A Wine List to Love

There was a lot of buzz in New York last week with the opening of the latest Danny Meyer restaurant, Maialino. That buzz had been building for weeks in my house because my husband Richard—the newest career changer in the family—is part of the pastry team at this new Roman-style trattoria.

Readers might remember from an earlier post that I walked away from a twenty-year career to work at a local wine shop. I often mention my husband on this blog when pairing wines with his artful home cooking and luscious desserts. Then last year (and after years of my prodding) he took an early retirement from UPS to follow his own dream into the culinary world.

Before leaving UPS, he enrolled at the French Culinary Institute, attended classes at night, and graduated number one in his class. Now he’s starting his new career at none other than a Danny Meyer restaurant. And here’s the best part—the wine list (save for a lone bottle of Champagne) is all Italian, with a range of selections from north to south at prices that (just like the food) are entirely reasonable. And we all know how I LOVE my Italian wines.

There are wines from iconic producers like Giuseppe Quintarelli, Bartolo Mascarello, and Elisabetta Foradori, as well as bottles representing unusual grape varieties—Pallagrello (a white grape from Campania), Cesanese (a red grape from Lazio), and one of my personal favorites, Nerello Mascalese (a red variety grown on Mt. Etna in Sicily).

Of course, amid all this excitement, I’ve also had the sudden realization that I am losing my home chef and will soon need to start working on my own culinary chops.

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