Summer is hanging on in New York, but for a moment imagine a crisp winter’s day in Soho. On go the boots, gloves, scarf and hat, and soon you’re off to check out the spring line at Prada or some overpriced piece of home design at Moss. Your hunger is sated with a frisée salad and fries at Balthazar or a pile of Asian-style noodles at Kelley & Ping. But you’re also thirsty for a glass of good wine, something you’re not about to find at old Soho watering holes like Fanelli’s or Milady’s.

But have no fear wine-loving fashionistas and Euro-toting visitors to the Big Apple; because within the next few months there will be a spot in Soho where you can stop in for an honest glass of Chablis or Oregon Pinot Noir. Or if you are a member, you can head over to the soon-to-open City Winery to taste your own wine, or at least check on its progress.

From the mind of Michael Dorf (right in photo above), founder of the Knitting Factory, one of Manhattan’s top live-music venues from the late ’80s until recently, City Winery, New York’s first true urban winery, is in the works and should be complete before the year is up. At 21,000 square feet, City Winery is now taking form in an old red-brick structure on Varick Street between Spring and Vandam Streets that used to house El Diario, a Spanish language newspaper. Wine will be made this fall, says Dorf, and members are being sought.

Huge in scope as well as fancy, City Winery will rank as New York’s first legitimate winery since Shapiro’s Kosher Wines on the Lower East Side closed down in 2001. It will feature all of the requisite hardware needed to make wine, but also a pair of wine bars, a cheese bar run by Murray’s, a restaurant and a state-of-the-art live performance space.

So where journalists once toiled there are now gleaming stainless steel fermentation tanks, and when I paid Dorf a visit last week, 300 oak barrels were being offloaded from a pair of semi trailers. “We want to be something different, something utilitarian,” said Dorf, who seemed optimistic in hoping to be ready for business by November/December of this year.

“We will be making wine, not buying it,” Dorf said, noting that City Winery is paying about $5,000 a ton for premium grapes from 14 different American vineyards (most in California but some in Oregon and New York State). In the spring, he hopes to make additional batches of wine from grapes imported from Argentina, Chile and other Southern Hemisphere countries. To preserve quality, Dorf said fruit will be shipped only in small bins, in refrigerated trucks sealed with carbon dioxide to prevent any spoilage and/or oxidation. “Fruit will go from vineyard to us in four to seven days.”

City Winery will be open to the public, but to make and own wine will require a membership ranging in price from $5,000 a year (plus the cost of grapes, barrels and labeling) up to $12,000 a year, depending on what one wants to do with their wine, what type and how much wine they want to make, and how much private time they spend tasting and blending with winemaker David Lecomte (left in photo). A $50 VinoFile membership provides access to winemaking classes and notification of upcoming events, live shows and wine dinners.

“I started in this business with the Violent Femmes playing in a 450-square-foot room. So I can envision a band like Wilco on the stage, playing a VIP concert while everyone enjoys good wine and food. That’s what I see happening here,” Dorf said.

Imagine the smell of fermenting wine and the sights, sounds and flavors that go with it. Sure beats the stench of old beer at Fanelli’s or Foreigner’s “Urgent” playing on the juke box at Milady’s.

Last week I sat down to a press dinner at Dovetail, chef John Fraser’s progressive new restaurant on Manhattan’s Upper West Side (three deserving stars each from the NY Times and NY Magazine). On the menu was gazpacho with watermelon and white anchovies; a rabbit raviolo studded with golden raisins and picholine olives; a grilled scallop dotted with artichokes and bathed in salsa verde; and a plate of quality cheeses ranging from a domestic blue to manchego to Greek feta. Even the old campground favorite of a dessert offering—s’mores—had me fired up to dig in.

So what would you expect the wine pairings to be for such an ensemble of refined dishes? I’m sure Tara Gray, Dovetail’s knowledgeable sommelier, could have gone with a reserve-level Cava with the soup; cru Beaujolais or a medium-bodied Pinot Noir with the ravioli; Austrian or Australian Riesling with the scallops; and a selection of Port wines with the cheeses and sweets. And that would have been a lineup I would have approved of with no questions.

