Home-Grown Brooklynites? No, but Proud Adoptees
There are no commercial vineyards in Brooklyn, but that isn’t keeping the borough’s name — and its bridge — from showing up on wine labels.
Brooklyn Oenology sells a well-made merlot ($18) and a crisply fruity chardonnay ($15), made by Premium Wine of Long Island. These wines are sold at a few shops in New York, including Vintage New York stores. The labels, by Brooklyn artists, depict parts of the borough, like one of Newtown Creek by Tracy Silva Barbosa on the 2005 chardonnay.
At Brooklyn Wine, the Feliz white, mainly sauvignon blanc, is light ($11.95); the red is a hefty blend of zinfandel, barbera and syrah ($13.95). Grand Army Meritage, a mix of cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc ($25.95), is more polished.
Darrin Siegfried, a partner in Brooklyn Wine, sells them only at Red White and Bubbly, a wine shop in Park Slope, where he is also a partner. But these wines aren’t true New Yorkers: they are made in California.
Bridge Vineyards in Peconic, N.Y., has a line of red, white and rosé wines (each $12) whose bottles show the bridge.
Greg Sandor and Paul Wegimont, the owners, have opened Bridge Vineyards Urban Winery and Tasting Room, right, an industrial, brick-walled space nudging the Williamsburg Bridge.
Their wines and others are available for tasting with small plates of wine-friendly food ($4 to $10). Come fall, they hope to start using the stainless steel tank on the premises for blending wines and bottling, too.
Bridge Vineyards Urban Winery and Tasting Room is at 20 Broadway (Kent Avenue), Williamsburg, Brooklyn; (718) 384-2800.
Get Some Aromatherapy With Your Chocolate
The Santa Maria Novella pharmacy in Florence, Italy, is known for its perfumes and herb- and spice-based items, like candles. Now it has introduced small boxes of elegant wrapped chocolates.
Fragrant rose-flavored dark chocolate and refreshing citrus-flavored milk chocolate, in boxes of 18 pieces for $37, are sold in the Lafco boutique at 285 Lafayette Street (Houston Street), (800) 362-3677.
Dark chocolates that come with truffled centers seasoned with either alkermes, a venerable spiced liqueur, or chinaberry, said to be a good digestive, are $45 for a box of 12.
What the Knights Spread on Their Toast
The medlar is a small, round, hard fruit that softens only after a frost or in storage, developing an ugly wrinkled brown skin and pulp the consistency of applesauce. It was popular in medieval and Victorian times, but fell out of fashion as other fruits, especially citrus ones, became popular.
It is still cultivated, and now preserves from the fruit, or confiture de nèfle, as the French call it, is sold at Pierre Marcolini, a chocolatier at 485 Park Avenue (58th Street), (212) 755-5150 or marcolinichocolatier.com.
The flavor of the preserves is pearlike, with an alluring spiciness hinting of cinnamon, suggesting it as a lovely complement for roast pork.
A seven-ounce jar of this rarity is $17.
