold enough to sweat, and the right garnish - a pickled olive! or anchovy! sometimes an orange wedge so you can still get your Vitamin C fix, Aperol lovers.

Por favor, bestie:

Instead of your Aperol Spritz → Cocchi Vermouth di Torino over ice, topped with good tonic, garnished with a big fat green olive. Bitter, herbal, cold. Loud Aperol’s hot European cousin who sometimes lives with them during the summer.

Instead of your Hugo Spritz → Lustau Vermut Rojo with tonic and a long twisty twist of orange peel. Lustau’s vermouth is made from a base of amontillado and PX wines, so it has the floral, slightly sweet quality that Hugo drinkers are after, but with depth and a dry finish that’s less syrupy sweet.

Instead of your Limoncello Spritz → Yzaguirre Blanco Reserva with tonic, ice, and a salted lemon slice. The white vermouth is lighter and more citrusy. Spanish vermouths taste like fresh herbs and florals like chamomile and orange blossom, but with that signature bitter finish.

Tapathh and Vermut in NYC

The best places in NYC that lean into Spanish vermouth culture with good bottles, proper garnishes, and something salty on the side.

La Vara Feels like a dinner party in someone’s very Cobble Hill apartment; the vermouth list is thoughtful and the gildas are perfect.

Bar Jamón is a Grammercy classic for a reason: standing room, jamón carved to order, and vermouth that tastes better when you’re slightly shoulder-to-shoulder.

Txikito is perfectly Basque, low-lit, and one of the best vermouth programs in the city. Order anchovies and a second round probably.

Ernesto’s is the downtown crowd’s version of a vermouth bar with natural wine energy, but with Spanish aperitivo instincts.

El Quijote is a faaaavve. The lesser known bar in the Chelsea Hotel. It’s old-school in the best way and the vermouth here feels ceremonial. The kitchen staff once told me that they’d been haunted by an old Spanish woman? which makes this the only place I feel truly comfortable drinking vermouth and tonics.

The best places in Spain for Vermouth:

Subscribe now

Costa Brava - bop up and down the coast of fishing towns for long seafood lunches, very St. Tropez vibes in Spain

Can Rafa is exactly the kind of place people return to every summer. It’s on the port, and a little worn. I once stayed there for 6 hours. All you need in grilled fish, cold vermouth, a plate of anchovies.

Compartir is further up the hill on a rustic property with a menu designed for sharing and vermouth drinking.

Menorca - the quieter and more practical cousin of Mallorca

Bar Marcelino (Can Vermut) is famously the best vermouth spot in Menorca. Located right on the port, it’s a tavern that locals make lively and welcoming. Stop in at hora del vermut for classic tapas and local vermouth on tap.

Mercat Des Peix is a fresh fish market has a string of laid-back, all-day pintxo bars where you can cram around beer-barrel tables or find a spot on the sunny terrace to feast on tasty, tiny bites for just a few euros. It’s loud, bustling, and slightly chaotic, which is exactly what makes it great, especially around lunchtime.Order a vermouth or a Menorcan wine from a bar counter.

Deià - a hillside village of stone houses and sea views

Ca’s Patro March is up in the rocks! You climb down, order some kind of fish, vermouth, and bread.

Sa Vinya is quieter and farther out from the main stretch. Terrace tables, a good wine list, and a solid vermouth.

Seville - a warm, tiled city with that’s got it’s own kind of rhythm, and very little reinvention

Casa Morales is a classic bodega that’s large, a bit echoey, with barrels lining the walls. Vermouth is ordered at the bar and poured without any kind of showiness - usually with montaditos or your fave tapas.

Bodeguita Romero is tighter, more crowded, and known for its pringá.

San Sebastián - a coastal city where your day quietly revolves around what and where you’ll eat next

Ganbara is a Michelin guide “sport bar” you squeeze into. They’re known for their simple pintxos (try the mushroom one!).

Txepetxa is a whole restaurant built around anchovies! Prepared more ways than you thought possible. So vermouth is a must.

Barcelona - do I need to describe?? a perfect city of neighborhood bars and late dinners

Quimet & Quimet is standing-room only, with shelves of bottles and a tight menu of montaditos. The Vermouth here is house-made or well sourced.

Bar del Pla is a neighborhood staple where a vermouth and tonic fits easily into the cadence of a longer meal. My sister and I once ordered most of the tapas menu here but all I remember is the jamon and the people watching.

MMmm HOT TAKE but sometimes a Vermouth and Tonic tastes like Twisted Tea.

I’d had vermouth before (I’m VERY worldly), but last summer my sister and I found ourselves in a very vermouthless place, and necessity is the mother of beach cocktail invention.

We were at the beach in the town we grew up in, and saw a group of high schoolers (what do you call a group of high schoolers, by the way? I know it’s a murder of crows, a pride of lions, a conspiracy of lemurs, a pod of whales… a clique of teens? an annoyance?). Nothing humbles you quite like seeing high schoolers wearing the exact clothes you wore, but were much cooler and more sober? Nobody was drinking! Everyone under 22 was hydrated and well-behaved and glowing. Then we spotted a teen hauling a box of Twisted Tea. That’s what the kids are up to I guess?

Not only were we feeling old and cocktail dependent, we’d brought nothing. And beach shop at Stinson is priced like it arrived by helicopter straight from 2005 (read: bad, expensive, grocery wine). So we improvised. We found Martini RossiVermouth, a bag of ice, a bottle of soda and and orange which wasn’t weird it was Spanish. And it tasted just like complex, less sweet Twisted Tea! Herbal, bitter, and refreshing.

We felt so genius and generous, that we gave the remaining ten pounds of ice to the annoyance of teens, who I’m sure thought wow, this girls - no - WOMEN know how to drink on a beach and boy, do we look up to them! And we should absolutely wait to drink until we’re of legal age.

My dad has been blasting Cerrone since 1987. Ma Quale Idea. Born to Be Alive. We’ve gotten noise complaints. Probably built our house with a sound system that I don’t think was legal in our town.

He grew up in Marseille and left in the late 80s after spending his youth in and around discotheques. He carried a permanent bassline to California where he raised my sister and I on Italo disco and French house at a volume that suggested France should be able to hear him. Maybe he wanted France to know he was still dancing. Maybe he wanted to shake up quiet Mill Valley with a cosmic synth.

Every August we flew back. My sister and I arrived speaking slang a decade out of date, knowing only the songs he knew. Fossils of a Marseille that had kept moving without my dad. Our French family found this hilarious.

But the 70s and 80s music always found us. At the village fête - and there is always a village fête! Every night in August, somewhere in the south of France is a DJ on a wooden stage in a town square with long tables crowded with wood-fired pizzas cut into 20 pieces and at least five bottles of rosé sweating like they’re also alive. And they are playing euro disco. It fills the dance floor with every single villager: great-grandmammies in good shoes who have been doing this longer than the DJ has been alive. Babies passed between arms. Teenagers who’d been performing indifference for hours, suddenly, helplessly, moving. Everyone’s uncle has drank enough rosé remembering every single word.

“Ohh yes sir, I can boogie!”

That’s what euro disco does. It’s heart and soul, it’s hot funky bodies and cold groovy wine. Desireless’s “Voyage Voyage,” a song about going somewhere, made for people in the middle of going somewhere that a became the anthem of every Mediterranean summer for the next twenty years. Not ABBA. Hmm. It’s sometimes ABBA. Who I guess are the quintessential euro disco. But I’m talking about the music that survived in France and Italy and Belgium after America declared disco dead in 1979. Europe kept the lights on and the bass up and the rosé cold. That music still plays in my house and in villages in France. Music that does not care how cool you are or how tired you are or whether you’d planned to stay seated or stay at all.

Sweat needs ice. Disco needs wine.

Because disco is a full-body experience. And so is drinking when you’re already flushed, already moving, already a little gone.