But on this night, all the wines being poured were Sherries (huh?). In fact, this dinner of fine food matched with finos, manzanillas and olorosos from the likes of El Maestro Sierra, La Gitana and Emilio Hidalgo was sort of a coming-out party for the newly formed Sherry Council of America, a producer-sponsored trade association based in Washington, D.C. whose goal is to promote Sherry as an everyday option for American wine consumers. Practically speaking, however, the group’s mission might just as well be getting Americans not to cringe or say “What the F&*%?” when Sherry is mentioned or placed in front of them.

On one hand, promoting Sherry via advertising, awareness campaigns and sponsoring big Spanish-themed events like the premier of Woody Allen’s new film, “Vicky Cristina Barcelona,” is smart. While Spain’s overall wine star continues to shine brightly, Sherry’s sales numbers in the United States have in recent years taken a dive. To say Sherry ranks among the most misunderstood and underappreciated wines in the world—a muse of sommeliers and connoisseurs but no friend of the average wine drinker—is no overstatement. On the other hand, I say fat chance achieving such goals, especially when most wine lovers in this country just don’t seem to like the stuff. It’s like selling baseball to Argentineans or the French; they aren’t buying into the sport no matter how much we like it.

Interestingly, the Sherry council’s director Marc Destito and its media relations head Jean Card asked me how I would go about promoting Sherry. Would I emphasize Sherry’s intricacies like the solera blending system and its long history as a product for export? Or would I position Sherry as a “cool” option for Millennials, the under-30 segment of the wine-drinking market that seems intent on learning all that it can about wine?

I answered all of the above while noting that the only true path to being enlightened would be for everyone to taste chef Fraser’s deft cooking paired with hand-picked, perfectly chilled Sherries served from dainty little copitas (photo above, Sherry is poured straight from the cask). If that were to happen, all would be revealed and it would become apparent that Sherry is unique, sublime, contextual and complementary to a wide range of foods.

Sadly, that is not going to happen, thus the future of Spain’s proprietary fortified wine here in the States is about as rosy as that country’s chances of winning the gold medal in basketball this Sunday vs. Team USA. Not very good.

So I’m taking a poll: do you like Sherry or not? Would you like to see Sherry make a comeback here in the States or just go away? And were you as offended as I was by the Spanish national basketball’s team posing for a sponsor’s photo with Chinese-style slant-eyes prior to the Beijing games? For that unfunny, insensitive maneuver alone, Spain deserves a drubbing from LeBron James & Co.

Controversy and contradiction have become the blood and guts of most of today’s blogs, but sometimes there’s room for a little of what’s good in life. A case in point: my just-concluded trip to the Canadian Rockies and Glacier National Park in northern Montana.

Now I’m not sure you’re up for a travelogue, and if you clicked here to download John Denver’s old ditty, then maybe this is as far as you want to go. But for anyone considering a summer escape to what has to rank as North America’s most beautiful, unadulterated terrain, I’ve got recommendations for you.

Let’s start in Banff (Alberta), Canada’s oldest and most renowned national park. Located a little more than an hour west of Calgary, Banff was created in 1885 around a collection of thermal hot springs. However, over the past century Banff has been greatly expanded to include Lakes Louise, Moraine (pictured above) and Minnewanka as well as hundreds of skyscraping peaks, miles and miles of pine forests, and even the 8,000-person town of Banff itself.

We spent three days in Banff, which unless you’re an avid hiker, mountaineer or cyclist is probably the perfect sojourn. Touristic must-sees include a visit to the Fairmont Banff Springs Hotel, a ride up the Banff gondola for a panoramic view of the town and surroundings, and a drive up to Lake Louise and Lake Moraine.

Meanwhile, our hotel, the Buffalo Mountain Lodge, was the essence of mountain chic, and a dinner of grilled quail and bison ribeye served at the lodge’s Sleeping Buffalo restaurant (all washed down with Quails’ Gate Merlot from neighboring British Columbia) was superb. In fact, dining in Banff’s better restaurants is almost guaranteed to be a top-shelf experience. For game lovers, the Maple Leaf Grille on the corner of Banff Avenue and Wolf Street is rock solid and offers wide appeal; but it’s also expensive and touristy, as is all of Banff in peak summer. (Just how many tacky souvenir shops does one town need?) For more creativity and fewer Asian patrons taking digital photos of their elk tenderloin, try Coyotes on Caribou Street or the Bison Mountain Bistro on Bear Street. For quirkiness, fondue and food you cook yourself over hot rocks, the venerable Grizzly House on Banff Ave. is a trip. As for cocktails al fresco, I haven’t had a better mojito than the one made by bartender George Kaplun at Timbers on Wolf Street, while breakfast at Melissa’s on Lynx St. is down-home and delicious. For beers and live music, the Rose & Crown on Banff Ave. is the place to hit.

