curious what WBers think are the coolest lists in the city right now? Not the biggest or whatever, but good selection, unique wines, things you’d want to try. For me, charlie bird, estela, racines, maysville, roberta’s, marta stick out, but what else is out there?
not limited to Manhattan…
Pearl & Ash/Rebelle
Racine
Gramercy Tavern
Renard (Brooklyn)
Marta (esp Champagne)
Maialino (Italian)
Charlie Bird
Corkbuzz
+1 on what Greg has listed and add
June Wine Bar in Brooklyn
Tribeca Grill. Don’t know it it is cool, but I like it.
Hearth is cool
Killer list Greg.
4 horseman that just opened has a pretty decent list. St Anslem is also a solid list with fantastic steaks.
Nomad and Le Bernardin’s lists have a few well priced gems, but what they have in depth they detract in markup (Nomad is very corkage friendly).
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One of my best wine nights ever was spent there. One night an friend of a friend invited us to dinner. He was a Rhone freak so we took him there. He looked at the list, declared that it was on all on his (seemingly unlimited) expense account, and went crazy. Damn that was fun.
Greg - GREAT List, thanks.
HW - didn’t even know about June and it’s exactly the kind of place i’m looking for…thanks.
I’ve always found the Trestle on Tenth list offers interesting and reasonably priced wines. They also have pretty good corkage and service if you BYO.
I enjoy Trestle. What’s their corkage policy?
It is now $25 per bottle, and they seem genuinely pleased to see people bring nice bottles to enjoy with their food. No limits I am aware of, but I imagine they would frown on anything on their list. They have always done a good job with service, even when a half dozen of us brought quite a few bottles.
That’s quite a wine list at June! Never seen anything like it, thanks for posting.
How is the food there?
The Modern
Charlie Bird
Gramercy Tavern
Maialino
What is the definition of good list?
For me it must have many bottles $60 or less (ok, $75 or less). Not that I just want that, but complete veriticals of trophy wines at lottery prices doesn’t do anything for me. The days of underpriced burg gems are long gone.
Marta is fantastic - even can find some reds with age on them at those prices and it also entices you to spend a little more because of the value.
I did peruse the Pearl and Ash site and that certainly fits the bill. Plenty of interesting Loire wines etc.
Lots of great mentions so far.
I continue to find Maison Premiere to be an underrated and somewhat lesser known gem. It’s a pain to get to, but I like it there.
I also really enjoy Maison Premiere.
Generally, I don’t find the lists cited in this thread (with the key exception of Pearl & Ash and, when it first opened at least, Racines) to be that exciting, because they have so many of the wines which are also available in NY stores and which we all drink all the damn time. Oh really, Pepiere? How exciting. (Eye roll). A REALLY cool / great restaurant list introduces you to stuff you wouldn’t have otherwise tried (be it producers or regions or vintages that are not readily available or are off the beaten track), at prices where you can afford to try it. A list, even a well priced list, with all the names I have in my cellar as is - I mean, great, so I can drink my favorite producers for only 50% more than it costs me at home rather than 100% or 200%. Whoopie. Frankly there are very few truly cool lists in NYC since the somm culture here is so strictly conformist.
Sparks has a pretty cool list.
Is Ten Bells passe’? It still looks pretty good to me (but I have a very low bar coming from PA).
Don’t forget Wildair and Contra for interesting and adventurous natural wines. Surprisingly, Kilo in Midtown West has some cool stuff on their list, in a place you’d never expect.
This has been a great thread - saving it for our next trip to NY.
It depends on what you’re looking for. I get your definition of “coolest” and see why many responses here don’t qualify. From a practical perspective, I’m not usually interested in experimenting at restaurant markups, especially if dining with non-wine-geek friends or family. I would rather do that with friends bringing our own retail-priced bottles to try.
More often than not, when dining out, it’s not a “wine event” and I like familiar names. Preferably not wines/vintages I currently have in the cellar, but something I know that the company and I will like. Not necessarily trophies. And at non-extortionist prices. So while a lot of the responses here may not be the “coolest” lists, they’re still really useful for my purposes.
I was at a dinner the other night with Robert Bohr and his lovely wife Jordan Salcito. I don’t recall ever meeting a married couple that knows more about wine than they do. An amazing font of knowledge about every aspect of wine.