Disco Fever is going to funk you up! Like Gloria Estefan said“The rhythm is gonna get you…”and when it does, you don’t want water. You want something bright, something alive, something euphoric.

The Bottles

Cold, fizzy, summery, flirty wines for a pregame that ends on a dance floor.

Cleto Chiarli Lambrusco di Sorbara, ~$18 Start here. Light, red and fizzy and sour-strawberry cold.

Yves Duport “Céline,” Bugey ~$20 This is the color of disco - rhubarb and bright. A biodynamic, co-fermented Gamay and Chardonnay and Mondeuse from the French Alps, somewhere between a chillable red and a dark rosé. Juicy and chuggable and very, very French.

Clos Cibonne “Cuvée Tradition” Tibouren Rosé, Bandol, ~$45
If there’s one Bandol rosé, let it be her. Silky, fuity, salty, stoney.

Les Capriades “Piège à Filles” Pét-Nat, ~$28 Loire pét-nat. Chenin Blanc, soft bubbles, apples, a little salt. The name means “girl trap” and I mean, yes.

P.A.N.K “Tropikaal” Pét-Nat, ~$30
Lush and slightly wild but in a compelling, thirst quenching way this all Furmint Pet Nat is the sparkler with soft ripe pear, some melon and tropical notes on the palate and that perfect burst of acidity to keep you quenched pre-dance floor

Crémant du Jura – Stéphane Tissot, ~$35
Fine bubbles, cool air, a little limestoney edge. It feels expensive but isn’t, which is its own kind of thrill!

Chin Chin Vinho Verde, ~$17 The house white of the disco.

Laherte Frères Ultradition Brut Champagne, ~$55 Grower Champagne from a small house in the Marne. This champagne that Kate Hudson’s character in Raising Helen would drink - someone who came alone because she already knows everyone there.

The Wine Bars With Dance Floors

The rooms where the groove and wine are not up for negotiation! Everywhere you might be this summer.

NEW YORK - Nightmoves 295 Grand St, Williamsburg

James Murphy’s room behind Four Horsemen. Vinyl only, 75 people max, and a technicolored dance floor packed and moving by 11pm. One of the best natural wine lists in New York on the other side of the room. The sound system is perfect, as you’d expect. Arrive early or know someone.

NEW YORK - Mansions 46-63 Metropolitan Ave, Ridgewood

They call themselves a “Wine Bar, Club, and Fog Room.” Wood paneling, lace curtains, red and orange orbs glowing through a dense and persistent fog. They’ve just reupholstered their famously wine-colored carpet on the dance floor (the original was so beloved they sold squares of it on t-shirts). DJs play acid house and trance until 4am next to a Western Beef supermarket in Maspeth. Natural wine, flat $50 a bottle. The NY Groove called it “a bubble where nothing exists and nothing is real.”

SAN FRANCISCO - Bar Part Time 496 14th St, Mission District

Three wine nerds took over an abandoned dive bar and built a vinyl-driven natural wine dance hall complete with checkered floors, massive disco ball, Danley sound system, a fridge full of bottles, and usually my sister and her wine-loving friends. The mirror ball is on at 6:30pm and it’s still daylight and the dance floor is already full and moving!!! Isn’t that great news?? Their tagline is “probably the best wine bar in the world.” DJ nights Thursday through Saturday. Get there early for a table. Get there late for the floor.

PARIS - Bambino 25 rue Saint-Sébastien, 11th arrondissement

Natural wine, a wall of vinyl, an audiophile’s sound system, and small Mediterranean plates. At the end of the week the tables move aside and the floor fills with guests dancing to DJ mixes of funk and disco drawn from the owner’s personal record collection until 2am. Named after the childhood nickname of its founder, given to him as a kid in Cassis.

LONDON -Dan’s 2-4 Tottenham Rd

Casual East London spot in Hackney opened by wine merchant Dan Long of Natty Boy Wines.Dan’s combines the cozy feel of a “local” with a curated bottle shop where can choose from over 600 wines from the Natty Boy catalogue on-site for a flat £15 corkage fee (£5 on Sundays). It’s programmed in what the bar calls a David Mancuso Loft Party style: chilled at the start, building to a Disco Fever, then back down.

MEXICO CITY - NIV C. Atlixco 132, Hipódromo Condesa

Natural wine bar in Condesa. Small European and Mexican producers. Candles in green bottles with wax down the sides and big bronze ice buckets. Go for dinner then cheekily head to the backroom on their Vinos y Vinilos nights.

MARSEILLE - Twerkistan

I’ll say no more.

COPENHAGEN - Bodega Danza

Italian bodega that’s a wine bar by day (known for its Italian hang-out style, even offering espresso for “Italian” prices aka 1 Euro) and a unz unz unz dance floor by night. The resident DJs and guests spin a mix of deep house, deep disco, and "Body Jazz." What is Body Jazz? I can’t know for sure, there’s no direct translation but I think you get it? Here’s a playlist I love from them.

A half bird, burnished and dripping in schmaltz, lands on a plate at Gigi’s for $40 and suddenly it’s not just dinner, it’s a literal roast.

Chi Ossé posted, in all caps, “$40 HALF CHICKEN AT A WINE BAR? SERIOUSLY?”, which garnered thousands of like and a real hot take ride in the comments section. Then came the pile-on: The New York Times, Bon Appetit, everyone had a take on the price of “the people’s food.” A Bed-Stuy rotisserie and wine spot, Badaboom, even counter-programmed with a “pay what you feel” night, which, wow. Anyway, for 72 hours, New York found it’s half hill to die on.

I get it. I really do. New York pricing fatigue is real. The anxiety around neighborhoods changing, menus creeping upward, and the quiet fear that one day your corner won’t be yours anymore, and that’s alllll baked into this chicken.

But here’s what nobody is saying: Yes, the half chicken is $40. But you can also get a whole bottle of wine for $40. Or choose any of 300 bottles for under $100.

I went into Gigi’s this week and sat with Chelsea, manager, and Thibault, wine guy, and within about thirty seconds it’s clear: the place is designed to make you curious.

Gigi’s is the new project from the Fulgurances team - Hugo Hivernat, and sommeliers Pierre Buffet and Thibault Dubreuil - the same French collective that ran Fulgurances Laundromat (one of Brooklyn’s best chef residency programs) for over a decade. When Fulgurances Paris closed last year, Hivernat did not let those bottles stay in France, thank god. He shipped about 4,000 of them across the Atlantic. Some from the Paris cellar. Some from Buffet’s personal stash in Anjou, where they’d been sitting for fifteen years. They’re all here now, at 138 Franklin Ave, next door to where Fulgurances used to be.

The result is a wine list with over 1,400 references. Mostly French. Mostly natural and biodynamic. Some bottles at $40. Some at $1300. A world of good wine at your fingertips, except the BTGs, which are on the wall.

As you walk in, to the the right, in perfect French bistro fashion, the by-the-glass list is scrawled across a zinc mirror. It changes constantly, so much that printing it would defeat the purpose. The point is conversation. The point is curiosity.

“You’ll probably never see a name you know up there,” Thibault told me. “If a wine bar has Sancerre on there, [French sound of fatigue, defeat, and boredom]. Game over.” Guests won’t ask about anything else.

That day’s wall had $15-ish glasses that make you pause, ask questions, maybe mispronounce something, maybe fall in love with something you’ve never heard of. And the best part: you don’t have to “wait for the somm to come out.” Everyone on the floor is wise on the wines. Everyone can talk about them, pair them, guide you. It’s democratic in a way that most “serious” wine places aren’t.

It should make you curious. It should make you lean over to the person next to you.

That’s what Gigi’s is all about: meeting your neighbors.

Chelsea told me that at 7pm, when the bar is packed and standing room only, strangers standing shoulder to shoulder will inevitably, bumpily, meet. A $13 glass of rosé becomes a conversation becomes a conversation with a neighbor. Many decide to split a $48 bottle, and the price is so good, why not split a second bottle? Which becomes one of those evenings you didn’t plan but keep thinking about. That is what good wine does when it’s in the right room.