Five hours to the south, and directly across the border in Montana, is the town of Whitefish and easy access to Glacier National Park. Whitefish is one of these fast-growing mountain communities with just enough modernity and quality to rank as a true destination. Our stay at Betsy and Woody Cox’s Good Medicine Lodge was a treat because it is a modern and comfortable place with a hot tub, complimentary drinks in the evening and excellent breakfasts. Of all the B&Bs we’ve stayed at over the years, Good Medicine has been our favorite. For dinner on Whitefish Mountain, Café Kandahar, a multiyear recipient of Wine Enthusiast’s Award of Unique Distinction, features Andy Blanton’s New Orleans-meets-St. Moritz cooking; and the wine list overseen by manager Dennis Hertrick is uniquely good (Sea Smoke 2005 Southing Pinot Noir with Blanton’s richly sauced game dishes? Yum Yum). We also wined and dined with smiles on our faces at McGarry’s Roadhouse (right across Wisconsin Ave. from Good Medicine Lodge) and at Tupelo Grille, a seemingly out-of-place but very nice southern-inspired restaurant downtown. (Sleight of Hand Gewurztraminer from Washington paired with Low Country Shrimp and Grits? You bet, even in northern Montana.)

As for Glacier, I need to leave some surprises for you. But suffice it to say that it is the most stunning, awe-inspiring park I’ve ever visited, and I’ve been to Yosemite, the Grand Canyon, Yellowstone, Acadia, the Everglades and many others. And it was here, after a number of strike-outs in Yellowstone and elsewhere, that I finally saw grizzly and black bears, as well as bighorn sheep, mountain goats (above) and marmots.

And now I’m back in humid New York City, watching the Olympics and wishing I was still out west. Oh well, we will always have the memories. And should you take this amazing trip, you will as well.

The 18th-century British philosopher Edmund Burke was quoted as saying, “Tell me what are the prevailing sentiments that occupy the minds of your young men, and I will tell you what is to be the character of the next generation.” Apply this pearl of wisdom to what a couple of dedicated young guys are doing at dell’anima, a tiny modern Italian restaurant in New York’s Greenwich Village neighborhood, and I’d say the character of the next generation is beyond reproach.

Last October, dell’anima, which in Italian means “from the soul,” opened on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Jane Street. Since then, I’ve had dinner here a handful of times, leading me to the conclusion that this jewel box of a place is one of New York’s best small restaurants, if not the best. What makes dell’anima so good is that it offers that rare five-pronged combination of outstanding food, intellectual but delicious wines, quality service, ambience and consistency.

Like many restaurants in the Big Apple, dell’anima is a partnership consisting of behind-the-scenes money and in-house talent. The chef is Gabe Thompson, a 34-year-old Texan who cut his teeth at Le Bernardin and Del Posto, a couple of lofty NYC establishments. There Thompson worked in kitchens twice the size of all of dell’anima; here he works with just two sidekicks in a steamy open kitchen not much larger than a closet. Despite such drastic spatial limitations, Thompson’s medium-rare arctic char, wild boar with polenta, grilled rib eye steak and chicken diablo have knocked me out. I also love the restaurant’s opening lineup of bruschette, especially the one topped with lightly scrambled egg and botarga. As for the constantly changing roster of pastas, dell’anima will gladly bring you half portions that allow for greater sampling of the goods.

On the wine side, co-owner and general manager Joe Campanale (age 24) has assembled an all-Italian list chock full of temptation. I met Joe two years ago, just after he had graduated from New York University, before he became a sommelier at Mario Batali’s Babbo, and long before dell’anima came into existence. He was and remains one of the nicest, most humble young guys I’ve ever met. And given his age, his knowledge of Italian wine is mind-blowing. “In 2004 I studied in Italy and spent a lot of my free time visiting wineries,” Campanale told me. “I like traditionally made wines with some age. More than half of our list is from the 1990s. I want to be known as a place where you can come and drink interesting wines, and feel like you got good value.”

