I began making my own wine a few years ago. While I had a great time during the entire exercise, the results have been less than stellar. With enthusiasm, I bought grapes, crushed them, let them macerate for a time, added yeast for fermentation assistance, racked and bottled my wine. I went through this exercise for three years running and have many bottles of so-so wine.

My wines, from my I Due Gatti label, apparently are not the only bad homemade wine. Many people have told me this but no one has been more convincing than David Lecomte, the winemaker at City Winery. In the midst of an interview with David for another website, we began to speak about the difficulty of making wine in such small quantities. He gently reminded me that with a very small quantities, everything is dependent on when you do each step. If you are off by one or two days with anything, it can totally change your product and in some cases, ruin it. Blending from different barrels would smooth defects out and help to correct imbalances or make stylistic changes. With my limited amount of wine, I of course, had no recourse to do any of that. Relieved, I think I may not give up home-winemaking but may begin to take part in larger productions at a facility under the careful and intelligent eye of a wine maker.

City Winery is a very appealing place to have dinner as well as a drink. I went to a dinner last month hosted by Maslow 6. I wrote about one of the wine makers and his wines, Olivier Cousin, in another post but I didn’t mention the food. We had a long involved menu but what I remember most clearly were the short ribs. Delicious. Music is a very big part of the draw at City Winery as well. Many artists perform on their super technological stage.

My favorite musician, Bruce Springsteen, was on The Daily Show last night, playing a song from his new album Working on a Dream and speaking with Jon Stewart. I adore Jon Stewart and he usually has me in stitches but yesterday he seemed like a star struck Jersey guy. I can well understand. As a Jersey girl, Bruce has the same effect on me. Even if I was from Diamante in Calabria, he would have that effect on me.