Where the Brooklyn Bridge Is on the Label

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 labels feature an iconic image, rendered by local artist Ryan Seslow, of — what else? — the Brooklyn Bridge.

The prototypes of all the wines — Feliz White 2006 ($11.95), Feliz Red 2005 ($13.95), and a more ambitious red called Grand Army Meritage ($25.95) — were blended in a back room at the wine shop by Mr. Siegfried and veteran winemaker Clark Smith, who supplied sample batches of California "juice" from different varieties of grapes.

Once the blends were set, the wines were bottled at Winesmith, Mr. Smith's facility in Sebastapol, Calif. "Clark asked me if I wanted to create wines to make people smile or to make them think," Mr. Siegfried said last week. "My idea was to start with a pair of red and white wines for people who just want to come home at night, pour a glass, and say, 'Aaah, that's nice.' It's not about asking whether the wine goes with this dish or that. Feliz has to make you happy, which is what it means in Spanish."

But a happy wine needn't be a boring wine or fruit-simple. The two Feliz wines, in fact, are on the subtle side, and it's not easy to figure out what grapes have gone into them. I caught a lemony whiff from Feliz White, and then the wine settled into my mouth with a firm, minerally core and a bit of pucker. It wasn't so much a food wine as a wine to make you want food. But what were its grapes? Mr. Siegfried explained that the wine's firmness came mainly from a dollop of French colombard. Imported from Cognac, France, in the 19th century, it was once California's most planted white grape, but has gone out of fashion. Energy was supplied by sauvignon blanc, making up around two-thirds of the blend, and that lemony top note came from verdelho, a grape found on the volcanic slopes of the island of Madeira. In sum, Feliz White is just the sort of offbeat wine that a sommelier turned wine merchant — and ultimately, winemaker — loves to recommend.

"For the Feliz Red, I wanted a wine to appeal to cabernet sauvignon and merlot drinkers," Mr. Siegfried said. Curiously, they'll get neither grape in this bottle, since the wine is a blend of of zinfandel, barbera, and syrah. But it's cannily concocted for broad appeal. The zinfandel supplies bright red berry notes, the barbera zips up the acidic tang, and the syrah provides fleshiness. "My palate leans to the Old World, and I usually drink European wines," Mr. Siegfried said, but he admitted that Feliz Red is more New World: "That doesn't mean it has to be a fruit bomb, or rude and in your face. I think of this wine as a Californian wearing a tweed jacket."

If the Feliz wines are for weekdays, Grand Army Plaza Meritage 2005 "is for Sunday dinner," Mr. Siegfried explained. It's a deep-flavored and velvety wine, blended from cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc, not yet giving its all. "In adolescence, a wine like this is like a girl who's all knees and bones, but after a few more years, you'll suddenly say, 'Wow, what a beauty.'"

Mr. Siegfried, 55, grew up in Newburgh, N.Y., son of a family in the printing business, and first learned about wine from an aunt who lived on Sutton Place. His formal wine training began at Windows on the World atop the World Trade Center. He went on to do a stint as sommelier at Claude Troisgros's restaurant, C.T., which closed in 1996. In the late 1990s, he was wine director and manager of the much-lauded, and since closed, Cucina in Park Slope, when the urge to open a wine bar bit.

That didn't work out, but with financial partner Adam Goldstein, Mr. Siegfried took a lease on a former hardware store situated amid a developing network of boutiques, bakeries, and restaurants on Fifth Avenue. As a wine counselor, Mr. Siegfried soon developed a devoted neighborhood following. "I made it a point to keep the aisles wide, so that strollers would have no trouble fitting through," he said. Red White & Bubbly stresses affordable wines, including a featured selection of four wines under $10 picked each month by Mr. Siegfried. Despite his training as a sommelier, Mr. Siegfried feels he has lots to learn as a blender of wines. Working with Mr. Smith, he was especially struck by how different alcohol levels alter the impact of different lots and how difficult it is to find "the sweet spot" in a blend. "I remember reading how Sherlock Holmes could use his powers of observation and deduction to say to someone he'd just met, 'You're a surgeon, you lived in India, your wife recently died, and you're a pipe smoker.' It's that Sherlock logic you need to strive for when you put together the pieces of a wine."

Red White & Bubbly (211-213 Fifth Ave. at Union Street, Brooklyn, 718-636- WINE).