All About Wines
Fine Dining
Estate visits, cellar tours, and tastings. WSET Level 2 certified.
The best meals aren't just about food. They're about the room, the service, the moment everything comes together. Here's where I document the tables worth every reservation.
Absinthe, Gamay, and a Demi-Sec: Drinking Through Four Courses at Pineapple & Pearls
A pairing has to work twice as hard in a room with balloons on the ceiling and pop music at volume. At Pineapple & Pearls, four pours carried four courses, and one of them fixed a dish I otherwise didn't love.
The Sake Was the Best Thing in My Glass at The Inn at Little Washington
The Inn at Little Washington has held the Wine Spectator Grand Award every year since 1995. I took the pairing, tasted five pours across four hours, and came away with a complicated answer.
I Skipped the Wine Pairing at Per Se. Here's What I Drank Instead.
Per Se's wine program has held the Wine Spectator Grand Award every year since 2013. Instead of ordering the standard pairing, I built my own four glasses with the sommelier, from a grower champagne to Thomas Keller's favorite dessert wine.
Ten Glasses at SingleThread: The Full Drink Pairing
The evening opened with a 2015 Dom Pérignon and closed on a rooftop with a 2014 Château d'Yquem. Here is everything in between.
The $245 Decision You Should Not Skip at Smyth
Wine Director Louis Fabbrini built Smyth's pairing program around small-production, minimal-intervention wines chosen for emotional cadence over prestige. The $245 sequence moves across six countries and two decades. This is not a flight. It is a case being made, one glass at a time.
Glass by Glass Through the Joël Robuchon Grand Cru Pairing
Nine pairings. Champagne to Sauternes, Alsace to Burgundy, a 2005 Pauillac with braised Wagyu cheeks. The Grand Cru pairing at Joël Robuchon is its own evening inside the evening.
Eight German Bottles and One Very Strange Vinegar
Most restaurants at this level default to France. Sühring defaults to Germany, and it makes the case course by course. Eight pairings built around producers most fine dining lists wouldn't go near, plus a Pinot Blanc-based drinking vinegar aged a decade in oak that nobody sees coming.
The Wine Pairing at Jungsik Is Its Own Meal
Jungsik holds three Michelin stars in Tribeca, the first Korean restaurant in the US to reach that number. The wine program is built to match. Seven pairings across the tasting menu, each one chosen with a specific argument in mind.