[wine] Riesling

Point your browser to the website for the video. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/06/dining/06tipsy.html?ref=general&src=m… Cheers, Jim August 5, 2010 How I Spent My Summer of Riesling, by Terroir By FRANK BRUNI On June 21 the sommelier and restaurateur Paul Grieco did something mischievous, idealistic, provocative, ornery and, in its way, rather sweet. Which is to say he summed up, in one sweeping gesture, what makes him such an indelible character in the New York dining and drinking scene. He revised the menus at his two Terroir wine bars in downtown Manhattan so that anyone interested in a white by the glass would be channeled . nay, forcefully herded . in a certain direction. Chardonnay? Not an option, unless you were in for a whole bottle. Sauvignon blanc? Same deal, along with verdicchio, séllon, grüeltliner. In their stead you could order riesling, riesling or, if those didn.t appeal, riesling. And that will remain so through Sept. 22, when Mr. Grieco ends what he calls the Summer of Riesling, an act of evangelism for a grape he worships and a distillation of his idiosyncratic ways. Mr. Grieco celebrated his first Summer of Riesling in 2008, but that year and the next it affected only the Terroir in the East Village, with just 24 seats. (The second Terroir, in TriBeCa, with about 75 seats, opened this April.) He recalls that at the start, the chef Marco Canora, with whom he owns the wine bars and the East Village restaurant Hearth, suggested that he could make his point and have his fun but run less risk of disappointing patrons if he devoted, say, just half of the whites by the glass to riesling. Mr. Grieco declined. Some of the servers working for him implored him to consider the awkward position he was putting them in. Mr. Grieco told them to buck up. Riesling, he reasoned, deserved uncompromising advocacy, so that its popularity might finally catch up with what he sees as its extraordinary expressiveness, its underrated nimbleness, its food-friendliness and its cool counterpoint to a hot August day. .There should be no fallback,. he said recently at his TriBeCa bar. Actually, he declaimed it. I could almost hear the trumpet blasts bracketing his words. And this was the corresponding visual: above sneakers and cargo shorts he wore a T-shirt with, front and center, an image of a hokey, oversize, fill-in-the-blank tag that read, .Hello, My Name Is ... Summer of Riesling.. That same image immediately greets visitors to the Terroir Web site (wineisterroir.com) Mr. Grieco, 44, tends to dress for effect. In a fancy mood he favors seersucker and striped suits, and pairs brightly colored shirts . Paul Smith is his preferred label . with boldly patterned ties. His philosophy when he puts together an outfit, he explained, is that .if, upon first reflection, you look at it and say it clashes, then I.ve accomplished my goal.. He grooms for effect, too, maintaining a mustache so thin that it prompts a double take . is that lip liner or actual hair? . and a goatee that on this occasion crawled like a spider plant to a destination below his chin. His natty-meets-naughty aesthetic is all his own, and it carries over to his phraseology, which weds scholarly words and cheeky colloquialisms. A little-known wine, for example, is .esoteric juice.. Riesling as a category isn.t esoteric, but a by-the-glass list of whites with about two dozen rieslings and nothing else certainly qualifies. I asked him: doesn.t it invert, or at least pervert, the usual relationship of restaurant host to guest? He nodded, pensively. .I.m taking a somewhat inhospitable view,. he conceded, adding, with a sparkle in his eye: .Let.s be honest. I.m forcing it down your throat.. He has been building toward this brand of naughty defiance since Hearth.s opening in 2003, when the wine list was less a presentation of alternatives than a volume of gonzo literature, thick with messianic riffs and madcap digressions. Hearth.s current list preserves that spirit, presenting this meditation on one of the proprietors of Chateau Musar, a Lebanese winery: .If Jesus and Satan had a son (I guess the first question should be: in which state would Jesus and Satan get married?), he would be called Serge Hochar,. Mr. Grieco wrote. .He is my savior and tormentor.. At Insieme, a restaurant in Midtown that Mr. Canora and Mr. Grieco ran from 2007 until late last year, Mr. Grieco used an entire page of the wine list to link a celebrity in the news with a bottle of muscat on the menu. .I cannot express the joy I felt earlier this week with the release of Paris Hilton from L.A. County jail,. he wrote, with gentle sarcasm. .The previous three weeks had been a living hell, wondering how she was doing.. This went on for many sentences, concluding with an exhortation that customers .celebrate with a cool little superfluous wine from southern Italy. It sparkles like Paris.s eyes, it titillates the soul like Paris.s video.. Where in the world did Mr. Grieco come from? Toronto, where his paternal grandfather opened what Mr. Grieco says was that city.s first formal Italian restaurant, La Scala, in 1961. It was a true family business, employing Mr. Grieco.s father and then Mr. Grieco, who bartended there after dropping out of college. He relocated in 1991 to New York, where he worked as a waiter or manager in various Manhattan restaurants, starting with Remi. Its general manager at the time, Chris Cannon, says Mr. Grieco stood out for his fierce work ethic and vivid attire, which included a jacket with such broad gold and blue stripes that it called to mind pajamas. .He likes to stir the pot,. Mr. Cannon said. Mr. Grieco later moved to Gramercy Tavern, where he was named the beverage director in the late 1990s. By then, he said, he had caught the wine bug and, through travel and tasting, educated himself extensively. He largely credits a predecessor at Gramercy, Steven Olson, with opening his eyes (and palate) to the full magnificence of riesling. I first really talked with him back at Insieme, asking him to choose the wines for my table. He brought us two bottles of red, each label obscured, and challenged us to guess which was from the Old World (Italy, say, or France) and which from the New (e.g. the Americas). This wasn.t conventional sommelier behavior, but it perfectly read the table.s mood . and captured Mr. Grieco.s particular charisma. For him playfulness and passion trump propriety. At the Terroirs the wine lists, in three-ring binders, are chaotic with stickers, maps, photos, cartoons and, of course, Mr. Grieco.s musings, which touch on the Tea Party, Lindsay Lohan, the Emperor Palpatine in the .Star Wars. movies, Eliot Spitzer, global warming, Greek mythology and the Greek debt crisis, for which he proposes an oenological palliative: riesling, on account of its .bang for the buck.. The current Summer of Riesling is his most aggressive, and included a recent four-band concert at the Knitting Factory, where the only alcoholic beverage on hand was . you.ll never believe this . riesling. I.m not nearly as mad for it as he is, and have cursed him at times for his stridency. But thanks to him and the two Terroirs, I do appreciate riesling more than ever. In that sense, I guess, Mr. Grieco has saved me . amid a minor measure of torment. -- ------------------------------ * Dr. James Ellingson, jellings(a)me.umn.edu * * University of Minnesota, mobile : 651/645-0753 * * Great Lakes Brewing News, 1569 Laurel Ave., St. Paul, MN 55104 * * james(a)brewingnews.com James.Ellingson(a)StThomas.edu *