Copyright 2008 The New York Sun Wed, 17 Sep 2008 04:20:39 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Peter Hellman :: Stories from The New York Sun http://www.nysun.com/authors/Peter+Hellman istoll@nysun.com (Ira Stoll) webmaster@nysun.com en-us PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/bridging-the-gap-between-summer-and-fall-wines/85975/ Wed, 17 Sep 2008 00:00:00 EST If San Pellegrino water (with a twist of lime) was wine, I would have been in deep rehab during the waning summer days of late August. Summer is the time when I'm more eager to slice open a perfect Long Island tomato, or husk a just-picked ear of Hudson Valley corn, than to reach for a corkscrew. But here's an essential fact about wine: Like wardrobes, this liquid has its own seasons. It would be as out-of-kilter to pour a fleshy, alcoholic Chateauneuf-du-Pape or a wham-bang Australian Syrah in... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/staking-out-brooklyn-turf-for-a-winery/83735/ Wed, 13 Aug 2008 00:00:00 EST The drab ex-factory building on Dobbins Street in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, is an unlikely command post for a bold, one-woman foray into urban winemaking. But that's where, in a small second-floor office with a single ivy-covered window, ex-engineer Alie Shaper is advancing on her goal of creating a full-scale urban winery in her home borough. It's grandly called Brooklyn Oenology, and its first releases of white and red wines can already be found at a range of local shops, including Blanc et Rouge... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/nectar-wine-bar-brings-downtown-vibe-to-harlem/81479/ Wed, 9 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST In the beginning, there was only Harlem Vintage. Nestled into a new-wave apartment building on Frederick Douglass Boulevard, it opened four years ago and was a pioneering wine shop in an area where buying wine or alcohol usually meant pushing your money through a hole in bulletproof glass. But the cash register at Harlem Vintage, far from being protected, sits openly on a low counter, whose transparent top is inset with an intricate pattern of oak leaves. More important, what gets rung up here... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/new-gourmet-hot-dogs-make-their-way-to-the-market/81103/ Wed, 2 Jul 2008 00:00:00 EST From her childhood in Gascony to motherhood in New York, food maven Ariane Daguin long kept her distance from hot dogs and all the unknowable things within them. "I just told people that it's better not to eat them," she said in a telephone interview. No longer. Just in time for the grilling season, D'Artagnan, the Newark-based purveyor of traditional French-style luxury foods owned by Ms. Daguin, has introduced a new line of hot dogs with aspirations to artisanal status. Along with versions... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/products-for-the-perfectpicnic/80174/ Wed, 18 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST As a child, my formative picnic experience took place on a grassy meadow overlooking the Seine in the French countryside, where my vacationing family had just spread out lunch. Suddenly, a grizzled man appeared. "You're on private property," he growled. "Leave here at once." But then, surveying our beckoning feast, his face softened. "Well, first enjoy your lunch — and then leave immediately," he said. Trust a Frenchman to prioritize the importance of a picnic. Of course, prepping for the... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/a-private-19th-century-experience/79214/ Wed, 4 Jun 2008 00:00:00 EST Looking for a new — yet straight out of the 19th century — venue for an intimate private dinner in Midtown? Chef Alain Ducasse, whose appetite for antiques is as avid as his appetite for what's on the plate, has just the spot. Hidden away above Benoit, his homage to the classic Parisian bistro on West 55th Street, is the Officine, a nearly square room entirely corseted in handsomely carved walnut paneling. The room is a reconstruction of a French herbalist's shop, c. 1830. It was transplanted... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/pink-sips/76763/ Wed, 21 May 2008 00:00:00 EST Like linen suits and Panama hats, rosé wines come into season over the Memorial Day weekend. Their straightforward duties have always been to be prettily tinted, well-chilled, and zingy. That said, increasing interest in rosés has begotten what Stephen Bitterolf, wine director of Crush Wine Company (crushwineco.com), calls a "creative rosé class" — sippers that go beyond "delicate simple fruits and easygoing balance." Crush recently held its third annual "War of the Rosés" taste-off, and the... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/food-blogger-takes-on-the-biggest-name-in-wine/76006/ Wed, 7 May 2008 00:00:00 EST In her quirky and endearing new memoir, "The Battle for Wine and Love: Or How I Saved the World from Parkerization" (Harcourt, $23), wine writer Alice Feiring sharpens up the debate over the palate and power of Robert Parker, the world's reigning wine critic. Nobody has done more than Mr. Parker, through his writings and ratings, to raise American wine consciousness. But Ms. Feiring, who writes a Web log at alicefeiring.com, argues (as did the 2005 documentary "Mondovino") that Mr. Parker's... