The wine that made me love wine
The wines that changed me and my friends—and how to find yours.
Before I moved to New York, I spent most of my time and money at a beer & wine shop in Virginia, called Dominion Wine & Beer. At the time, I preferred beer: DIPAs, Saisons, and Stouts. This shop had the most diverse and thoughtfully curated selection I’ve seen, featuring brands from all over the world and regional favorites. They knew every single detail about each one. These people really cared.
I became friends with everyone there—drinking all the samples, gabbing, and learning about different brewers and producers. Everyone there had impeccable taste. I trusted their recommendations and I was down to try anything.
They had recently hired a new wine guy. He had a RBF, but he was incredibly passionate whenever you talked to him about a good wine. He was waxing poetic about a new producer that arrived in shop: Antiquum Farm from Willamette, Oregon.
It was a beautiful bottle. Small run, hand-labeled by the family, ribbon neatly splayed on its neck, with a white wax-dipped cork. It was ~$40 then. More than I’ve ever spent on a single wine. $40 felt too indulgent for something I couldn’t wear and too fleeting for something I would drink in less than a couple of hours.
But here I was at the shop, wanting to impress the wine guy. So I bought it.
This wine changed me. It struck me—hit me sideways and made me think about what I was drinking. I always loved analyzing the taste of things but it was never that serious… until this wine.
Antiquum (antick—queue—um) Farm is your favorite wine producer’s favorite producer.
This is the brainchild of Stephen Hagen: a former garden designer and Oregon native. As beverages go, he felt that wine was the closest expression to art. The ability to shift, form, and cultivate a medium into something extraordinary.
Antiquum Farm employs a "grazing-based agriculture”, which is a symbiotic relationship with animals to help manage the vineyards, creating a sustainable and natural composting cycle. They have sheep, pigs, dogs, geese, chicken, and ducks that graze the vineyards throughout the year. No fertilizers or pesticides. This type of winemaking is about as natural as it can get.
There’s something about the first wine you love.
It can change the feeling in a room. You start to dissect it. Where did it come from, who made this, how did they make this? You pinpoint every detail, because you need to understand how it’s possible to make something taste this good.
This experience has happened to me a few times in good company:
With one friend, it was a Brut Reserve Champagne from Pol Roger at a vineyard.
With another, it was the Moscato Bianco from Tenuta Foresto at Petit Paulette in Fort Greene.
With my partner, it was a carbonically macerated Syrah from Do.t.e. shared at home.
Yours will be different than ours, but it’s about the openness to try. Take a chance with someone you trust: a wine seller, a server, a friend. I wouldn’t have bought that wine, but I’ll never turn down a good-hearted recommendation. And it became one of my most memorable experiences.
Most recommendations you receive won’t be exactly your taste. But all it takes is the right one to change your perspective.
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