In these days of monster mark-ups on restaurant wine, this attitude is refreshing. A couple of weeks ago, with our good friend Ken Ross in from L.A., we indulged in a bottle of 2006 Musíc Bric, a crystalline white blend of Ribolla Gialla, Malvasia and Tocai from the Collio region in northeast Italy. That was followed by the truly excellent 2006 Tenuta delle Terre Nere Guardiola, a Nerello Mascalese grown in the black soils of Sicily’s Mount Etna. A previous meal was enhanced by a bottle of Querciabella 1996 Chianti Riserva, and it was at dell’anima that I first learned of the pleasures of white Lambrusco. While drinking these wines, never once did I think of them as standard fare or not worth the price.

So whether you’re a New Yorker eager for a bacchanal or an out-of-towner in for a visit, do yourself a favor and hustle over to dell’anima. And if you’ve already been, please share your opinions here and tell me what you had to drink. Salute!

A typical Wednesday morning for yours truly starts with a perusal of the New York Times sports section followed by a thorough reading of the Grey Lady’s not-so-monochromatic Dining In/Dining Out section. I’m usually most interested in the restaurant reviews and the Off The Menu transaction wire that chronicles restaurant openings and closings as well as chefs on the move.

Of course, as a wine writer, I always check out Eric Asimov’s Wines Of The Times column, not so much to gather tips (wine journalists hardly ever follow one another’s recommendations), but just to see what he and the paper’s editors consider timely. This week, Asimov profiled California Sauvignon Blanc while noting that the variety is “made successfully all over the world, in lands as different as France, Italy and South Africa; Chile, Argentina and New Zealand.” He calls out the Loire’s minerally style of Sauvignon Blanc and the “brassy, grassy, fruity intensity of New Zealand.” As for Chile, being included in a laundry list of countries that “successfully” grow and bottle Sauvignon Blanc is probably as good as it’s going to get for now.

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When Mother Nature throws you a nasty curveball, you have two choices. You can watch it go by with buckled knees, the way Carlos Beltrán of the Mets did a couple of years ago with his team on the verge of going to the World Series. Or you can hang in there, fight it off, and make the best of a bad situation.

This week, I was hoping to blog about a trip to Bermuda that we had planned for last weekend. I was going to tell you if this oh-so-British island had any true food-and-wine havens, whether the pink-sand beaches are all they’re cracked up to be, and whether I could actually manage a scooter without wiping out. But then an inconsiderate lady named Bertha (as in Hurricane Bertha) showed up in the mid Atlantic, and the idea of spending my birthday on a rain-soaked, wind-swept island didn’t sound too good. So we improvised. And when you live in New York City, it’s awesome what you can accomplish on the spot.

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It has been said that no question is a dumb one. But questions that are almost impossible to answer? They definitely exist. For a wine writer, the most frequently posed difficult-to-answer probe has to be: “What’s Your Favorite Wine?” It is a question I’ve received countless times over the 11 years that I’ve been writing professionally about wine, food and travel, and it’s one that heretofore I’ve dodged.

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Reason 1: Sports!! Did you watch Euro 2008, the quadrennial soccer tournament among European nations? Total domination of Germany in the final; a double demolition of Russia along the way; a quarterfinals disposal of Italy via penalty kicks. The Spaniards won in every way possible, and they looked good doing it. Tell me fútbol fans, who looked better in Vienna on Sunday, Spanish fullback Sergio Ramos channeling Geronimo or a bleeding Michael Ballack? Hasta la vista Germany, Italy, France, Portugal, Turkey, Holland and England (who embarrassingly didn’t even qualify for Euro 2008). For the next four years, Spain reigns over European soccer.
Oh, and did I mention Rafael Nadal, he of the too-tight clam diggers and Pop-Eye’s left arm? The dude has never lost a match at the French Open and for the third year in a row he’s going to face Federer in the Wimbledon final this weekend (at least that’s my prediction). What do you think, tennis fans? Will Rafa the Mallorcan muscle man get it done in London come Sunday?