Hivernat said it himself: “We wanted to create a space dedicated to wine that isn’t intimidating - a lively, festive place where you can drink an exceptional bottle while enjoying a simple, delicious, perfectly prepared roast chicken.” And if you don’t want the chicken, don’t get it!

Here’s what to drink if you do get the chicken.

I asked Thibault what he’s most excited about right now. “[French sound of blowing air out of lips in a “how can you ask me such a complicated question” way]” as he flipped through the intentional wine list.

A Max Kilburg Riesling from the Mosel. young producer, electric wine, the kind of thing that snaps against the richness of chicken like a perfect chord.

And a Côtes du Rhône from Franck Balthazar, sitting around $85, that feels like a masterclass in why Rhône reds rock - depth, spice, structure, and that quiet, savory mmmm that makes you want another sip before you’ve finished the first. His Côtes du Rhône is his value play: 60% Syrah, 40% Grenache, I’m 100% in.

So yea, chicken.

My sticker shock was on the generosity of the wine list and the ethos of “stay, ask, engage.” In a city that increasingly feels like it’s optimizing for speed, for turnover, for efficiency, I’m happy to stand shoulder to shoulder and split a bottle of wine with a stranger, whatever the cost.

Gigi's is at 138 Franklin St, Greenpoint. Open Wednesday through Sunday, 5–11pm.

Bar walk-ins welcome and frankly recommended.

The thing about wine glasses is that when you’re missing one in a set, it’s so obvious. Four glasses, a happy family. Three? A broken one. Six glasses, a perfect party. Five? An awkward separation that nobody is bringing up. Two? Romantic. One? Dear god.

I went looking for a replacement. I’ve been doing laps through the vintage shops in Greenpoint and Williamsburg, which are very good right now. There are so many. Glory, opened by my friend Zoe, is one of them. Go even if you don’t need anything!

But I kept getting derailed. Not by the right thing, by a wine glass that includes a literal shell. They’re everywhere! I don’t want ocean-coded. I want oceanic. Less Montauk gift shop, more “this glass was found on the beach and we can’t put a date on it because we think that a sea creature made this out of sand and Atlantic mysteries?” Follow me two thousand leagues under the sea for good wine.

I grew up by the Pacific, where the ocean is a cold, grey, raw thing that seeps into your heart and make your hair smell like kelp. The waves are strong and can lay you flat, but once you’ve mastered them, you feel as one with the power of salt, fog and sea. Not a nautical stripe, nor a club on these beaches. The “beach club” is a salty bar called Smiley’s where surfers wash up next to longshoremen who look like they’ve just floated up from the sea floor. Ohhh I love it.

It’s around this time in New York that I crave that mysterious sea-ness. I don’t want a glass with an etched sailboat that says “the buoys are back in town.” Wait now that I wrote that and I want it. But that’s a future problem for when I have a house on the water and can be that kitschy gal. Right now I want this:

Sea Glasswear: wine glasses that look ancient, salt-worn, fished from the ocean floor.

Wines from the Deep: Wine with hints of briny sea spray.

Sailorly Haunts: Where the people have come in wet from dangerous waters with a shanty or two.

Set of 2 Mouth Blown Glasses with Dots ($215) on Oblist

Vintage Set of 8 Coral Frost Stem Wine Glasses ($100) on Ebay

Set of 4 Justine Menard Glasses ($510) on Claude Home

1 Alchemica Wine Glass ($225) on Artemest

Set of 4 Frosted Seashell Glasses $80 on Chairish

Set of 2 Mouth Blown Glasses with Chains ($215) on Oblist

Set of 2 Gohar World Glasses ($135) on Net-A-Porter

Girolamo Russo, “Nerina” Etna Bianco, 2023 ~$42 MCF Rare Wine in the West Villate Giuseppe Russo grew up on the slopes of an active volcano, watching his father farm it while he studied piano and literature. In 2004 he to study wine, learning from his neighbors Frank Cornelissen and Salvo Foti. The Nerina is 70% Carricante from vines at 700 meters. Lemon, smoke, crushed rocks slammed by the sea, salty breeze. Juicy finish. A splash of the Mediterranean to the face.

Ciro Picariello, Fiano di Avellino, 2024 ~$31 Leon & Son, 995 Fulton St, Clinton Hill The Fiano grape nearly went extinct and Ciro saved it! His vineyards sit at 500 to 650 meters in Campania on volcanic clay and sulfur-flecked soil and this rare wine tastes like crushed stone and white peach and gunflint. Buy two. Put one under your arm and walk directly into the ocean with it.

Gilbert Chon, "Les Salines" Muscadet, 2023 ~$18 Liner & Elsen, online Les Salines means the salt pans, so that’s that! The Chon family has farmed this estuary since 1670. For eighteen dollars, you get taste the bright, crunchy, and salinity of the sea, which’ll happen when the soil is 150 million year old oyster shells.

Ameztoi Txakolina, 2024 ~$20 Chambers Street Wines, Tribeca Basque fishing village. Cliffs above the Bay of Biscay. Briny, electric, 10.5% alcohol. Served poured from a high height to break the bubbles, which is the best ritual in wine. Let the wine sort of splash out of the glass like you’re getting hit with sea spray.

Envínate, Benje Blanco, Tenerife, 2024 ~$32 Flatiron Wines, online Four friends graduated oenology school and immediately went looking for the most abandoned, sea-blasted vineyards in Spain, and found them on a volcanic island at 1,000 meters. Vines 70 to 100 years old. Smoke, salt, like an alive lava field cooling in the ocean.

Domaine de la Pépière, Clos des Briords, 2022 ~$25 Stranger Wines, 132 Havemeyer St, Williamsburg Muscadet from biodynamic vines older than anyone alive I’m pretty sure, and aged underground near the Atlantic coast. Cold granite and salt, then softness of white flowers and. Like if you were stranded on a desert island but found it hey it’s just Hawaii.

La Sibilla, Falanghina dei Campi Flegrei, 2022 ~$22 Leon & Son, 995 Fulton St, Clinton Hill The Campi Flegrei is a volcanic coastline northwest of Naples that has been slowly sinking into the sea since Roman times. Oh, to be in Roman times! But that is to say, not quickly. One tasting note I found said “skittish and brackish.” and I would love to be described as skittish and brackish.

Theo Dancer, Jurassique Savagnin, 2022 ~$30 Thatcher’s Wine The son of Burgundy legend Vincent Dancer, Theo was 23 when he started growing Jura grapes in Burgundy on chalk clay over limestone. Marine, savory, complex. This is a ponderer. Take to the sea with it, my boy.

Bodegas Barbadillo, Solear Manzanilla, NV ~$16 Flatiron Wines Aged under living yeast in a coastal Andalusian town where the sea air just sort of drifts into the barrels and poof, becomes the wine. Iodine, almond, brine. I’d drink this with the last of the tinned fish on the port side of an ol’ wooden ship.

Where the people have come in wet from dangerous waters with a shanty or two.

Subscribe now

Smithereens - 414 E 9th St, East Village You walk down the stairs and it feels like a lighthouse keeper’s living room in a winter storm. Semi-subterranean, cool blue-grey wall. Chef Nick Tamburo came from Claud and the wine list is handwritten by beverage director Nikita Malhotra, with her own notes and doodles in the margins, changes every single day, almost entirely white wine from coastal regions and Germany. BIG Reisling people. The wall sconce next to your table is also an ice bucket. The bread is dark rye with molasses, served with seaweed butter that tastes like solidified salt water. The bowl of beans arrives thick with sea urchin and squid, in something that smells like dashi and the ocean floor. Someone reviewed it and wrote: if this is what it’s like on the ocean floor, we’ll consider getting a scuba license.