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/hunting-for-spring-morels/75589/ Wed, 30 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Wild mushroom hunters are usually a friendly and generous lot. But not when it comes to disclosing a prize hunting ground. As a member of the band of amateurs called New York Mycological Society, for example, I'd go to the gallows before giving up the location of the place where, each year on the first Saturday in May, we kick off the foraging season by hunting for the rare and delectable morel. At Dean & DeLuca in TriBeCa, fresh morels are currently priced at a stiff $70 a pound. Our secret... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/matzo-balls-meet-their-match/74772/ Wed, 16 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Last week, I made my annual spring pilgrimage to an unlikely Mecca in a remote corner of the city: Skyview Wine & Spirits, hidden away in a dreary shopping strip just south of where the northwest Bronx melds into Yonkers. Offering more than 450 kosher for Passover selections from a dozen countries, this is, perhaps, the country's most complete kosher wine shop. Skyview is also an epicenter of early Passover energy. In the month before the holiday, owner Gary Wartels told me, his shop will send... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/market-timed-wine/74067/ Wed, 2 Apr 2008 00:00:00 EST Feeling squeezed by the falling stock market? Wine prices, which loped along in sync with flush times, may now feel like a stretch. The Bar of the Four Seasons Hotel, for example, charges $32 for a flute of Veuve Clicquot Yellow Label Champagne. But thankfully for anyone whose wallet is suddenly feeling thinner, there are top-tier dining venues in the city where wine pricing is considerate. At Jean-Georges (1 Central Park West, between 60th and 61st streets, 212-299-3900), for example, there's... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/dairy-king-emerges-via-iceland/73691/ Wed, 26 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST "Turn your spoon upside down," Siggi Hilmarsson, the beanpole-thin, ponytailed founder of the grandly named Icelandic Milk and Skyr Corporation, said as we sat in his small, cluttered office on West 26th Street on a recent afternoon. In my spoon was a large dollop of pomegranate and passion fruit skyr, one of the four flavors (plus plain) of Siggi's nonfat, strained yogurt that, in the tradition of his homeland, is exceedingly thick. In Icelandic, Siggi told me, skyr means strained or thickened... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/fine-food-blogger-takes-on-zagat/72779/ Wed, 12 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST With a well-thumbed copy of Zagat or Michelin at hand, does New York really need another restaurant guide? Food blogger Steve Plotnicki thinks he's found a niche to fill with his new, self-published "The 100 Best Restaurants of North America & Europe" ($6.95). Unlike the mainstream guides — geared as they are to those who merely enjoy eating out — Mr. Plotnicki's 56-page pocket-size book is aimed at the small cohort of well-off foodies whose travel plans are driven not by museums, shopping, or... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/where-wine-is-a-one-woman-show/72347/ Wed, 5 Mar 2008 00:00:00 EST A neighborhood wine shop is like an old-fashioned apothecary — or so it struck me while hanging out one recent afternoon at Frankly Wines, a new and tiny shop in TriBeCa. Customers come into both kinds of establishments looking for savvy counsel. The difference, of course, is that at a wine shop, they're seeking prescriptions to bring pleasure and well-being, not relief from pain or illness. One such seeker at this shop was a stylish young woman who said to proprietor Christy Frank, "My... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/black-is-back-but-at-a-high-price/71249/ Wed, 13 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST During a recent lunch at Eleven Madison Park, I sipped, from my Bordeaux-style glass, a liquid that glowed with the deep amber tints of a great old Sauternes. But that glow emanated from a great old single-malt Scotch whisky — 42 years old, to be exact. As I tilted my glass toward the midday sunlight, glints of pure black flashed amidst the amber. That darkness, atypical in a whisky, had been noticed as it aged in a barrel at the Bowmore distillery on the Scottish island of Islay. That's how it... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/ultimate-valentines-day-meal/70778/ Wed, 6 Feb 2008 00:00:00 EST Ready to sacrifice cholesterol and cost constraints on the altar of romance next Thursday? Then reserve a table for two at Astor Center, where Gascon chef and specialty foods purveyor Ariane Daguin will prepare a five-course, foie gras dinner to be accompanied by nine vintages of the iconic Sauternes, Chateau d'Yquem. The tab for this ultimately sensual alliance of food and liquid is $1,295 per couple. "As one who's never been big on Valentine's Day, I tried to think of what would be the most... