Notes on the first anniversary of doing what I love full-time

Thirst has been quite a ride! I'm immeasurably happy to be able to do what I love full-time. Though it's incredibly hard work--and there's really no longer such a thing as free time--it's freeing and gratifying to apply my passion for food and wine and make a living. I want to thank each and every one of our customers for supporting our vision to bring Slow Wine to Brooklyn. I've learned that if you dream of a specific future, work hard in the present and make it happen. By being open yet determined, by following our instincts, and trusting our palates, we happily sustain our thirst, and we hope yours too.

Inspiring Thirst: An Evening with Kermit Lynch

I'm happy to announce a special upcoming event we've put together, in collaboration with Kermit Lynch Wine Merchant and the excellent people at Brooklyn Botanic Garden, INSPIRING THIRST: AN EVENING OF WINE WITH KERMIT LYNCH. It's a benefit for Brooklyn Botanic Garden, and will take place at their magnificent Palm House, BBG's Victorian Steinhardt Conservatory, on Wednesday, October 28th, from 6pm-8pm. 

The Palm House at Brooklyn Botanic Garden is located at 1000 Washington Avenue. This is a unique opportunity to meet Kermit Lynch and taste 25 of his wines -- plus a few rare older vintages that Kermit has selected especially for this event from his cellar. Tickets are $40 and are only available in advance here. 

Proceeds from the event will benefit Brooklyn Botanic Garden's community horticulture program, GreenBridge. For more than 15 years, GreenBridge has helped neighborhood organizations and schools improve the urban environment through education, conservation, sustainable gardening practices, and creative partnerships.

The South of France, Corsica, Paris

In the crush of daily business I thought we'd never get to France.

The major highlight was definitely working the harvest with Emanuelle D and Laurent B of Dupéré Barrera/Clos de la Procure. Hand harvesting is incredibly hard work -- but, oh, so rewarding and, ultimately, pleasurable. Laurent and Emanuelle are equally hands-on in the cellar. With them we saw firsthand that slow wine takes vision, a lot of hard work, and patience. The reward is great wine, which is worth all the extra care and effort.

Another highlight for us was visiting several of our Corsican producers: Yves Leccia, Antoine Arena, Domaine Maestracci. We've wanted to go to Corsica for a long time. What a beautiful island!

Will post more about this trip as soon as I can.

Slow Wine

There's more and more producers claiming to produce sustainable wines -- and wine stores claiming to sell them. But a lot of them aren't walking the walk. We're at a moment when Monsanto claims to be following a sustainable model.

Thirst was founded on the notion that we will sell only delicious wines made as naturally as possible. We search out wines that aren’t on steroids--what we like to call slow wines. Slow wines are the opposite of industrial wines. Industrial wines are mass-produced wines made from high-yielding irrigated vineyards, with grapes grown with herbicides and pesticides, mechanically harvested, engineered with lab yeasts, artificial flavors and stabilizers.

What's a slow wine? It's wine made from vineyards without pesticides or herbicides, and without chemical additives or added flavors in the cellar. Slow wines are made on a small scale from grapes grown in low-yielding vineyards farmed sustainably, organically or biodynamically. Slow winemakers harvest by hand by careful selection. Slow wines aren't made with laboratory yeasts but with ambient yeasts so that the fermented grapes can naturally express themselves and the place from which they come (terroir). New oak barrels, if used, are used judiciously. Many winemakers who take these approaches do so without certification, simply because they believe it's the way wine should be made.

Domaine Faury

One of the most heartening things we notice as merchants, especially among Kermit Lynch’s producers, is continuity. Philippe Faury, for instance, works side by side with his son, Lionel (they’re pictured on the left) . Philippe took over his family's 2.5 hectare estate in 1979. Since then he's expanded it to over 11 hectares. They now have vineyards in Cote Rotie, Condrieu and St. Joseph.

I've always had a particular affection for wines from the Northern Rhone. We especially love Faury's wines and have carried them at Thirst from the very beginning. Domaine Faury's wines are notable for their purity and elegance. We were eager to meet them, and excited to taste their wines, at their property last January.

Our special order of their 2008 Syrah has just arrived. It's essentially a baby St. Joseph meant to be drunk in its youth. The grapes come from young St. Joseph hillside vines and from older vines on the plateau above. Officially, it's classified as a Vin de Pays des Collines Rhodaniennes. It's juicy but a little meaty, with spice and pepper notes. An awesome inexpensive Syrah from the Northern Rhone--where Syrah is King. Great served slightly chilled.