Sunny’s Bar - 253 Conover St, Red Hook A longshoremen’s bar since 1890, still run by Sunny’s widow Tone from the apartment above where Sunny was born. The sailors and stevedores who worked the Red Hook docks brought things back from sea (photographs, models, stories) and left them on the walls. Red Hook is a real peninsula with actual bay winds and an honest to god waterfront that reminds you this city was built on ships and the people who unloaded them. It has its own biorhythm. Someone called Sunny’s “a bar on the edge of the world” and meant it literally. Live music most nights and a a small natural-leaning wine list. No kitchen but hey, there’s chips. Take the ferry and arrive before dark but stay so so so late.

Montero’s Bar & Grill - 73 Atlantic Ave, Brooklyn Heights Opened in 1939 by Joe Montero, a Spanish merchant marine who made friends with Danish sailors on his travels and opened a bar for all of them. The King of Denmark visited once, I’m told. Just sold to new owners in January 2026, who swore to keep it exactly as it is, which means life preservers above the bar, ship’s wheels, portholes in the walls, a sign made of butterfly wings that a sailor brought back from Brazil, fire-red formica bar top, cash only, karaoke on weekends. The last longshoremen’s bar on Atlantic Avenue. Also, the karaoke goes crazyyy. I’ve seen Chris Hemsworth and Matt Damon duet.

Banzarbar – Freemans Alley, Lower East Side

You slip through the alley and upstairs and it feels less like a bar, more like a ship’s cabin lined with contraband. It’s low light, dark wood, black candles, everything quietly glowing like it crossed an ocean to get here, and somehow you get sealegs? It’s tucked above Freemans, which has always leaned colonial tavern, but this is the after-hours version: what the traders kept for themselves. The drink menu reads like a shipping log: arak, rum, preserved citrus, saffron, dates, each drink pulling from a different port but somehow landing smooth. The food follows the same route. No signage, no windows, just a room that runs completely on its own tide.

Good morning, Happy Easter, Happy Passover, Happy Spring!! I need to say something and I need you to just let me say it: orange juice in champagne is a cover up for bad prosecco and an express train (specifically, a bumpy A train) to a 4p hangover. Orange juice is the tangy permission slip you issue yourself so that drinking at 10am outside an airport feels like something a normal person would do. And I'm not saying stop! I’m saying let this little article be your permission slip to enjoy breakfast wine.

Because god knows that breakfast in New York is not casual!! You watched all the TikToks about this pastry, you set an alarm for this pastry, you stood in lines for this pastry! The least you can do is respect it with the right wine.

Radio Bakery Easter Hot Cross Buns + Lini 910 Labrusca ($25)

Radio Bakery’s hot cross buns, much like Jesus, rise only for Easter. They’re served Saturday and Sunday at 7:30am until they’re gone (both Greenpoint and Prospect Heights locations), and they go fast because their notoriously fluffy brioche dough is generally stuffed with soaked apricots, sour cherries and candied citrus. Slicked with orange blossom syrup hot outta the oven. This bun is warm, sweet, and fragrant, so the wine needs to kick up the tang and brightness. Lini 910 Labrusca is a dry Lambrusco from a family in Emilia-Romagna that has been making this wine since 1910 and has never caved to the sweet Lambrusco trend. It’s morning fruit juice without being real juice! Bright red forest berries and juicy minerality, sparkling, dark purple. The cherry in the wine finds the cherry in the bun and you find yourself in cherry heaven. (Can we say heaven on Easter? I’m Jewish)

Pick it the wine Dandelion Wine, open at 12p.

Librae Marmite Cheddar Morning Bun + Domaine Rolet Arbois Chardonnay ($36)

Librae is a Bahraini-founded bakery at 35 Cooper Square, open Mon–Fri from 7:30am, weekends from 8am. The Marmite cheddar morning bun is located in the fever salty breakfast lover. Am I a Marmite fan? No, but I love these buns. They’re funky, savory and twisted in more ways than one. You need a white wine to untwist it. Domaine Rolet Arbois Chardonnay is from the Jura, France’s weird, wonderful, oxidative wine region. This wine is lemon curdy and almost tropical fruity before a nutty, savory finish that meets the Marmite right where it should!

Pick it up at Astor Wines (399 Lafayette St, 4 min walk, opens at 10am).

L’Appartement 4F Croissant + Michel Gonet Blanc de Blancs NV ($59)

L’Appartement 4F’s croissant is still the best in the city. Each one is still hand-rolled by a former French engineer who applied actual spreadsheets to lamination, and you can taste the obsession. Brooklyn Heights (115 Montague, from 8am) or West Village (119 W. 10th St, from 8am). It absoluteluy shatters in your hand! Buttery crumbs everywhere! Finish with bubbles! Michel Gonet Blanc de Blancs is 100% Chardonnay from Grand Cru Mesnil-sur-Oger. Fill your buttery mouth with pin-prick bubbles of green apple and fresh almond.

Pick it up at Montague Wine and Spirits (78 Montague Street, opens at 12p).

Better yet: come back at night. L’Apéro, the wine bar run by the same team in the same Brooklyn Heights space, pours a rotating natural wine list that leans French. The croissant and the champagne are roommates!

Win Son Bakery BaconEggandCheese Scallion Pancake Sandwich + 2021 Nigl Freiheit Grüner Veltliner ($20)

THE BEST (non-tradish) BACON EGG AND CHEESE I SAID IT. Win Son’s BEC&Scallion pancake sandwich is one of those things where you understand within the first bite why everyone won’t stop talking about it even though it also feels impossible to describe? I’ll try. Eggs, herbs, cheese, folded into a scallion pancake that’s crispy and layered and I believe one of the best breakfast sandwich in the city. To pair with it, give it a classic white peppery and herby Austrian Grüner Veltliner. Jason Wilson of Everyday Drinking turned me onto 2021 Nigl Freiheit and it rocks.

Pick it up at The Bottle Shop (353 Graham Street, opens at 12p).

Apollo Bagels Lox Bagel + Pierre Peters “Cuvée de Reserve” Blanc de Blancs ($75)

Of course Apollo still has a line! Bagels that are this naturally leavened, crusty, burnished, craggy and chewy like a sourdough always will! The lox situation is so aggressive - thick scallion cream cheese (I ask for light), capers (I ask for heavy) red onion, dill, good salmon. Give that salt, fat and brine some champagne please. Specifically Pierre Peters “Cuvée de Reserve.” Pierre Peters is a sixth-generation grower Champagne house and this is their flagship - 67 vineyard parcels blended into one bottle of green apple, hazelnut, and chalk that costs $75 and is worth every dollar. You’ll find it on lists like Penny’s and Claud’s for much much more.

Astor Wines (399 Lafayette St, open from 10am)

Yesterday was 78 , today is 44 and I’m at a 0. I’m dragging the sun out by the ankles and forcing it to shine. I’ll using my white thighs as bait. I bet this sun wants to burn something because it’s been a while, so let it burn my goosebumpy winter legs.

Wine-wise, I don’t need something bursting with flowers and fruit because I’m not there yet. Nothing nutty or honey-y because that was the holidays and that’s behind us. I want a big ol’ fresh start, something that’s going to join me in this fight against the end of winter. If I had a rosé right now, my body would go into shock. I want something bold. Citrus. Grass. Something maybe a little warm and oily because as desperate as I am, I do get the sense that it’s still winter. But let’s keep that hush between you and me ok? That’s mommy’s little secret, don’t tell anyone.

Nanclares y Prieto “Dandelion” Albariño 2024, Rías Baixas (~$32)

This is the one. Alberto Nanclares farms old-vine Albariño overlooking the Atlantic in Galicia, and this wine tastes exactly like that sounds: zesty citrus, green apple, fennel, dill, sea-spray that makes you feel like you splashed your face with cold Springy water.

CouCou Blanc 2021, Alsace (~50)

I currently have a half-case of this at home because it is the wine I bring out for guests because it’s citrusy, slightly floral, but little rounder and richer. It’s optimistic somehow?

