A confession: I often peek through the fences of New York City's community gardens and fantasize about walking among the vines. Last week, I finally got to live out my fantasy at the kickoff event for Woodbridge by Robert Mondavi’s "Giving Through Growing" campaign, which launched yesterday. Held at La Plaza Cultural’s garden on Manhattan's Lower East Side and catered by Outstanding in the Field, the event announced a partnership between the winery and the American Community Gardening Association (ACGA). Woodbridge is helping ACGA by donating a dollar for every e-seed sent from their website this summer (the campaign ends on September 20). The funds will be used to help community gardens around the country expand, and the website will follow their progress and share garden-to-table meals. Now to fulfill my replacement fantasy: another chance to eat Outstanding in the Field's scallop salad with potatoes, green beans and baby fennel. 

I’m in the midst of a wine tasting marathon. I’ve gone from the elegant, aromatic red Burgundies of Domaine Dujac to the weightier, more fruit-driven Pinot Noir from Sonoma County. Next up: A flight of Barolo from legendary estate Giacomo Conterno. More details will come on all these wines later, but one of the most fun parts of my day was learning that winemaker Jamie Kutch proposed to his wife, Kristen, in 2005, during their first harvest, after eight years of dating. He set the ring on the sorting table and sent it down her way. Luckily, she found it and the rest is history. Actually, the young couple is just at the beginning of something exciting: The 2007 Kutch Pinot Noirs are exceptionally balanced, pure, fresh wines with relatively low levels of alcohol (below 13.5%). Perhaps it’s because Jamie honed his palate in New York City with some of the East Coast’s most vocal wine geeks who champion finesse over power (including Lyle Fass of RockssandFruit fame and a former coworker of mine). Jamie makes a very small amount of wine but is hoping to eventually amp up his production to 2000 cases. I encourage any Pinot lover to get in on these wines now--before they're even more impossible to get.

I was already excited for the Food & Wine Classic in Aspen (it starts tomorrow!). Then, last night, I got to meet one of the highlights of this year's festival: legendary Italian winemaker Roberto Conterno. He stopped in NYC en route to Aspen with his two sons, Gabriello and Nicolo. The Italians had lunch at Gray's Papaya (left); then Robert Bohr, the brilliant wine director, gave a dinner for them at Cru. Bohr poured more than a dozen ridiculously good wines, including 1975 and 1990 Dom Pérignon Oenothèque, 1970 and 1985 Musigny George Roumier, and 1958 Gaja Barolo and 1958 Gaja Barbaresco. (In case you’re wondering, the Barbaresco was better than the Barolo.) There were no Conterno wines: “That would have been boring for Roberto,” says Bohr. Heading up the table was Warner Music Group CEO Lyor Cohen, who only left the dinner because he had to check in on Jay-Z’s D.O.A. video shoot.

Chefs all over the world are creating empires comprised of both white-tablecloth flagships and casual restaurants. On my recent trip to Belfast, I discovered Northern Ireland's chef-emperor, Michael Deane. I had an exceptional lunch at his Michelin-starred Deanes, featuring pan-fried wild halibut filets held together with edible glue (a trick Deane's executive chef, Derek Creagh, picked up during a stint at England's pioneering Fat Duck). Later, I stopped by the casual wine bar for the first of its new Friday night happy hours. The space—half wine shop, half restaurant—has live music from 5 to 7 p.m. every Friday, as well as a fantastic (and free!) spread of tapas—Irish cheeses, cured meats, olives, homemade breads and spreads. It's a Northern Irish take on Italy's aperitivo, and the best dining value in Belfast.

Murphy-Goode Winery’s search for the ultimate social networker has received a ton of attention. So far, more than 250 videos have been submitted by prospective wine country social media whizzes hoping to become Murphy-Goode's “lifestyle correspondent.” The job description in a nutshell: Move to Sonoma for six months to promote Murphy-Goode’s wines via blogs, Twitter and Facebook, and get paid $10,000 a month plus free vineyard digs. I’m shamelessly promoting my favorite video, from former Food & Wine intern extraordinaire Nick Pandolfi. Check it out here and place your votes. The winner will be announced July 21.  