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/bank-vault-turned-wine-cellar/70430/ Wed, 30 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST It's hard to imagine that upwards of $30 million in treasure could reside deep within the grim, fortress-like American Bank Note Company building that hulks over the east side of the Bruckner Expressway in the Hunts Point section of the South Bronx. No, that treasure isn't a trove of the international currency, which, along with stock and bond certificates and stamps, was once printed here. It's wine: more than 20,000 cases of the rarest and priciest glories of the vinous world, residing in a... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/sea-of-small-wonders/70009/ Wed, 23 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST As a boy, I thought I had a handle on how shrimp should taste. That confidence was based on our family excursions to a local restaurant called the Dardenelles in Falls Church, Va. I felt quite grown up ordering a starter of shrimp cocktail. Little did I realize that those six headless, barely thawed creatures that were presented in a footed metal bowl had less taste than the cracked ice on which they were bedded: What I really loved was the bright red cocktail sauce that came in a paper cup. My... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/at-adour-ducasse-courts-wine-lovers/69596/ Wed, 16 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST Late last week, workers were still touching up Adour, Alain Ducasse's new restaurant at the St. Regis Hotel, launching on January 28. With his galaxy of Michelin stars in Europe, as well as a previous — perhaps too fussy — three-star incarnation at Essex House that was never embraced by New Yorkers, Mr. Ducasse is all about haute food, of course. Wine has played only a supporting role. But upon entering Adour's richly appointed, yet lighthearted space (the former home of Lespinasse), designed... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/hard-sell-for-healthy-cooking/69225/ Wed, 9 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST The bilingual signboard outside the Little Apple Healthy Food Place on West 207th Street is small but provocative. It shows two figures drawn in the faux-simple style of Keith Haring, one with a potbelly, the other flat-bellied. "Cuál quiere ser tu? Who do you want to be?" it reads. Within the potbelly are the words "Fat others." The flat belly is labeled "Healthy Little Apple." If the latter is your choice, then Little Apple welcomes you. On this lively commercial strip dominated by Dominican... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/where-the-brooklyn-bridge-is-on-the-label/68785/ Wed, 2 Jan 2008 00:00:00 EST Inside every sommelier, a would-be winemaker is itching to break free. He yearns to prove that he can not only recommend the right wine, but have a hand in crafting it. The past president of the Sommelier Society of America, Darrin Siegfried, demonstrates it can be done — having released a trio of intriguing wines under the Brooklyn Wine Company label. The wines have been selling briskly at Red White & Bubbly, an easygoing Park Slope wine shop at which Mr. Siegfried is operating partner. Their... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/cure-for-champagne-fatigue/68541/ Wed, 26 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST Mixologist Jonathan Pogash looks young enough to be carded — not consulted — on matters alcoholic. Yet, at age 28, he oversees cocktail service at several New York restaurants and bars, including Solo, Prime Grill, Carnegie Club, Campbell Apartment, and World Bar. I approached him last week for counseling on an embarrassing problem for a wine writer: Champagne fatigue. It's an affliction brought on by a seasonal surfeit of holiday parties. A moment comes, usually in the week between Christmas... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/once-shunned-chilean-wine-comes-of-age/68331/ Wed, 19 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST You could get a stiff neck walking around Santiago, Chile, just from looking up. That's how mesmerizing the first rung of the snowcapped Andes are, towering above the city to the east. Now, as the Southern Hemisphere summer begins, snow-melt from those peaks irrigates the ever expanding vineyards in the plains and valleys north and south of the city. Afternoon breezes, alternately sliding off the Andes and from the cool Pacific coastline, keep temperatures moderate even though the sun blazes... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/culinary-page-turners/67945/ Wed, 12 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST Too many food books these days are conceived as either Page Six-style tell-alls or as blatant boosters for brand-name chefs. Like the best novels, the best of this genre, whether memoirs, references, or cooking manuals, tend to be obsessive, sometimes unexpected in their intensity, and even uplifting. They remind us that food is more than fuel. These five books are my personal favorites of 2007. The Tenth Muse by Judith Jones (Knopf, 288 pages, $24.95) As a young and penurious assistant to a... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/oenophiles-holiday-wish-list/67553/ Wed, 5 Dec 2007 00:00:00 EST Even in Omar Khayyam's day, a dedicated lover of the grape would have welcomed a few extra touches, beyond a loaf of bread and a book of verse, when it came time to share a jug of wine with his beloved. This holiday season, there are peripherals aplenty — as well as some special bottles — to please even the most jaded wine buff on your gift list. Our selection of gifts, priced from under $20 to blowout, ranges from high-tech glassware to hand-blown bottles of 19th-century Madeira. Eisch... