I Kinda Got Schooled at Terroir

I love to drink and, when it comes to beer, I like to think that I'm somewhat of a connoisseur. I'm good at picking out beers for friends based on their preferences. I'm often able to determine the type of hops in the beer I'm drinking. I'm a WHIZ at looking down at you for drinking shit beer. Recently, I've been going to Terroir a lot more and you'd think that by frequenting a wine bar, I'd at least try out some wines & get a feel for them. Nope. They have a solid beer selection so, like an asshole, I've just stuck with beer.

This past weekend, Terroir launched a series of hour-long wine classes with different teachers that they're holding twice every Saturday for the next five weeks. The first one was on Saturday, a "Wine 101" of sorts led by the founder of Terroir and the 2012 James Beard Award winner for Outstanding Wine, Beer, or Spirits Professional, Paul Grieco. Since I don't know shit about wine and dude's apparently winning awards for his passion for wine, I made sure I was there.

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FiPS Sneak Peek: Welcome to the Terroirdome

I've always been of the belief that wine is for the snooty: "Tut tut Chaz & I tried a 2003 Pinot at the vineyards this weekend" and "Fuck merlot" & such. Though I know it's an outdated, Paul Giamatti-driven stereotype, I just can't shake the feeling that wine's a rich, haughty man’s game. That's why when I learned that Terroir, a wine bar with locales in Tribeca, the East Village & Murray Hill was moving into the space formerly occupied by my once-favorite Park Slope bar, Great Lakes (R.I.P.), I once again found myself thinking, There goes the neighborhood.

Terroir is looking to open within the next week or so, and this past Saturday I got a chance to stop by & chat with Allison Whittinghill, a Terroir veteran who will manage the front of the house for the new Park Slope locale. By the time I left, she'd managed to quell most of my initial misgivings. 

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Who Gives a Shit: Would You Drink Wine From The Gowanus Canal?

J.C. RICE / The NY Post

73 year-old Joseph Mariano once fell into the Gowanus Canal. "And I'm still here," he says of the incident. With this in mind, perhaps we can put aside our negative feelings toward the watery, toxic stinkfest and embrace Mariano's life endeavor: he produces wine from a 50-foot grapevine located only a few blocks away from the canal. 

“I have no fear about it,” he tells the NY Post.  “It has a very unique flavor.”

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