Anyone interested in a regular Big Bold Modernist Red Wine Offline Series in New York City?

Please answer as many of these as you can to express your opinion

  • Wine theme preference - one producer at a time (all Saxum, all Myriad, all SQN, and if you don’t have one, you must provide a tete de cuvee bubbly as a penalty.
  • Wine theme preference - one variety at a time (all Cab, all Syrah, all Grenache, all Zin)
  • Wine theme preference - Free for all but it had better be big modern red
  • Wine theme preference - Don’t care, bring it on
  • Frequency - Twice a month
  • Frequency - Monthly
  • Frequency - Every other month
  • Frequency - Don’t care
  • Day of Week - M, T, W, Th
  • Day of Week - F, S
  • Day of Week - Sunday with an early start (5 pm ish)
  • Day of Week - Don’t care
  • How many will come - Self
  • How many will come - Two - Self + spouse, guest, SO, adult children whose palate you are ruining
  • How many will come - It depends

0 voters

In the past two months, I have had four wine events, one at someone’s home, two at restaurants and one at a Mets’ game, that featured BIG RED wines. MacDonald, Scarecrow, Colgin, SQN, Saxum, Pahlmeyer, Insignia, Kapcsandy, Myriad, etc. I like those wines, especially when I do not have to wade through Loire Cab Franc, Vin Jaune and pinot noir in need of Algerian Syrah to find them. With steak. At a steakhouse.

I have long wanted to start a regular big red drinking group based upon this idea and I have developed a relationship with the manager of the Bobby Van’s on 54th Street in Manhattan that will work well and will not cause too much organizing brain damage.

So please answer the poll questions if you are interested and anticipate attending, let’s say, at least 6 such events in the upcoming year. If I can get a consensus among at least 10 people, I am going to charge forward. One answer for each related group of questions please. As to wine theme preference, I’ll pick the first one if either of the first choices wins and then we can decide at each dinner what’s next. If it works out, I intend to bring a Saxum Magnum to the first dinner because I have too many and I have run out of magnum slots in the cellar.

PS - I have nothing against vegetarians, chicken or fish and you can order those if you want. At the Mets’ game We had vegetarian Bobotie with fake meat and it was fine.

The vegetarian Bobotie was delicious.


3 or 4 x’s a year is workable for me.

As an alumnus of Cornell, how can I not be in for a Big Red dinner.

1 Like

Thanks Jay. I’m open to most anything. As long as there’s something on the menu besides seaweed. Good lord. (What’s the equivalent in the wine world?)

I’ve done many many dinners there and always enjoyed it but unless they get serious about Covid protocols I’m never going back. Last time we were there which was very recent, no one was checking on vaccinations. Bar was ridiculously packed. I couldn’t even walk through to get to the restaurant.

This seems a function of how comparatively busy versus staffed a place is, regardless of pricing or fanciness. So, hard to predict or prevent.

Last week, we took my mom to my standard cheap Chinatown hole in the wall, which immediately requested vaccination proof.

Chinon

If you eat ice cream, you probably eat seaweed (along with cow urine).

Not the one on 54th because you do not have to walk through the bar to get to the restaurant. I will talk to Danny about that. I also tend to police my own group. My wife is, to be polite, a fanatic on the subject and if I do not check everyone individually, she will not come and file divorce papers the following morning.

You’re right Jay. It’s the one on 51st. I’m not worried about my group. We police ourselves. It’s everyone else that worries me.

They split ownership between two groups so I suspect that the one I go to has a different owner. I am equally worried about other “idiots.” I went to the BuildingsNY conference today at Pier 36 and the line was out the door about 20 yards long because everyone had to show proof of vaccination and a government-issued ID to match up against the proof of vaccination and they underestimated how long it would take to check each person. I was very pleased.

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Thinking about you tonight, Buddy. Opened this for a crew who like bruisers (15.6% ABV). Bowel Mountain Red Wine, Lucia Abreu Vineyard

Hi Jay I’m interested plus one. Whatever you choose is great we just want to get out again.

I have two of those. Maybe I will have an all Aubert night with the pinots that Jay Miller has called as syrah blind TWICE.

No, Paul, we have always gone to one on East 54th (where Danny is manager). I guess technically you don’t walk “through” the bar, but entry desk and route to restaurant goes around bar area, in same space (no walls), though there is a glass wall between bar and restaurant. The bar was shoulder to shoulder, and spilling into path to restaurant section. No one checking (I even tried to show my Excelsior to woman at reception desk without success). I was fine with our table, 8 careful people, but I went to the small restroom and 3 drunk unmasked unchecked guys came right behind me (I wore mask but still). Off my list.

I am surprised because I have never seen it crowded, but maybe I just scare people away. I will tell Danny that he needs to shape up before he gets on more shit lists.