Domaine Pattes Loup “Butteaux” Chablis 1er Cru 2020, Burgundy (~$150)

Chablis is always the answer to “I want citrus and chalk and nothing sweet” and Pattes Loup is the answer to “and also I want to be alive for $100 or so more!” Oyster shell, lemon rind, a slight waxy texture that gives it just enough body to feel like a coat rather than a breeze.

Quatre Piliers “Ancrage” Touraine Sauvignon Blanc 2024, Loire (~$30)

NOT a New Zealand Sauvignon. Never that!! Loire Sauvignon is less tropical fruit bomb, more grassy and lemon zesty. This one is the budget hero: under $20, bright, clean, a little tense, exactly what your body is asking for when it’s throwing on denim shorts and going outside despite all weather evidence.

Gramenon “La Vie On y Est” Côtes du Rhône Blanc 2024 (~$45)

Where the first three wines are citrus and mineral and edge, this one brings the warmth. Unfiltered, alive, a touch wild, with a slight herbal thread and that good Rhône oiliness that’s full without being heavy. It’s the wine that acknowledges that okay yes, technically it’s still a bit cold! But no problem! Joy is available to us!

1. AGOLDE Parker Short ($158) There are a few different washes of this pair, but I love the cut off long shorts.

2. Annie Bing Heath Short ($180) These are a biz-caj short. Not full-on Bermuda, not full-on high waisted.

3. FRAME Dockside Denim Shorts ($370) So French. Somehow also maritime.

4. Reformation Raye Shorts ($115) Studs. Rebellious. Perfect.

5. Coperni Cotton Short and Long Leg (345 pounds, so $400?) I’m as shocked as you are, but hey, very Winter to Spring.

I would never let you be so bold without protection!

1. Caudalie Sun-Enhancing Sublime Oil SPF50 (~$20) A very French way to protect your face, body, and hair from UVA/UVB and also enhance your tan.

2. Standard Procure Pump Pack SPF 50+ (~50) Put this Australian cult SPF by your door and pump before you leave, people!

3. Soleil Toujours Mineral Daily Defense SPF 30 (~$58) If I had a beach house it would smell of this!

4. Vacation Setting Spray SPF 50 (~$22) Light, refreshing and luxurious misty spray that doubles as a makeup refresher.

5. ISDIN Eryfotona Actinica SPF 50+ (~$46) A Barcelona-born mineral SPF that feels like water actually repairs old sun damage while blocking new damage. Idk how.

Now get outta here!

Hecho en butter. Butter is what makes my hair blonde and my cheeks bouncy. My family treats butter the way some families treat religion. Reverently. Daily. But vehemently without guilt.

Every summer I go to France, to visit my French family and reawaken my Frenchness. The mornings begin the same way every day: a baguette sliced and slabbed with butter thick enough to leave teeth marks, and a bowl of coffee to dunk the whole operation into.

The ritual continues for lunch. Another baguette, another smear, this time layered with thin slices of ham that stick to the butter.

There is nothing fancy about this butter, it’s simply French, which is to say, it is respected with the utmost quality. It comes from the grocery store wrapped in foil like little golden bricks but is never more than 4 euro. Before I leave for New York, I go to buy an irresponsible amount of it, freeze it and pack the contraband in my suitcase next to my still-salty bathing suits, then stuff each butter brick into my apartment freezer where it will be rationed for 11 months.

Outside of France, New York has the best butter. You can find it in specialty grocery stores, but more excitingly, on menus in wine bars.

Here are my butter altars broken into 3 categories:

Wine Bars where Butter is a Performance Art

Wine Bars where Butter is as $ but Worth It

Wine Bars where the Butter is Perfect because it is French.

Wine Bars where Butter as a Performance Art

Quality Bistro (Midtown - yes, but go before a show!)

Have you ever experienced butter theater? It’s called Butter Service.

First of all, this butter arrives on wheels. Not in a little ramekin, not by little stamp sized pat, but piled in an impossibly high mound in a blue and white crock. Pale, house-cultured butter, tangy and whipped. The server scoops a generous mound onto a marble slab and builds what can only be described as a butter condiment bar.

Fleur de sel, shallots, piment d’espelette, crunchy black pepper.

Then the extras arrive: radishes, cornichons, slices of jambon, mushroom duxelles, leek vinaigrette, a Basque relish with almonds and chorizo and honey. OH my god.

Tear the slices of Filone bread from Sullivan Street Bakery. Drag it through the butter mountain. Build your own salty little masterpiece like a kid in a froyo shop.

Café Carmellini (Flatiron)

The butter service here is the most luxurious adventure on Fifth Avenue.

A vase of breadsticks - long, thin, cheese-laced. A steaming pull-apart sourdough loaf. Cultured Vermont butter, well salted, with a side of anchovy paste and a dish of lime green, peppery olive oil. Follow your dreams. Our dreams was to eat the butter, order another round of it, and use the extra breadsticks as accessories.

As for the wine, I like the Domaine Clos des Rocs Pouilly-Loché 2023 (Burgundy). Mineral, clean, cuts through the butter like a hot hot blade.

Wine Bars where Butter is as expensive as a gla$$ but worth it

These places don’t necessarily make butter a spectacle. They simply respect it and charge you for it. Which is all butter ever wanted and all I wanted for butter.

Penny (Lower East)

Tiny seafood counter with incredible razor clams served in ice boxes, but sometimes you need a little more. The sesame brioche (the only bread Penny serves) is so airy that the inside pulls apart like cotton candy. It needs the whipped, high-fat, deeply creamy butter to weigh it down so it doesn’t float away.

Penny’s by-the-glass list is short but sharp, and they usually have something German on it, and it’s usually a Riesling taut with acidity, slate-kissed, that cuts through the fat while remaining perfectly gentle on those scallops and clams.

Claud (Lower East, 10 feet under Penny)

Where upstairs at Penny everything’s light and whipped, down here in Claud, things are a little more structured. A bit tangy and very, very creamy.

The bread rotates, but expect something crusty. The butter is almost always cultured, often from small producers or high-fat American dairies mimicking French styles.

Claud’s list is one of the greatest documents in New York. Over a thousand bottles archived in that tiny East Village cellar, organized by region with fanaticism.

For butter purposes (and for the way fat and acid need each other) I go to the white Burgundy section and don’t stray far. The Domaine Roulot Meursault 2023 ($388) is the obvious answer: golden, textured, waxy (hate that word, but it’s better than oily!), with a mineral edge that makes the butter taste more like itself. If you want to 50% more responsible, the Alice & Olivier de Moor “L’Humeur du Temps” Chablis 2023 ($165) is precise and saline and will make you feel somewhere in the 7th.

The Four Horsemen (Williamsburg)

The bread and butter at The Four Horsemen is not the point. And yet somehow IT IS!? So simple yet so transcendent. Everything you eat here, including the butter, tastes like it was chosen by someone with strong opinions from a thousand terrific option.

The wine list reads similarly. The by-the-glass list rotates constantly but you’ll find 10ish options at any time, drawn from 250-plus natural and biodynamic bottles. Half-glasses are available, which is the move, because you’ll want to try at least 100 wines. Ask whoever’s behind the bar what’s Jurassien and white.

Wine Bars where the butter is perfect because is French.

They understand butter the way my grandmother does, not as a condiment, but as a main.

Frenchette (Tribeca)

The baguette is $11 but you must order it. Actually go ahead and order it again because the sauces that follow (béarnaise, lemon butter, bone marrow) will demand it anyway. The by-the-glass list is all natural, and all rotating. Right now they’re pouring the Georges Descombes Beaujolais Blanc ($25) that’s happy and textured. And if you’re going for their renowned brunch, butter is highly featured on their massive Levain pancakes.