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/wines-odd-couple/66845/ Wed, 21 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST She was from the Upper West Side, a graduate student in French film studies who haunted Parisian libraries by day. He was a Frenchman who tuned accordions. By night the couple, Jenny Lefcourt and François Ecot, hung out with friends at wine bars. "François was feeling cooped up with accordions, and I felt cooped up in the library," Ms. Lefcourt said, sitting across from Mr. Ecot for a breakfast interview recently at Balthazar. The two of them, who were once married but are now just business... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/smoked-fish-returns-to-tribeca/66387/ Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST On Chambers Street in TriBeCa, a construction project has uncovered an old painted sign for a fish shop called Petrosino & Sons. It would seem to be the relic of a long-gone era in the neighborhood. But fish — in this case smoked — are back on the next block, with the opening of Original Zucker's (146 Chambers St. at West Broadway, 212-608-5844) last weekend. The T-shirts worn by the staff of this lox-and-bagels purveyor say, "A New Tradition." "Groovy young people like throwbacks," the... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/holiday-worthy-pumpkin-pie/66410/ Wed, 14 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST My favorite autumn vista, other than a blaze of maples, is a field full of orange pumpkins in late afternoon light. Less pleasing, unfortunately, is their conversion to pie. In a lifetime of Thanksgiving dinners, and despite a healthy dessert appetite, I've yet to meet a slice of pumpkin pie that I wanted to finish. Inevitably, this fixture of the holiday table makes me long for a slice of my late mother's multi-variety apple pie, full of the texture and flavor of rough-cut fruit wedges. My... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/sipping-sauvignon-blanc-at-mealtime/66045/ Wed, 7 Nov 2007 00:00:00 EST Do wines that fly high with critics also excel when they land on the table? Not necessarily, as an intrepid New Zealand winemaker demonstrated recently in a risky (for him) experiment in which two dozen wine journalists and sommeliers participated at Per Se. Structured in two phases, the event was intended to show how our perception of wines, when sipped solo, is changed when they meet food. The experiment's sponsor, Steve Smith, of the esteemed Craggy Range Winery, was taking a gamble that his... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/most-treasured-heirlooms/65600/ Wed, 31 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST A neat grid of plain white paper plates covers the table and sideboards by the dozen in the dining room of Amy Goldman's elegant yet homey farm house in Rhinebeck, N.Y., 120 miles north of the city. The center of each plate is mounded with seeds, each rim neatly notated with seemingly nonsensical names such as "Carry On, Carry On," "Jiarg," and "Radiator Charlie's Mortgage Lifter." While it looks as though Ms. Goldman has set up an elaborate game for a child's birthday party, she's actually... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/countering-counterfeit-wines/65159/ Wed, 24 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST Many citizens recycle their empty wine bottles in order to be green. But certain shady citizens and sellers recycle because they want that other kind of green that ultra-pricey bottles can bring, industry insiders say. Empty bottles of pricey vintages, obtainable from restaurants specializing in great wine, can make their way to the underbelly of the wine trade, where counterfeiters refill one or more of the bottles, their prestigious labels intact, with inexpensive wine. The bottles would then... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/how-mr-zabar-uses-his-famous-palate/64679/ Wed, 17 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST Gem Street in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, might be easier to find by using your nose than by using a map: Though only a block long, the street is redolent of freshly smoked salmon, whitefish, chubs, sturgeon, sable, and brook and rainbow trout. A plain brick building dominating the north side of the block is home to Acme Smoked Fish, the largest smoker in the tristate area. One morning last week, at 8:30 a.m., the city's reigning smoked fish maven, Saul Zabar, pushed a rolling cart that hung with... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/wine-events-uncorked/64261/ Wed, 10 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST The rest of the city kicks into high gear after Labor Day, but the wine crowd waits until October. That's when — along with the first tints of yellow and orange in the Central Park maples — a quickening of interest comes in what we'll drink when the first chill wind blows. Stern and sturdy reds, such as those from the northern Rhône and Napa valleys, which are ignored during the summer doldrums, now beckon, as do cerebral whites such as the best white Burgundies. Now, too, the city is suddenly... