Nothing like a little lazy reporting and high-priced Napa Cabernet to get the American people rumbling.

This past Friday a short item by a writer named Becky Brittain appeared on the CNN Political Ticker noting that the wine that would be served at that night’s State dinner, hosted by Laura and George W. Bush, would be Shafer Hillside Select, one of this country’s darlings when it comes to serious wine.

Brittain’s article pointed out that foreign dignitaries attending the G20 economic summit in Washington, heavies including Dmitry Medvedev of Russia and Nicolas Sarkozy of France, would be treated to yummies such as fruitwood-smoked quail and rack of lamb, all washed down by the 2003 vintage of this powerful Cab from the Stags Leap District in Napa Valley. She also wrote that the wine was selling for $499 a bottle at a well-known online retailer, while suggesting that serving such an expensive wine was “a bit peculiar” given that the meeting of world leaders had been called to focus on “a possible world financial meltdown.”

Knowing that this wine, which Wine Enthusiast’s West Coast Editor Steve Heimoff recently rated 96 points, normally costs about $200 a bottle, I immediately concluded that the White House must have been pouring magnums (1.5L bottles), which can go for as much as $400 a pop, but probably not $500. But that factoid was never reported, nor would it have likely mattered to the 580 readers who posted comments before CNN closed its message board.

After thumbing through 33 pages worth of condemnation and support for the White House’s choice to serve Shafer Hillside Select, I was impressed with the sound knowledge of Shafer, and American wine in general, that many exhibited in their comments; yet for every person who said Shafer Hillside Select was an appropriate wine to serve to world leaders, five or six expressed outrage over a perceived “Let Them Eat Cake” attitude.

Here are some of the best postings on the matter—positive before negative:

From Seth: “I don’t have a problem with this. They are the leaders of the world and we should host them appropriately. Symbolic austerity isn’t going to fix the economy.”

From Wrong Focus: “Come on…There are more important things to worry about than the price of a bottle of wine at a dinner with international dignitaries. You are hosting the decision makers of the world; what do you expect, serve them a $20 wine?”

From Katie in San Francisco: “This is more than just an excellent wine; it is one of the top representations of Napa Valley Cabernet Sauvignon…Shafer Hillside Select is the result of the hard work and dedication of the Shafer family and their winemaker, Elias Fernandez. They deserve to have their wine showcased by our president to foreign dignitaries.”

From Mark: “2003?? The 2002 of the same wine was much more seamless and well balanced. Too bad they couldn’t afford the good stuff. On a serious note, the 2003 is still a bit young. I think 10 more years in the cellar will make this wine a much better drink.”

From Paul in Pennsylvania: “Having grown up in the Washington area, I can testify that there are many excellent wine stores in D.C., Maryland and Virginia where Napa Valley Cabernets can be purchased for significantly less than $500. I encourage the relevant White House staff to make like the rest of us and shop around.” [Blogger’s note: the article did quote Laura Bush’s spokeswoman explaining how the White House bought the Shafer at the wholesale rate.]

From Miami for Obama: “I say they all get a 10-piece Chicken McNugget value meal until they come up with a plan that will put some money in my pocket.”

And my favorite, from Los: “The best thing about this article is that it has nothing to do with Sarah Palin.”

Now to keep the dialogue running, what do you think? In these tough economic times, should the White House be pouring one of America’s priciest wines or should it show more leadership and frugality by selecting something less costly?

What do a bottle of Louis Roederer Cristal, the hip-hopper Jay-Z, the year 2000 and Barack Obama’s election as president of the United States have in common? For most people, I imagine not a whole lot. However, I was able to find a meaningful intertwining that came full-circle on election night.

I make no bones about the fact that I robustly supported Obama’s run for the presidency. I voted for him in the New York primary, which Hillary Clinton won; and along with more than 65 million other Americans I voted for him a week ago Tuesday. But that’s not what you care about. You’re curious about this purported tie-in between Obama, Jay-Z (born Shawn Carter), Cristal and the year 2000. So here goes.

As we all know, 2000 was the year George W. Bush was elected president over Al Gore. Say what you will about that controversial election and the Bush administration, but facts are facts. Meanwhile, back in the summer of 2006 Frédéric Rouzaud, the youthful managing director of Roederer Champagne, the maker of Cristal, told a reporter for The Economist that hip-hop artists, rich black athletes and other blingsters, a group that had grown fond of conspicuously consuming Cristal, were not exactly Roederer’s target market. “We can’t forbid people from buying it,” Rouzaud was quoted as saying. “But I’m sure Dom Perignon and Krug would be delighted to have their business.”

Like a mushroom high on fertilizer, up popped Jay-Z—rapper, husband of Beyoncé and owner of the 40/40 Club in New York and other cities. Jay-Z called the Rouzaud statement “racist” and vowed to no longer drink Cristal, serve Cristal at his clubs, or rap about it. He called for a total boycott of Cristal, saying that from then on his high-end Champagne of choice would be DP and/or Krug.