La Mercerie (Soho)

Inside the Roman and Williams Guild, which is a furniture store but you kind of forget that, La Mercerie takes its butter sources seriously. The butter is Bordier made by Jean-Yves Bordier in Saint-Malo. His salted cultured butter is so chic and arrives with the baguette as its own menu item: Pain et Beurre, $8.

But don’t worry, it reappears. The menu devotes an entire section to Bordier as a course in its own right which tells you everything about what Chef Marie-Aude Rose values. Bordier is back with oysters, on toasts, and in a vanilla iteration served with anchovy toasts. Sounds criminal, but it’s a good crime!!!

Raoul’s (Soho)

Old-school Soho bistro butter. And the entire kitchen operates on “add more butter!!” since 1975!The steak au poivre comes blanketed in butter-heavy sauce. The dover sole swims in lemon brown butter.

The bread and butter here are not fancy, just a sourdough baguette, country wheat, room temperature butter, sea salt, BUT! radishes.

L’Apero by L’Appartement 4F (Brooklyn Heights)

French bakery by day, wine bar by night. The same sourdough people line up for on Montague Street in the morning arrives at your candlelit table in the evening alongside salted French butter served in a repurposed seashell. A seashell!!! Biodynamic rotating French wine list. The whole operation feels like someone threw a dinner party in Paris and just never really ended?

In the wake of Love Story, the CBK uniform is getting dissected again: the camel coat, the black turtleneck and Levi’s, the understated Prada bag. What about her wine??

A Calvin Klein slip dress in a bottle. I believe the minimalist yet specific fashion logic can be applied to the wine she would have been ordering in the Tribeca brasseries and nights of early Nobu.

In 1990s Manhattan, that meant Chablis, Sancerre, Puligny-Montrachet.

In 2026 Manhattan, that means Muscadet, Jura whites, mineral Burgundy.

Do trends ever really change? No.

But that’s good news for us! We don’t need to time travel to drink like CBK. The 90s’ NYC trends of classic bistro’s and natural, high-acid whites from quiet European producers have circled all the way back. The CBK-coded spots aren’t natural-wine dens or experimental tasting rooms, they’re the places New York is rediscovering again: classic French bistros, old-school dining rooms, and places where a very good Burgundy simply appears at the table.

3 90s (and Now) Restaurants to dine like CBK

The Odeon

Tribeca’s definitive brasserie where you’ll always find writers, editors, and downtown couples lingering over dinner.

CBK’s order: Steak frites, frisée salad, and a Chablis ( in the 90s this probably meant a classic producer like Raveneau or Dauvissat)

Raoul’s

The Soho French bistro where artists and fashion people sat shoulder to trendy shoulder.

CBK’s order: Steak au poivre and Puligny-Montrachet.

Indochine

A downtown fashion girlie institution where Calvin Klein models, designers, and editors filled the room.

CBK’s order: Vietnamese beef salad, Spring rolls and Sancerre

3 Spots that feel Carolyn-Coded

Monkey Bar

Ok this spot is not new but it’s one of those New York dining rooms that keeps coming back into fashion. Since opening in 1930s and it’s been a haunt for legends like Frank Sinatra, Marilyn Monroe, and Salvador Dalí, but I remember it best from a Sex and the City episode. Now, been recently revived and suddenly full again with uptowners and anyone willing to migrate for martinis.

My order: the seafood tower, the steak tartar, the smoked whitefish Caesar with a side of Monkey Bread, the spinach dip, the Prime Rib French Dip sandwich (LISTEN, I went with friends) and a Vesper followed by the 2023 Domaine Louis Michel Chablis followed again (chased?) by the lemon merengue pie.

Le Veau d’Or

The revived Upper East Side French classic that suddenly became one of the hardest reservations in New York again. The menu was slightly retro (though the oeuf mayonnaise deserves a comeback in my opinion) but not overly kitsch.

My Order: start with the pâté en croûte and the oeuf mayo, duck magret with a cherry sauce, the martini, served “your way or our way” and a bottle of the Chamery blanc with an île flottante for dessert.

Chez Fifi

The new-school French bistro everyone fashionable seems to be booking right now. I stumbled upon it this winter after an Upper West Side museum afternoon and a failed attempt at walking into Bemelmans.

My order: Basque Deviled Crab dish, the endive salad, Filet Mignon au Poivre with the right amount of fries, Domaine aux Moines, Savennières Roche‑aux‑Moines 1998

I had strict instructions to stay out of the sun, which really threw a wrench in my beach day schedule that I had blocked out in neat, 60-minute increments. Now, no productivity would be had. Just a big, fat vacation.

I don’t usually take fat vacations. You probably wouldn’t want to be my travel partner. I like to be-bop every two or three days to a different country and jam in as many excursions, local calories, viewpoints, hidden ruins, and hotel reservations as possible. I’m used to hopper planes with loose parts that rattle in flight. I get rides from locals using Google Translate so I can see something ancient at sunrise or eat something obscure in a cave an hour away.

This is not that kind of place.

This is a place for a fat vacation.

This is what a fat vacation looks like, I’ve learned:

Your camera roll gains 20–50 photos per week. That’s it. They’re all sunsets. And eventually you realize you already got the sunset.

You become deeply familiar with doing nothing. My full-time job has been beach-gazing and applying SPF 50. It works for days one through three. By day five, I start craving friction. A museum. A little opportunity to haggle.. A historical plaque with bullet holes in it. A local delicacy that could either change my life or give me food poisoning or both.

My new 9-to-5 is RELAX. Which, at first, feels less like an invitation and more like a threat.

But you should see me now! It’s day seven, and you’ve found me scribbling nonsense into the margins of a beach read I don’t really like. I’m living with the island and encountering it’s wildlife (did it have to encounter me so abrasively though?) and seeking common plant and tequila-based treatments. I’m being wildly languid and daringly bad for business because today I’m not parasailing or deep sea diving or even visiting a pharmacy (Kimmy… I hope you’re right, my guy). I’m waiting for the ritual 4pm margarita rimmed with an irresponsible mixture of salt and sugar. It’s good. It’s cold. I’m cooling my sting with it;s ice cubes (Kimmy said it’s okay). But it absolutely erases the next two hours of your life and you kind of feel like Captain Jack Sparrow drinking himself into a rum stupor on virgin white sand beaches.

But what I want- like what I really want - is wine.

Fat vacation wine must streeeetch the afternoon as long as the beach. I want a wine that opens my eyes to this beautiful place with its freshly sifted soft sand and clear blue waves that I’ve been dreaming about while walking to work in a sleeping bag in the -7 degree wind chill.

I want to begin drinking it at lunch and continue from the hottest part of the day through the last rays of sun.

Fat vacation wine must feel like fruit that fell off a tree on its own. Something that grew in heat and survived it. It must belong to places where people know how to lounge. Instead of warping me into vacation mode like a rum drink might, I want the wine to feel like aloe gel on my jellyfish sting - cooling, naturally tropical, and unfortunately not at all numbing.

The Wine: Assyrtiko from Santorini

It grows on a volcanic island in the middle of the Aegean Sea, where the vines are trained into low, woven baskets to protect them from wind and sun. The grapes ripen slowly, concentrating flavor without gaining heaviness.

It tastes like citrus, sea spray, and stone fruit. Lime peel. Pineapple core. Salt. Not sweet, but tropical in the way ocean air is tropical.

3 Assyrtiko Bottles

All 3 have essential fat vacation qualities: low heaviness, high drinkability, and a subtle illusion that you live near the sea. Might even make your sea legs wobble.

The budget friendly intro: Kir-Yianni Assyrtiko ‘The North’ at $21 - Assyrtiko from a vineyard at 700m altitude on the mainland in Agios Panteleimon in sandy soil. A great first Assyrtiko, it’s citrusy, and quietly tropical, like biting into the underripe pineapple chunk floating on the free rum punch they include on a boat trip. Available at The Corkery near Battery Park.

