One of many pleasures of a visit to New York is dipping into the wine scene there and comparing it to its counterpart in Europe. I was in Manhattan two weeks ago and was fascinated to observe just how fashion-conscious its wine commentators are together with members of the tight-knit sommelier community.
One day I attended a tasting and lunch at Thomas Keller’s Michelin three-star restaurant Per Se. It had been organised by the generic organisation Wines of Chile to demonstrate, quite eloquently in some cases, the ageing ability of some of the country’s most admired Bordeaux blends. Both the 2009 vintage and the 1999 vintage of Concha y Toro’s Don Melchor and Montes Alpha M were particularly impressive – as well they might be when they retail at around £50 a bottle. Several of the seven or eight small courses we were served with the 10 wines were also dazzling, even if three meat courses are usually two too many for me.
But what surprised me about the event, apart from the blandness of Per Se’s private room, was how few of the tasters I recognised. This was in stark contrast to the next day’s tasting and lunch at another three-star establishment, Le Bernardin. (We don’t get three-star lunches in London, I can assure you – Carr’s water biscuits are often all that’s on offer at professional wine tastings.) Here I spied my collaborator in the World Atlas of Wine, Hugh Johnson; the wine correspondents of The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and Bloomberg; and some of the most prominent bloggers, educators and wine raters. I asked a couple of them why the crowds were so different at the two events and was told, deadpan, it was because “the southern hemisphere is out of fashion”.