Reason 2: Javier Bardem as Anton Chigurh in the Coen Brothers film version of Cormac McCarthy’s No Country for Old Men. The role of the stone-cold killer can’t be an easy one to play, especially for an actor speaking (or in this case mumbling) in his or her second language. But did Bardem, who grew up in a family of Spanish actors, nail this nut job or what? For the haircut alone I raise a glass in his honor.
Which brings me to a fun question: Who is your favorite Spanish actor/actress? I bet the guys go for Penelope Cruz (excellent in Almodovar’s “Volver”) and the women for Antonio Banderas (the voice of Puss in Boots in the “Shrek” movies? “Spy Kids” 1, 2 and 3-D??).

Reason 3: The 2004 vintage from Dominio de Valdepusa/Marqués de Griñon. Are you familiar with this wine and olive oil estate near Toledo, in La Mancha? If not, then getting to know it through the 2004s is highly advised.
Founder Carlos Falcó has been a visionary in this region and throughout Spain since the 1970s. He was the first Spaniard to champion varietal wines made from non-indigenous grape types like Syrah, Petit Verdot and Cabernet Sauvignon. He has long employed the famed consultant Michel Rolland and, topping things off, in July 2003 the Spanish government established a new category of high-end wines, something called Vinos de Pagos (wines from a single vineyard). Dominio de Valdepusa, a k a Marquès de Griñon, was Spain’s first such property, but as this was making news the winery was making some pretty bad 2002s and 2003s due to adverse vintage conditions. But from 2004, wines such as Summa Varietalis and Emeritus are the best Griñon wines to date. Among internationally styled wines, they are as good as anything coming out of Europe. Unless, of course, you tell me otherwise.

It’s opening day for my blog, in which I will riff on the pros and cons of the global wine, food and travel scenes. With respect to the good stuff, the idea is to steer you to what’s hot, sophisticated, interesting, unique, witty and whimsical. Conversely, by commenting on the busts, bombs and boondoggles that I come across, I’m hoping to help you avoid the pitfalls that can sink a night out or take an important chunk out of a good vacation.

A couple of weeks ago it felt like hell on earth in New York…and for that matter Boston, Philly, Washington and all the way down the East Coast. A pre-summer heat wave drove the mercury up to about 95° for four straight days. It was so hot and humid that one afternoon I actually rode a city bus to avoid walking a half-mile, and I never ride the bus.

Fortunately I was busing it to an oasis of cool air, cool tunes and cool wines. Several months ago iconoclastic wine maven and Canadian-born sommelier Paul Grieco and his chef/partner Marco Canora opened Terroir, an ingenious little wine bar just down East 12th Street from their popular nouveau-American restaurant, Hearth (the pair also owns Insieme in Midtown). I was beating the heat with Ana Maria Cumsille, a hard-bodied Chilean winemaker with a good palate, and José Manuel Ortega, chairman of the ever-expanding O. Fournier wine group. Together we tackled about a half-dozen 3-ounce “tastes,” ranging from a tangerine-tinted Campanian Asprinio to a Tasmanian Riesling to the 1998 Prado Enea, a semi-traditional Rioja made by one of my favorite Spanish wineries, Muga.

If nothing else, the wines were intriguing, and if you know Grieco, that’s par for the course. But the thing that struck me at Terroir is the pure practicality and value to the customer of the “taste,” a.k.a the “pour,” compared to a pricier 6-ounce glass. If I were British, I’d say it’s “bloody brilliant” to be serving wine in smaller quantities. However, because I sound like an idiot when faking an English accent, I’ll just ask you: Who wouldn’t want to taste two wines for the same price and buzz as one?

If I were rating Terroir as I might a wine, I’d have to go 92-93 points. Tanner, our server, never missed a beat. And unlike so many drones in the business, he genuinely seemed to like what he was doing. The wines were all served at just the right temperature, and from good glassware. Overall, the place is comfortable but not what I’d call cozy, with 24 metal stools as the only place to put your rump while you’re sipping and munching on tasty tapas-like snacks, charcuterie and cheeses. Excellent tunes (is that Talking Heads you’re hearing?), beers, bubblies and full bottles from the Hearth list round out the experience. Does this place sound ideal? You bet your sweat rag and bus ticket it does. How do you feel about smaller glass pours for less money?

(Terroir, 413 E. 12th Street, New York; no phone; open daily at 5:00 pm; closed Sundays; www.wineisterroir.com).