The vacation-maker: Artemis Karamolegos Assyrtiko ‘Mysterio’. One of my favorites is served by the bottle menu at Smithereens, where Jacob aptly describes the wine:

The Santorini Classic: Domaine Sigalas Assyrtiko at $54. Since Paris Sigalas founded Domaine Sigalas in 1991, it has become a widely-lauded international benchmark for Assyrtiko from Santorini. The wine, grown on lava rock, is clean, structured, slightly rounder than other Assyrtikos with marine influences and fruity notes honeydew and white peach, and totally sun-soaked like your skin at 8pm. Also found at The Corkery.

4 NYC bars where you can take a fat vacation

These places don’t feel like New York. They feel like you left without a freakn trace.

Sunken Harbor Club
You walk up a narrow staircase above Gage & Tolner and enter a candlelit shipwreck fantasy. Nautical paintings. Bamboo. Rum. Mermaids. Tiki meets fine dining.

Tigre
A tropical hotel bar in Southeast Asia with Caribbean sensibilities. Rattan, palms, low lighting. Somehow a little humid, even in February? The frozen drinks will make you never want to connect to wifi again.

Miss Lily’s 7A

This is a loud, joyful beach bar in the middle of East Village where lunch becomes dinner accidentally. The room shimmies with Reggae music. Was that a tropical breeze? Or was it the rum punch that made me lose all sense of urgency?

Maison Premiere
New Orleans by way of a fever dream on Bedford Ave. Ceiling fans spinning lazily. Absinthe fountains. Oysters on ice. Laissez les bon temps rouler, mes guys.

I bet Kimmy is at Maison Premiere. Also I looked it up, don’t put ice on jelly stings!!

What is sexy? Leather, satin, straps or leopard wear? The 20’s, the 80’s or the future? Italian accents, sure. Figs, of course. Passion fruit, well it’s right there in the name. Passion and compassion and complexity. The word allegedly. An eyebrow arch, the smoke of Leonard Cohen’s voice and the stickiness of booth seats under red light. Moonlight. Mystery. Lingering. Lingerie.

And a wine to complete the scene.

1. Black Satin 'Merry Widow' Bustier + Lambrusco Grasparossa

A black satin Merry Widow with real boning, high sweetheart neckline, and a longline torso that cinches instead of squeezes. The engineering? Architectural. The lift! Ecclesiastical! Black satin makes you look like you were dipped in oil and tossed right into a 1950s Italian cinema. You are in a Milanese apartment with heavy curtains. There’s something a little bit Catholic about it all.

The lingerie: This 1950s vintage piece from Etsy - $55

Grasparossa Lambrusco follows that same faith. Dark fruit, blackberry skin, violets, iron, a little bitterness at the edge. Dry, structured, almost serious until the fizz hits.

The bottle: Fattoria Moretto, Lambrusco Grasparossa Secco, 2023 - $24

Drink chilled and dramatically until your mouth is darkly stained.

2. Leather bondage suit + Aglianico

The black leather and gunmetal hardware are more equipment than lingerie, designed to survive impact. You need a wine similarly capable of damage.

The lingerie: Leather or latex, Anoeses has the suits for you. - $200-300

Aglianico is Southern Italy’s most severe gift. It comes from volcanic soils in Campania and Basilicata and the grape mirrors the earth’s unforgivingness. It has an unrelenting grip and a few rules. Black cherry, bitter cocoa, leather, iron, dried herbs. Structure first. Pleasure second. In that order.

The bottle: Mastroberardino “Radici” Taurasi at Bottlerocket - between $50-60

This wine wants to be opened early and to breathe.
Up to you if you let it.

3. Flirty pink silk chemise + Rosé Extra Brut

Pretty, feathery, romantic, and pink! Bias-cut Italian silk in that specific shade of pink that only exists in expensive things. It weighs nothing. It barely even registers until you move.

The lingerie: Vintage La Perla pink blush slip $80 or a 1930s peach lingerie set for $300 both on Ebay. Wild Lovers London also has some fabulously pink and romantic sets for around $100!

Prémices Rosé Extra Brut understands how to flirt without begging. Made from Pinot Noir just over the line from Champagne in Burgundy, it’s traditional‑method sparkling with two years on lees, which makes it light on its girly feet but not empty. Tiny pink bubbles lift the aromatics of bright raspberry, redcurrant, and a wispy whisper of citrus zest layered over mineral undertones. Dry, bright, indulgent without feeling saccharine.

The bottle: Domaine Dame Jeanne Prémices Rosé Extra Brut at Depanneur Wine - $60

Sip from a coupe between glances in the mirror, preferably while doing absolutely nothing productive. Let the wine make the whole feminine moment feel like a frilly, soft pink dream.

4. The Patent Pump + Santorini Assyrtiko

Just the shoes. Less is catastrophically more. And since the intention couldn’t be more clear or unapologetic, we need a wine that doesn’t get in anyone’s way. The flirting is over. Pretend I snap here! Now I click my stiletto heel!

The shoe: The cherry red Jimmy Choo at $875. The more modern, oxblood pump from Khaite at $980. Vintage

Saint Laurent pumps for $250 on Poshmark (!!!)

Greece’s most electric white will offer that high voltage clarity. It’s lean and tactile. You get a little salty sea spray to grab your attention, citrus peel with razor focus in a kind of “eyes down here” way (snap! click!) A taut mineral tension to light up every nerve in your palate at once.

The bottle: Economou Assyrtiko Santorini - $100

Drink it cold, standing.

Benito is showing up with bass, sweat, grief, sex, politics, joy—and a full refusal to translate himself for anyone. He’s the first Latino and Spanish-speaking solo artist to headline the Halftime Show, yes, but more importantly, he’s waving the Puerto Rican flag with Caribbean heat and regional slang on the biggest stage in America.

Admittedly, my Spanish Duolingo streak isn’t what it once was, but what I love about Bad Bunny is that he made Spanish-language music global without ever sanding down the regional flavor. No translation. No smoothing. No neutral accent for export.

And if you do understand the lyrics? It hits harder. I listened to a Code Switch episode where Loyola Marymount professor Dr. Vanessa Díaz — who literally wrote the course on Bad Bunny and Resistance in Puerto Rico — breaks down his catalog and cultural weight. Bad Bunny shows resistance as power and taste. He refuses English translation. Refuses dilution. Refuses to behave. He lets tenderness sit next to rage, joy next to politics, desire next to grief.

We should… drink some of that.

3 Wines that Pair Well With… Bad Bunny

1. The tropical, hip-rolling juice: Canary Islands Listán Blanco

The bottle vibrates, and even if you have ZERO rhythm, it will loan you some.

Listán Blanco is grown on volcanic slopes in Tenerife where vines look like they’re fighting for their lives against wind, ash, and altitude. The wines come out saline, citrusy, smoky, lemon peel-y and sometimes a bit almondy.

Bottle: Bodegas Vinatigo, Vijariego Blanco, 2024 from La Guancha in the Canary Islands for $30

How to drink: Refrigerate halfway through the second quarter and serve it slightly chilled. Crank the heat in the apartment. Let it sweat. Let you sweat. DO NOT sit down for this one.

2. The proudly, uncontainably, infectiously Latin wine: Argentinian Criolla

Criolla (also known as País or Pipeño in Chile/Argentinian circles) is liquid Bad Bunny in 750ml - deeply rooted yet gorgeously modern, and absolutely uninterested in respectability politics.

It’s BODY with bright red fruit, spice, pink peppercorn, and a sort of juicy, zingy acidity.It’s It doesn’t want your oak. It doesn’t want your points. It wants to be poured in big gulps.

Bottle: Tinali Wine Co. This Is Not Another Lovely Criolla from Uco Valley, Argentina for $17

How to drink: Open early, pour generously

3. The sensual, no-filter, no rules one: Skin-contact Moscatel or Orange wine from Spain

Skin-contact Moscatel from Spain is all orange blossom, tropical fruit, honey, and spice, with a tannic grip to rival the GRIP that “Tití Me Preguntó” has over us all.