We also have their Condrieu 2006, which is made from Viognier. A good Condrieu is hard to find and, unfortunately, they're not cheap. If you've ever wondered what a Condrieu tastes like, you must pick up a bottle. It's not screwed up, like many are, with new oak. It's piercing, powerfully aromatic. Of it Kermit Lynch has written: " I’ll start with what it is not: woody, cloying, flabby, showily shallow. Here are all the fireworks of Condrieu’s Viognier without it going too far. Stunning."

Their St. Joseph 2006 red is a benchmark Northern Rhone Syrah. The winemaker Steve Edmunds (Edmunds St. John): "[..]when I taste a wine like Philippe Faury’s Saint Joseph, with its textbook rendition of suave Syrah fruit and smoke and that spinetingling perfume of tender berries and violets, I feel a whisper of wildness in it, that presence of not just the human endeavour in that place, and that year, but of something elemental, behind those things, something inviting me to engage with it. Something very hard to name."

Ask About Gramenon

Domaine Gramenon is located in the Southern Rhone in the heart of Drôme Provençal between Grignon and Nyons. Their vineyards extend over 24 hectares of slopes at 300 meters altititude. It’s one of the few producers that Thirst and Robert Parker both laud.

Gramenon is owned and operated by the charming and inspiring Michelle Aubrey-Laurent, with help from her son, Maxim-François. We were lucky enough to meet them at a salon tasting at their domaine last January. Their wines are featured in the best natural wine bars in Paris and are available at Thirst once again in very limited quantities. Gramenon's wines are always impeccable, pure, vividly colored, and dense, ripe (but not jammy or over-ripe). They farm their vines, ranging in age from young to over 130 years old, organically and biodynamically. They never fine or filter, use only indigenous yeast, and never add things like sugar or acid. Their bottling is unique: they bottle all their wines in late spring before their first summer following elevage with minimal to no sulfur. The soil is mostly calcareous clay with some parcels that have galets roulés and sand.

Newly arrived 2008 cuvées...

Poignée de raisins – "Handful of grapes" made mostly of young vines Grenache. A vin de soif meant for immediate consumption. Delicious slightly chilled.

La Sagesse – a powerful 100% Grenache cuvée that comes from old and wise vines.

Sierra du Sud – a 100% Syrah wine that tastes more like a St Joseph or Cornas than a Southern Rhone red.

Les Laurentides – an old vines blend of Grenache and Syrah that is like no other.

Two of our favorite Rhone producers, Catherine Le Goeuil (Domaine Catherine Le Goeuil) and Michelle Aubrey-Laurent (Domaine Gramenon).

The Brunier Brothers

The Brunier brothers, Daniel and Frédéric, are the owners of Vieux Télégraphe, in Châteauneuf-du-Pape. In 1998, with partner Kermit Lynch, they purchased Domaine Les Pallières, in Gigondas, which had been owned by the Roux family since the beginning of the 15th Century, the land passing from generation to generation for almost 600 years. The property was in disrepair when they bought it from the last remaining heir, Pierre, who, in deteriorating health, was left running the estate alone, and they have meticulously revived the vineyards and renovated the winery.

The wines? Gorgeous. Taste and you'll immediately understand the greatness of Grenache. Even though both the Pallières and Vieux Télégraphe reds are made primarily with Grenache Noir (Pallières has a higher percentage in the blend), they are each remarkably different, but each delicious in their own right. Whereas Vieux Télégraphe is chewy, spicy, black cherries, Pallières flirts and seduces with its wild strawberry-raspberry fruit. Drinking them side-by-side is an elegant way to grasp the notion of terroir.

Thirst has the 2005 Pallières Gigondas and their ravishing 2008 Au Petit Bonheur Rosé on hand. In fact, we have virtually all of the Brunier Bros. wines in stock, including 05 and 06 Vieux Télégraphe, as well as their fantastic Le Pigeoulet en Provence red and white Vin de Pays wines (currently 06 and 08 respectively).

Beginning with the 2007 vintage, there will be two cuvées of Pallières: "Les Racines," and "Terrasse du Diable," which we tasted early barrel samples of in January.