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/from-banker-to-wine-connoisseur/63886/ Wed, 3 Oct 2007 00:00:00 EST Something about Christy Canterbury's polite demeanor made me suspect, at first meeting, that she might be a vegetarian, maybe even a vegan. But the right corner of the business card from her former job with Smith & Wollensky steakhouse appeared to have been chomped off by the incisors of a flesh-eating animal. A vegetarian, she is not. Until last month, Ms. Canterbury, 32, was the national wine director of the nine-city Smith & Wollensky chain. But after the $95 million sale of the chain's... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/wine-bar-lands-at-jfk/63382/ Wed, 26 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EST Past the security checkpoint at American Airlines's new terminal 8 at John F. Kennedy International Airport, around the corner from the fast food joints such as Wok 'n' Roll and McDonald's, the airport's first wine bar, called Vino Volo, is opening today. For stressed-out fliers, Vino Volo — with its ivory-washed walls, comfy tan armchairs, cordovan-stained wood bar counter, and low volume cool jazz — is all about inducing calm in the sometimes-lengthy, often stress-inducing, interval between... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/new-vision-for-a-historic-space/62915/ Wed, 19 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EST Since the Fulton Fish Market, long a bedrock of city commerce and local color, moved to Hunts Point in the Bronx two years ago, one of its vacated waterfront structures has been very much on the minds of two downtown residents. The pair — a nonpracticing architect and Slow Food advocate, Robert LaValva, and a city planner, Jill Slater — is determined to see the historic Tin Building reborn as a public market offering regionally produced artisanal foods. Calling themselves New Amsterdam Public... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/priced-out-of-bordeaux/62446/ Wed, 12 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EST Last year, Bordeaux lovers watched in shock and awe as futures prices of the 2005 vintage soared to record highs. You could have paid $25,000 for a single case of Chateau Petrus 2005 to be delivered in 2008. Or, for that money, you could have taken title to a new Mini Cooper convertible. You might even have a few thousand dollars left over to buy wine that — unlike the Petrus — is currently drinkable. Granted that, in a region rife with imperfect weather, the 2005 Bordeaux vintage was a thing... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/date-with-dinner/61938/ Wed, 5 Sep 2007 00:00:00 EST Two sharp memories, separated by decades, converged last week to put a noteworthy roast chicken on my table. The first memory goes back 27 years to my honeymoon in Puerto Rico. Dining on the patio of a former coffee plantation that had been converted to a country inn, my bride and I were served a simple roast chicken that was revelatory in its texture and taste. It was firm to the tooth, in a way that supermarket chickens back home weren't, and its deep flavor made the usual suspects seem... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/from-an-arid-ancient-land-table-wine/61544/ Wed, 29 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST For motorists climbing the hills to Jerusalem from Israel's coastal plain, the ramshackle Efrat winery at the village of Motza, emblazoned by a large commercial sign, was long the most visible symbol of Israel's wine industry. It was equally a symbol of local decrepitude. Far to the north on the Golan Heights, the brilliant young winery Yarden was proving, beginning in the mid-1980s, that Israel could make world-class table wines. But Efrat went right on making the same sort of coarse and... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/fresh-tomatoes-aged-wine/61067/ Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST Come August, variety all but disappears from my lunch menu. I'm content to sit at the kitchen counter and eat a freshly made tomato sandwich on a slice of white bread, a ciabatta roll, or a plain bagel. Though easily dismissed as humble, it's a seasonal dish that's as intriguing, in its own way, as autumn's white truffle risotto, although not nearly so expensive. Not just any tomato will do, of course. It has to be a Long Island or Jersey tomato, its color a deep and shimmery orange, fading to... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/teaching-new-york-diners-to-navigate-wine-menus/60569/ Wed, 15 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST Anthony Mazzola was dining at an Italian restaurant in Norwalk, Conn., when Martha Stewart took the adjoining table and ordered a glass of the house white wine. "Could I offer you something better?" the restaurateur — who upped the Upper West Side dining ante as a partner in 'Cesca — asked. Stewart gave up her nondescript house wine for the quaff on Mr. Mazzola's table: an intense, hazelnut-inflected Fiano di Avellino, one of Italy's best white wines. Mr. Mazzola's focus on worthy wine is meant... