The Wine Hit List, Summer 2023 Edition: Libertine, Oma Grassa, and More

True enough, New York is having a moment with French restaurants. But that doesn’t quite explain why this new West Village boîte has taken off with such momentum. Instead, credit the extent to which chef Max Mackinnon and his partner and co-founder Cody Pruitt are careful students of the bistro. That comes through in the clarity with which Mackinnon’s food telegraphs an amped-up version of dishes familiar to bistro devotees: oeufs mayonnaise, a version of coquilles St. Jacques that incorporates seaweed butter, and saucisse purée. 

But the other half of the equation brings ample fire. As the longtime beverage director at nearby Anfora, Pruitt has a precise sense of what differentiates quality from fad in wine. This has allowed him to build a willfully all-French, natural-leaning list that instantly has become one of the city’s best examples of that form. This manifests itself in every corner of every page. Yes, you can have Yvon Métras Beaujolais if you’ve been craving a taste, but you can also discover the new Fleurie from Meursault’s Marthe Henry Boillot, a wine you’d struggle to find even in the right parts of Paris. You can find the wines of Ariane Lesné, whose work in the Vendômois is as insider’s gem as it gets. Bordeaux from Uchida. Blanc Noir from Frères Soulier. It’s the sort of program that not only sets a philosophical tone, but then delivers it masterfully, from someone who’s not riding in their first rodeo. 

No surprise, then, that Libertine has become such a hot table in town. Mackinnon, Pruitt, and team are largely beating the French at their own game.

Vincent Charlot, L’Écorché de La Genette Rosé Champagne, 2014 ($160/bottle)

Charlot is one of the wild-eyed experimenters of Champagne — biodynamically farming his parcels in mostly lesser known villages around Epernay. When his wines hit, they are thrilling and unexpected, as with this rosé from a single plot of old vines in the town of Mardeuil. It’s the epitome of serious, food-friendly pink wine.

Calmette, Serpent à Plumes Vin de France, 2020 ($75/bottle)

Maya Sallée and Nicolas Fernandez have dedicated themselves to impeccable (again, biodynamic) farming and fun, laissez-faire expressions of wine in the most improbable spot: the appellation of Cahors, ancestral home of malbec. This mixes that grape with merlot for a red that’s just the right touch of feral, a whole lot mellow, and endlessly juicy.

Back in the early mists of time, somewhere around 2003, one of the seminal natural-wine restaurants could be found in the wilds of Red Hook, at 360 Van Brunt St. 360 was a nexus for a lot of what would become the template for today’s natty boom: néobistro cooking that was French but not forcibly so, and notably, a selection of wines that might have been “nonconformist” but didn’t yet have a nomenclature. Its co-owner and sometimes chef Arnaud Erhart, was recognized as one of New York’s seminal figures in natural wine, and its manager, Jorge Riera, has gone on to prominence (you might recognize his name if you’ve enjoyed a glass at Frenchette or Le Rock).

I mention this because Oma Grassa, which opened last year in a far less remote part of Brooklyn — in the shadow of Barclays Center — exudes the same sui generis spirit, with a naturally tilting but omnivorous wine list that reminds me more of 360 than nearly anything that has come in the interim.

Here, again, it’s a chef penning the list — in this case, Adam Baumgart, an experienced chef who’d cooked at restaurants like Prune, Diner, and Houseman. This menu however is rather different: Baumgart has turned himself to pizza, namely New York-style pies baked in an electric oven; a handful of vegetables and an antipasti plate round out a sleek menu. But Baumgart’s eye for exceptional wine is especially worth calling out; dedicated students of the natty canon will be satisfied (riesling from Stein, reds from Le Coste) but there is none of the copycatting that manifests on so many lists about town. Someone — namely Baumgart — was paying attention in order to have found Maxime Troncy’s fizzy Galipet, or white Bordeaux from Domaine De L’Alliance, and even moreso to do it while barely topping out at $100 per bottle. Earlier this spring, Baumgart had Avis de Vin Fort from the Loire’s Breton family, one of the original reds cosplaying as rosé. It’s a wine I’d first discovered back at 360, in prehistoric times. The lineage was clear as day.