Moscatel gets written off as flirty or obvious, which is exactly why it’s here. When it’s fermented on the skins, it gets a sweet-adjacent energy without actually being sweet. It’s expressive, loud when it wants to be, and sometimes playful, TENDER even.

Bottle: 2023 Orange Marrows from Bierza, Spain for $17

How to drink: This one WILL make you stop watching the game and just bump BB for the rest of the night, so wherever that feels right for you .It will also make you hotter.

Also NOBODY ASKED, but I love Puerto Rico.
I went last year and the island felt like a living homage to Bad Bunny. Music everywhere. Beaches. Mofongo. EY!

I did find a few amazing wine bars in Old San Juan, but largely, Puerto Rico drinks rum, beer, frozen things, and whatever your friend’s uncle just handed you in a plastic cup.

El Vino Crudo was the first natural wine bar on the island and our bartender had the best tattoo.

Celeste in Puerta de Tierra is a laid back seafood spot with the most incredible wine list and plated mackerel I’ve ever had.

El Batey Tavern, also in Old San Juan, is one of the most iconic dive bars on the island.

Any random corner bar / beach chair blasting music louder than music can legal go, honestly, is probably the right place.

.

Let me be the detective in a film noir!

And also an Eastern European woman with a dark secret!

The wine should have some light to medium body with acidity that sharpens what the cigarette has dulled and reset my palate between drags.

So, Chinon Rouge.

It’s Cabernet Franc that’s not uncomfortable with long, raspy silences. It’s taken a cold hard look at reality. Didn’t flinch.

Chinon loves urban melancholy, loves an edgy moment of severity. Winter air only makes Chinon Chinonier by stripping down fruitiness and amplifying its already boney structure. It’s French, but there’s no highfalutin illusion to maintain. Herbs, graphite, and a sense that you made real choices to be out here tonight.

Chinon won’t sweet talk you or you really shouldn’t be smoking that! you. It won’t distract you or offer to make you more comfortable while you lean on the brick wall. There’s nothing lush or plush about it. Chinon stands there with you with its coat collar up, ready to light your next.

3 Chinons from Wine Shops

A classic benchmark: Bernard Baudry - Chinon Les Granges from Chambers Street Wines ($25)

How it tastes: Savory, smoky, mineral. A cool-climate Cabernet Franc’s been aged in a fireplace. I mean no, but you could’ve fooled me.

How it’s made: Bernard Baudry and son Matthieu farm small, distinct parcels with a very Loire restraint.

How it’s drunk: You decide to cook something seasonal, which means accepting bitterness and root vegetables. Turnips, radish, sprouts, chard. Chunky. Hunker-down-y. But before you chop anything, you open the Les Granges. Chop chop chop. You pour a glass and bring it outside for a cigarette. Do not wear gloves. A few drags.

Oh god. Winter is long.

You look through the window at your simmering pot and see the wine waiting patiently for you when you come back in.

Chinon for you: Olga Raffault - Chinon Les Picasses 2020 from Astor Wines ($32)

How it tastes: Cabernet Franc that has read the room. Tobacco, iron, dried flowers, dark berries that won’t speak unless specifically spoken to.

How it’s made: One of Chinon’s most historic domaines. Old vines on limestone slopes. Built to age, but fully willing to meet you now.

How it’s drunk: You didn’t plan to open something serious, but here you are. You stand in your kitchen while the wine opens. No music, just the rumble of the city moving through old snow. You put on a coat and step outside and feel the cigarettes in your coat pocket. You weren’t planning on smoking tonight but here you are. The nippy air insists on your attention but you let a few minutes pass and when you come back in, the wine is ready. You pour a glass and sit at the table or counter without your phone. You drink slowly and you don’t refill quickly. Maybe you have some open cheese. The night is quiet but not lonely, you’ll manage another Winter without moving back to the West Coast. Los Angeles could never feel this way.

Chinon to share: Domaine de la Mariniere - Chinon Rouge 2021 from Urban Wines ($25)

How it tastes: Great posture. Not chatty, but is welcome in any conversation. This Chinon Rouge is approachable and not boring. Bright red fruit, soft herbs, some earth, a clean snap of acidity.

How it’s made: Farmed organically by the Desbourdes family in Panzoult. Renaud and his son Boris have shifted the domaine toward organic farming (hand-harvesting, etc.). Clear. Honest.

How it’s drunk: Bring to any gathering. Trust that this bottle won’t embarrass you or fight with the food or demand attention, whatever the scenario. Don’t text ahead asking what they’re cooking / what wine they like. Don’t give it to the host, just go ahead and open that thing. Early. Serve in mismatched glasses in uneven pours to whoever’s around. Crack open a window because the apartment is too warm. As people step onto the fire escape for air and come back mid-conversation, the wine keeps up without interruption.

3 Chinons from Wine Lists

If you see these producers on wine lists, you’re in trusted Chinon territory.

• Bernard Baudry - savory and reliable

• Charles Joguet - more serious / severe yet elegant

• Philippe Alliet - sommelier-approved restraint

1. La Companie and Tigre

Both lists carry Bernard Baudry Clos Guillot for ~ $80, which is frankly polite pricing.

How to drink it: Go early. Sit at the bar to kill time before dinner elsewhere. Clos Guillot opens slowly so drink the first glass alert, the second relaxed, the third while canceling your next plan.

Also: La Compagnie has a methuselah (6L!) of Couly-Dutheil Clos de l’Écho 1997 for $995. If you’re splitting this with friends, congrats you’ve unlocked a very specific adulthood that I aspire to.

2. Le Coucou

Four Baudrys. Four Joguets. Two Domaine de la Haute Olive wines. Solid.

The 2000 Joguet “Les Quatre Ferrures” at $280 feels like a steal from my brief internet research. Haven’t tasted it yet, but I would.

How to drink it: One glass. Early. Before the room gets crowded. C

hinon hates unwanted groups.

3. Leï

This place has everything. Is everything. To me. I’m confused why people go elsewhere, but yes, fiscal responsibility, diversity of spending, fine.
Two Chinons here I’ve never seen off this list and that are precisely what you want while walking from Chinatown to Dimes Square:

• Petit Thouars “L’Amiral” Chinon 2018 – $70

• Clos des Capucins “Éminence Grise” 2020 – $100 (criminally underpriced. Leï?? You’re a real one.)

How to drink them: Arrive at 5:30 with a friend, you’ll get in without a reservation before 6. Drink half the bottle before the food hits, half while plotting where to go next. The wine keeps you grounded while the night gets started.

3 Places to Smoke Outside and bring your own glass

1. Outside the Canal Street restaurant that does not want you lingering.
   You’re outside Parcelle. Standing. There’s a heat lamp that doesn’t reach you and a server who’s already clocked out but still holding a Negroni (wasn’t on the menu??) The city is moving around you fast, and you’re blowing some smoke into it. Enter: benchmark Chinon, Joguet. You’re here to feel confidently unwelcome. Could you find the company of friends at Time Again or Bar Oliver and not look this lonely? My love, of course. But that’s completely not the point.

2. Any sidewalk really but specifically 95th Street & Amsterdam Avenue.

   This is a real corner. Wide sidewalks and old buildings. Snow is shoved into gray piles and you’re watching people with groceries and dogs and phone calls come into view under the sidewalks and between these old buildings, it could be any year, and realize this is so New York in winter, my dude. You exhale when the subway smoke exhales through the grates and you’re like wow, maybe I am New York? You let yourself think about it for the length of time it takes to finish your glass of Les Granges.

3. Outside your friend’s Brooklyn apartment (fire escape is great, stoop is great, rooftop is great) after a dinner that ran long and got sincere.
   A quiet residential block with a Christmas tree still on the curb in late Jan. A cigarette and a glass of Marinere are passed back and forth and it’s been dark for so long that nothing feels particularly urgent. Let the chat go feral.