Rare Find

This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.

The New York Sun

The industrial Queens waterfront under the shadow of the 59th Street Bridge is not where you’d expect to find a world-class wine shop. And you surely wouldn’t think you’ve found one as you approach a massive black door, umarked except for the address, at the former Albra Metal Foundry, across from a heavy machinery equipment rental yard, on Eighth Street and 43rd Avenue in Long Island City. A stony-faced fellow wearing a black stocking cap opened the door after I buzzed one recent Wednesday just before noon. In his left hand, he wielded a claw hammer. It wasn’t a weapon, just a tool that he was using to pry open a wooden case of Chateau Margaux 1986, one among a myriad of cases stacked everywhere here on what passes for the sales floor of New York Wine Warehouse.


Despite its remote location and lack of signage, New York Wine Warehouse is a hotbed of action for collectors of prestigious wines. That 1986 Chateau Margaux, for example, was awarded a perfect 100 points by Robert Parker. Now 18 years old, it will soon be coming into its prime. It’ll set you back $400 a bottle, and that’s chump change compared to the price of some of the rare and exquisite burgundies that are the specialty of this shop.


A pair of bottles of burgundy that I noticed standing on the counter, for example, were labeled Vosne-Romanee, Cros-Parentoux, 1990. In the byzantine hierarchy of Burgundian labeling, that name would be known only to the most astute. “Must be ready to drink,” I said to Geoffrey Troy, coproprietor of New Wine Warehouse with his wife, Jane. Mr. Troy, dressed in shorts, a golf shirt, and khaki cap emblazoned with the seal of his shop, nodded in agreement. “Yeah, but it’s expensive – $1,500,” he said. “That’s not so much for a case of prime burgundy,” I responded. “The price is per bottle.” This Cros-Parentoux, he explained, is “a cult wine.” “I’m trying to put together a complete case,” he said. “I have customers who will be very happy to be offered this at around $15,000 per case.” Great wines, and especially ones with the delicate flavor profile of fine burgundy, need attentive storage. New York Wine Warehouse pampers the 24,000 cases it keeps for its own account and for clients. They are squirreled away in three different vaults under and adjacent to the shop. All are kept at a constant and ideal 55 degrees.


As a 7-year-old, Mr. Troy was taken by his father on a tour of the best restaurants in France. That was in the 1960s, when classic French dining was in its prime. Father made sure that son sampled the glories in the goblet as well as on the plate. “I’d be lying to you if I told you I remembered drinking Richebourg 1959, even though we probably did,” Mr. Troy said.


A decade later, while other college students were chugging six-packs, Mr. Troy was buying fine wines at auction at Sotheby’s and Christie’s. Since he was bidding by phone and mail, the auctioneers never knew that he was underage. After his father’s death, Mr. Troy sold the family trucking business and took a job working for Park Avenue Liquors, a leading specialist in rare wine.


In 1987,his mother met Jane’s mother at a dinner of the Chaine des Rotisseurs, a gourmet group. The two mothers decided their children should meet. One year later, the two were married. “My bride told me she didn’t want me working behind a counter,” Mr. Troy said.


“Behind somebody else’s counter,” Mrs. Troy corrected.


With their savings, the couple opened New York Wine Warehouse in 1990 in what really does seem like a Mafia body-drop zone. Why choose such an unlikely location? “Walk-in trade wasn’t going to be important to us,” Mr. Troy said. “I didn’t want to schmooze for half an hour with somebody who ended up buying a $7 bottle, on which I’d make 70 cents. I knew that we’d be selling to knowledgeable people. They didn’t need to come here to stare at the bottles before buying.” What the Troys saved on rent, they spent on building an inventory of wine sourced from auctions and private collectors.


What happens when a customer is dissatisfied with a pricey bottle? “I don’t usually write a check for $1,000 and say thanks for telling me the wine was corked [spoiled],” Mr. Troy said. “But we do make it up with a store credit.”


The Troys sell and personally drink some of the world’s most expensive wines. But they are wine lovers, not wine snobs. To accompany a back-office lunch of sandwiches and salad bought from “Flo,” whose canteen truck arrives each noon in the courtyard of their building, Mr. Troy chose Chateau d’Aqueria, a $12 bottle of French rose from Tavel.


Along with its inventory of wines that most wine lovers will never be lucky enough to taste, New York Wine Warehouse takes pride in offering wines that deliver quality at a modest price. Asked for some of his best values, Mr. Troy selected the following three wines. I have included my tasting notes.


BORGOGNE BLANC 2002, DOMAINE PAUL PERNOT. $13.50


The key fact about this white wine appears in the small print at the bottom of the label. It’s from Puligny Montrachet, home to the most sought-after chardonnays on earth. This isn’t in the same class as, say, Pernot’s Batard Montrachet 2002, but that wine costs $150. This basic bottling will, in any case, give more pleasure now. It has the sharp focus and a kind of inner energy that is typical of wines from this appellation. This is a wine for grown-ups.


RIOJA TINTO 2001, VINAS DE GAIN ARTADI. $25


Rioja, Spain’s best established wine region, was long known for wine often marked by a faded grace. Quite different is this basic bottling from Artadi, one of a new wave of Rioja wineries. It is berry-fruity, cinnamon-spicy, and lush-textured, yet remains elegant. Spain is alive with new wine-making regions, but this Artadi bottling shows that Rioja need not be left behind.


BOURGOGNE ROUGE 1999, CLAUDE DUGAT. $37


Asked for his shop’s best value in red Burgundy, this was Mr. Troy’s choice. Dugat is a grower in Gevrey-Chambertin, home to the region’s meatiest, most powerful wines. “This is not an iron fist in a velvet glove,” Mr. Troy said, invoking a typical descriptor of this appellation. “It’s an iron fist.” While the price is high for a basic burgundy, Mr. Troy says that Dugat’s Bourgogne Rouge “is better than most other growers’ Gevrey-Chambertin.”


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