Domaine De L’Alliance Exterior Bordeaux Blanc, 2018 ($65/bottle)

Proof of Baumgart’s keen wine-hunting skills are evident in him knowing about L’Alliance — a small property in what’s effectively the Sauternes area. They do make a stellar sweet wine, but their dry whites, are studies in low-key beauty. This is mostly sauvignon blanc from a few parts of Bordeaux, and it’s everything good about that grape when it’s speaking softly rather than screeching. Sancerre lovers, take note.

Tunia Chiassobuio 2013 ($75)

Proof of the nascent energy in generally sleepy Tuscany these days — a relatively young estate owned by Chiara Innocenti and Francesca di Benedetto (the two women’s husbands make wine at big-deal Italian properties, namely La Stoppa and Cantina Margo), on land given up by the University of Florence, with vines planted to the roster of Chianti Classico grapes. That’s effectively what this is, if not by name — mostly sangiovese, in unadorned form, with just a bit of age. A perfect pizza wine for 2023.

One thing in NYC wine is for sure, and that’s if you encounter a list from Joe Campanale, it’s going to be exceptional — whether it was his early work at Anfora (in case you’re sensing a theme), or lately at Fausto and LaLou. Campanale’s expertise is Italy, although with solid navigation of France and California. But with Bar Vinazo, he and his partner Ilyssa Satter have forged into new territory, namely Spain.

The menu from chef Silvia Garcia-Nevado brings gildas, croquetas, now-omnipresent conservas, and other sundries not often previously seen on this stretch of Park Slope’s 7th Avenue. And the wine side keeps similar pace: a balanced, curious set of selections from all corners of Spain, with a healthy dose of emerging talent (Anna Espelt in Catalunya, Cume do Avia in Ribeiro) and more than a few references (Rioja’s Lopez de Heredia, natch). Pay extra attention to the “Macerado” page of skin-contact wines. And in addition to a standout selection of sherries by the glass, don’t skip the selection of white wines from Andalusia: These unfortified wines from Jerez and nearby are quickly becoming the future of southern Spanish wine, and Campanale is, as usual, ahead of the curve. 

Cota 45 Ube Paganilla, 2020 ($75)

The long awaited arrival of unfortified wines from Jerez is pretty thrilling — these are white wines with some of the character of dry sherry but the weight of a table wine. Ramiro Ibáñez has become a master of the form in Sanlucar de Barrameda, the most coastal of the sherry towns. Paganilla is from two plots near Sanlucar, essentially an unfortified manzanilla sherry — salty and tangy and the perfect thing while you’re snacking.

Envinate Misturado Ribeira Sacra Tinto, 2021 ($90/bottle)

Envinate, the wine collab started in 2005 by four friends, has become one of the most thrilling labels to follow in Spain. Misturado is their homage to the old-fashioned wines of Ribeira Sacra: a mix of mostly red (mencia) and a bit of white grapes from century-old vines, which provide a perfume and spice that shows why this steep-sloped region remains one of the world’s special places for wine.

This sliver of a space on Orchard Street is precisely the kind of restaurant that shows how New York can achieve more by thinking small in terms of dining. Born out of a pandemic pop-up, it has become a stage for owners Jordan Anderson and Amir Nathan to showcase their collision of American Jewish and Israeli Mediterranean cooking (Nathan is from Israel, Anderson from New Jersey, and between them they cut a swath through important NYC spots: Maison Premiere, Mas Farmhouse, Olmsted, and so on). 

Perhaps because of their time running a pop-up out of the kitchen at nearby The Ten Bells, they also have an eye for the sorts of wine that flex with decisively flavored food — a concise list of mostly French, slightly eclectic choices that reads like a roster of talented minimalist producers. This means Champagne from Bourgeois-Diaz, chenin blanc from California’s Craig Haarmeyer, the Auvergne’s Marie and Vincent Tricot. Again, prices rarely top $100 per bottle, save for a full page of magnums (!!) and of course the fanboy-magnet wines of Gabrio Bini’s Serragghia in Italy. If it’s not earth-shattering, it’s not supposed to be — just joyous and charming and right-sized for 2023.

Milan Nestarec Moravia Fork & Knives Rosé, 2019 ($85/magnum)

With a summer like this, what we all could use is a magnum of rosé — and Nestarec is the perfect person to provide it. The Czech winemaker is serious in his craft, but not the styling of his wines (as the meme-ready illustrated label demonstrates). This is usually a mix of cabernet franc and zweigelt, for a rosé with a lot of spice and a lot of fruit — and an antidote to another month of damp, hot, and smoggy.