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/how-to-tell-youre-on-your-hosts-a-list/60100/ Wed, 8 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST This fall, should you be served a bottle of Bordeaux with a bearded St. Peter on the label and vintage date 1982, be sure to say something nice to your host: Three cases of that wine, Chateau Petrus 1982, each sold for a record-busting $72,700 at Aulden Cellars-Sotheby's in New York last May, or more than $6,000 a bottle. An even more generous investment in your dining pleasure would be a pour of the red burgundy Romanée-Conti 1985. A case of that wine sold at NY Wines Christie's, also in May... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/off-the-e-train-a-vineyard/59606/ Wed, 1 Aug 2007 00:00:00 EST At one time, I thought that a subway ride's most unlikely destination was a lonely Rockaway beach where I'd go surfing. That trip took an hour on the A train from Columbus Circle. One day last week, I took the E train (and a city bus) to a destination that is, perhaps, even more surprising than a beach: a young and thriving two-acre vineyard of chardonnay, merlot, cabernet sauvignon, and cabernet franc. The first vintage of 270 cases of a red wine blend, harvested last year, will be released... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/fast-food-savored-spirits/59107/ Wed, 25 Jul 2007 00:00:00 EST For kitchen-tech nerds, celebrity-chef groupies, and Martha Stewart watchers, the place to be last Friday evening was the modest, pristinely restored, early 19th-century Greek revival home of Ellen Hanson and Richard Perlman on a back street in Sag Harbor, Long Island — or rather, around back, in the couple's unusual wine cellar. It was created out of an ancient cistern, discovered, accidentally, beneath the house. That cellar was where Mr. Perlman was unveiling a residential model of an... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/byoburgundy/58594/ Wed, 18 Jul 2007 00:00:00 EST A pair of pretty good Bordeaux was on the table I shared with friends at Tribeca Grill on a recent Monday evening. One was a Pomerol, Chateau Le Bon Pasteur 1998, the other a St. Estephe, Chateau Montrose 1990. If those wines had come from the restaurant's well-stocked cellar, they'd have added at least $900 to the tab before tax and tip. Ouch! But we paid just for the food, because Monday nights at Tribeca Grill (375 Greenwich St., between North Moore and Franklin streets) are BYOB, with no... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/business-of-bercy/58200/ Wed, 11 Jul 2007 00:00:00 EST One morning, I found myself standing amid rows of vines under a gray yet luminous French sky. Well tended and already heavy with bunches of fruit, these chardonnay and sauvignon blanc vines might have been the pride of a country chateau. But this vineyard happens to be in the 35-acre Parc de Bercy, in the 12th Arrondissement of Paris, at the city's southeastern edge. Along with the culture of the vine, just plain culture is also nearby, including the Frank Gehry-designed French Cinémathèque and... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/from-experiments-to-levage/57379/ Wed, 27 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EST A bright future as a medical researcher once beckoned Elizabeth Vianna. In the mid-1990s, only a few years out of Vassar with a degree in biology, she was the chief of the clinical toxicology laboratory at Cornell Medical Center. She was thinking of going to medical school, and, as an art and music enthusiast, she loved living in New York. "My dad's from Brazil, where I was born, and my mother's El Salvadorian, and honestly, New York is the first place I felt at home," she said in an interview... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/wine-for-the-first-day-of-summer/56931/ Wed, 20 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EST However much I may love wine, I once knew a man who loved music more. He was a composer named Ingolf Dahl, who taught at the University of Southern California until his premature death in 1970. Each summer, he headed off to the Swiss Alps for two months and swore off listening to music. Back then, I questioned why he would deprive himself of what nourished his spirit most. But now I've come to understand — and sometimes I even do — as Professor Dahl did: I take an annual summer vacation from... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/ockfener-love-affair/56473/ Wed, 13 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EST Like any other true romance, a love of wine can slowly grow or it can come on like a thunderbolt. My hunch is that, for most people, a single bottle brings on that mighty moment, which turns into a lifetime affair with wine. There can even be two such moments — one for red wine, and one for white. My white wine thunderbolt hit on a cold February morning in 1973, the result of a wine column, long since discontinued in a local daily paper. In that column, which extolled German riesling, Paul... PETER HELLMAN http://www.nysun.com/food-drink/talk-show-where-wine-is-topic/55971/ Wed, 6 Jun 2007 00:00:00 EST Ever since Julia Child began puttering around the kitchen on PBS, cooking has been a television staple. In some food circles, including my own, more people know the names of the contestants on "Iron Chef " than they do on "American Idol." But the invasion of "slice and dice" shows has left wine programming far behind. Not one wine show is currently on the Food Network. But there are flickers of hope for deprived wine lovers who also like to watch television. PBS has two wine shows in the...