 

Last week, Grub Street invited readers to decide whether Per Se’s new series of wine dinners—"The American Table at Per Se”—was a deal or a way to make dining at the pricey Michelin-three-star restaurant even more expensive. As far as I’m concerned, if you’ve got $325 (not including tax) to throw around, a good way to spend it is at the inaugural event tonight, with Wells Guthrie of Copain Wines. Not only does Guthrie make exceptional Pinot Noirs and Syrahs (F&W called him a food and wine visionary in 2008), he’ll also pour selections from some of his French influences, like superstar Jean-Louis Chave. Although Guthrie will be too busy pouring wine to cook, he probably

could; he's staged in the kitchen of Per Se's sister restaurant, the French Laundry. For those who can’t make it to Per Se tonight, there are more pretty amazing sounding American Table dinners lined up with Brewer-Clifton's Greg Brewer and Abe Schoener of the Scholium Project.

Marchese Piero della Rocchetta of Italy's famed Sassicaia recently moonlighted as a sommelier at New York City’s A Voce. “It was almost like playing on an NBA basketball team," he said. "Everyone on staff was so in tune with each other.”
 
What was the biggest challenge of the night?  
"Keeping up with wine director Olivier Flosse."

What was the highlight of the night?
"The opening of a magnum of 1988 Sassicaia and a double magnum of Sassicaia from 1996."

Would you consider making the transition to sommelier?
"I'd absolutely do it again. Just like in basketball it comes down to teamwork and following a great leader, Olivier. "
 

The next time you dine at A Voce in New York City, you may want to pay extra attention to the person walking you through the wine list. The restaurant, now helmed by incredibly talented executive chef Missy Robbins, is bringing in rock stars of the wine world and challenging them to assume the duties of a sommelier for a night. Axel Heinz of Tenuta dell’Ornellaia Masseto and Marchese Piero della Rochetta of Sassicaia have already moonlighted as sommeliers. Michael Mondavi will be walking guests through the wine list and pouring on June 12, and Lamberto and Ferdinando Frescobaldi will be working the floor in September. The guest-sommelier program, which is the brainchild of A Voce's wine director Olivier Flosse, will continue at the second A Voce location at the Time Warner Center when it opens this fall.

Alvaro Palacios is everywhere these days—even in the movies! Well, sort of. The undisputed star of modern Spanish winemaking appears in F&W’s April issue at a party in Manhattan’s new City Winery. Then, when I was watching the recently released DVD of Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona, I saw that Allen thanked Palacios in the credits. (I almost missed it, distracted as I was by thoughts of how I might come back in another life as the stunning Penélope Cruz). This makes sense: It seemed that every character in every scene was holding, swishing or sipping a glass of wine. As it turns out, the film’s producers, who are Catalan, approached Palacios about using his wines. He obliged. Palacios’s bottlings, especially those from the Priorat region in Catalonia, are some of Spain’s finest. His Finca Dofí (a Grenache- and Cabernet-based blend) and his Les Terrasses (which combines Carignane and Grenache with a touch of Cabernet and Syrah) are both featured prominently in the film. He also supplied wines from Bierzo, in northwest Spain, as well as a couple of Riojas. In return for all of this fabulous vino, which I can only imagine the actors savored (and for which Palacios supposedly received no payment), he was invited to attend the Spanish premier. Who got the better deal?

I grew up in a family that believed in saving special (fancy) things for special occasions. Makeup and hairspray came out only for proms or weddings. The good china and crystal made an appearance once a year, at Christmas dinner. Trashy-yet-delicious candy, like Reese's peanut butter cups and Almond Joys, were only allowed in Halloween bags or Easter baskets and were thus battled over between siblings and either gobbled all at once or stashed away for safe keeping. Because of this, I've become a wine hoarder. Not just the great bottles, like cult Napa cabs and rare Brunellos, but really anything over $50 gets stored in my wine fridge or sent home to my mom's basement (my temporary wine cellar) to be saved for the perfect occasion. And the result is that the occasion is never perfect enough.

That's why I adore Open That Bottle Night. The "holiday" was created 10 years ago by husband-and-wife Dorothy Gaiter and John Brecher, who write the Wall Street Journal's wine column Tastings. In a nutshell, their motto is, Why wait? Drink it now. Drink it with friends. I'll be snowboarding with friends in Vermont this OTBN, Saturday February 28, and my ’03 Chateau Smith Haut Lafitte Grand vin de Graves and my ‘97 Kendall Jackson Stature Cab will be perfect for après-ski drinking.

Anyone else holding on to a special bottle, I urge you to open it this Saturday with friends. Host your own party or join one of these others going on around the country.