Chateau Falfas Les Demoiselles Bordeaux Rouge 2020 ($68/bottle)

Falfas has been one of the pioneers of biodynamics in Bordeaux — especially surprising when you consider their land is in the little-acknowledged region of Bourg. But these are beautiful, fruit-juicy wines (in this case mostly from merlot), with enough guts for a hangar steak or the vegetal tang of muhammara.

Perhaps in a spirit not totally unlike Sami & Susu, St. Jardim quietly snuck into existence mid-pandemic, in the fall of 2021, the creation of first-time restaurateurs Christa Alexander and Andrew Dete, in the old Bar Sardine space. Jardim is more all-day cafe than would-be wine bar — which means coffee and granola in the morning, snacky food mid-day, and then a compact list of mostly small plates at night: fingerling potatoes with aioli and trout roe, ricotta with za’atar pesto, sizing up to a strip steak with green peppercorns at a modest $35.

Perhaps it is a wine bar, then, because the dishes are there to support a savvy, grown-up list that packs a lot into eight pages. That includes 20 Champagnes from important names (Calsac, Lahèrte, Emmanuel Brochet); a full page of skin-contact wine, with nods to both Old and New Worlds; a “last call” page with some standout deals; and a general sense of where the drinking zeitgeist lies these days. If this part of the West Village hasn’t always felt au courant in wine terms, Alexander and Dete have subtly added a strong contender to the fray.

La Grapperie Adonis Vin de France, 2020 ($85/bottle)

Renaud Guettier has mastered an unlikely patch of terroir, in the northern Loire area of the Sarthe. This is the land of pineau d’aunis, which has all the pepper of syrah but the lift of pinot noir (to which it’s not related). Grapperie’s Adonis, from 75-year-old vines, is a quintessential specimen, the perfect red for summer nights.

Terah Wine Co. Ramato San Luis Obispo Pinot Gris ($82/bottle)

Terah Bajjalieh, a Bay Area native, studied in France before making wine in her native California. She specializes in improbable styles of wine from interesting places, and here’s a prime example: “ramato” is the old Italian tradition of making pinot grigio as an orange wine, and here Bajjalieh has done just that from the cool stretches of the Central Coast. It’s a fantastic example of skin-contact wine from the Golden State.

You might deduce that we here at Resy enjoy pizza, and also enjoy wine, and you would be right. At the risk of overpacking this list with both, we’d be remiss not to acknowledge the exciting recent changes at Frank’s Wine Bar, the space from the Frankies Spuntino team on the corner of Court and Luquer Streets. That space has felt like a work in progress since it phased out of being Prime Meats in 2018 — always great for a martini or a glass of rosé but not always sure of itself. But in recent months the Franks have shifted the menu toward individual-sized pies from F&F Pizza, up the street, their collab with baker extraordinaire Chad Robertson of Tartine and uber-pizzaiolo Chris Bianco of Pizzeria Bianco. (Yes, some crust-skeptical folk struggle with the F&F style; we are big fans and are not here for that talk.)

To sweeten the deal, the wine list overseen by Franks beverage director John Burns Patterson recently got an additional glow-up from Zoe Wilkins (who put together a lovely program at the short-lived Bella Dea) — toward a pristine balance of mostly French and Italian, still heavy on Champagne and Burgundy, but feeling a bit more relaxed and wanderlusty. It’s so much of what we want to drink with pizza, and it coming from the Franks means it’s going to be just right.

L’Épicurieux Gamayléon Beaujolais Lantigné, 2019 ($60/bottle)

This young label is run by Charlotte and Sébastien Congretel, protégés of Beaujolais talent Julien Sunier. Gamayléon is from the town of Lantigné, likely the next to get full cru status — certainly as more wines like this are made from there. It’s got that innate mineral energy to balance ripe fruit, another great wine for hot weather. (Ask for a slight chill.)

Giacomo Conterno Cerretta Barbera d’Alba, 2020 ($135)

There are a few clear rules for drinking great wine, and one is: If you encounter a bottle of Roberto Conterno’s barbera, especially where there’s pizza, buy it. Roberto (Giacomo’s grandson) is one of the undisputed masters of Barolo, and if this doesn’t have the gravitas of his single-parcel nebbiolo wines, it’s a perfect specimen of barbera.