Fast-forward to the weekend before the election, and a flier appeared in the lobby of our Manhattan apartment building. The Obama campaign was asking for volunteers to make get-out-the-vote calls. There were call centers situated all over the city, but the one closest to me was at Jay-Z’s lounge on 25th Street and Broadway. And so for the first time in my life, I volunteered to make calls on behalf of a political candidate. Without knowing for sure, I think I called folks in Susquehanna, Pennsylvania. Regardless, it felt good to take part in the process.

Thus feeling like I had actually done something that might help Obama win, on Monday night, November 3rd, I went into my modest wine collection and grabbed a bottle of 2000 Cristal. Symbolically and a bit ironically, I felt this vintage would be the right Champagne to open if Obama, an African-American, were to win. I also thought what better vehicle to usher in the end of the Bush presidency than a bubbly made in the year he was first elected?

When the race was called at 11:00 p.m. East Coast time, my wife and I popped the cork on that bottle of Cristal. We celebrated with tears of joy and a great sense of pride in the barrier that America had cleared. For an occasion like this, only the best would do.

I’ve got a couple of $64,000-questions for you: Do you believe the very best Spanish wines are worthy of being ranked side-by-side with the great wines from France, Italy and even California? Do Spain’s pricey, scarce, prestigious and top-rated wines deserve to be mentioned in the same breath as wines like Mouton-Rothschild, Romanée-Conti, Ornellaia and Kistler? Personally, I think the answer is yes. And after reading this entry, I’d like to know what you think.

These questions come to mind because last week I attended a small, invitation-only wine tasting of a dozen so-called icon wines from Spain. The host of the tasting, Pancho Campo, president of the Wine Academy of Spain and a Master of Wine (MW), had selected 12 of what he believes are the best wines from his home country, across the full spectrum of Spanish wine styles: cava, white wine, red wine, and dry and sweet Sherry.

The names may be familiar to those who know and love Spanish wine. The aged set was represented by López de Heredia’s Viña Bosconia 1981, while the new wave was covered by wineries including Dominio de Eguren and Muga from Rioja, Clos Mogador from the Priorat, Aalto from Ribera del Duero and Numanthia from Toro. Topping things off were a 1979 vintage palo cortado from González-Byass and a succulent PX from La Cañada in Montilla-Moriles. There was even a yeasty 1998 cava from Gramona to whet the whistle. Campo suggested that if these wines were truly great, they would elicit silence and goose bumps. And truth be told, while the wines were spectacular, I didn’t notice my skim transforming nor did I hear the sound of silence.

That said, these were amazing wines that I wish all enophiles could sample and enjoy. Let’s start with the Gramona ’98 Celler Batlle cava, which spent an incredible seven years on its lees and is swathed in bakery driven aromas of brioche, vanilla and banana. This lovely sparkler has as much in common with Champagne as you’re likely to find from Spain. Only 1,500 bottles were made, and it costs about 50 euros in España. I’d give it a solid 92, making it one of the best cavas I’ve ever had the pleasure of drinking.

Bosconia at 27 years of age offered telling clove, licorice and fine-herb aromas. It was still more fruity than faded or tomato-based, and with persistent elegance it is a wine that will appeal most to traditionalists. Among the modern-style wines, we tried Finca El Bosque 2005 and La Nieta 2005, both made by winemaker extraordinaire Marcos Eguren, and also Aro 2004 from Muga. All are dark, saturated, fully oaked wines with aromas of mocha and chocolate, but also intense black-fruit notes. They are silky, smooth, impeccably balanced and loaded with fruit. All are in the 95-point neighborhood and all cost well over $100 a bottle.

Moving to Priorato, the 2006 Clos Mogador from René Barbier is a bionic wine with lift and pizzazz. Aromas and flavors are one-part berry fruit and one part schisty mineral. It’s an uncomplicated yet complex wine, meaning everyone and anyone could drink it and say, “Man, this is awesome.” It has that kind of magnetic appeal, and as far as Priorat goes, it is the brightest star in a luminous galaxy. 95 points.

Aalto PS 2004 from Ribera is the essence of modern-style winemaking. The nose is pure coconut, mint and kirsch, and that’s because it spends two years in new oak. It’s a fiery, aggressive wine with big tannins and bold acidity. The fact that it weighs in at 16.2% alcohol, however, is alarming. Overall, Aalto PS may be too much of a beast for many palates to harness, but it still has the goods to rate 93 points.

And finally we have Termanthia from Numanthia, a Toro heavyweight made from grapes grown on 140-year-old vines. It’s black and plummy and oozes aromas of Dr. Pepper and Coca-Cola. In the mouth, it’s like cappuccino with a mild tannic bite. This winery, created by the Eguren family, is now property of LVMH, and we can only hope that it remains one of the world’s best producers of bruising reds. The 2005 Termanthia is worth 95-96 points.

And there you have it, the best wines from an extraordinary tasting, and proof that when it comes to high fliers, Spain has as much to offer as anyplace else, maybe even more.

Is analytical wine tasting an art form that can be mastered only by a precious few or blind dart throwing covered up by mountains of descriptors ranging from jammy to sappy to lovely to wretched? According to Luca Maroni, a native of Rome and creator of the trademarked SenseofWine tasting method, it is neither.

For the past 20 years, Maroni, author of the Guide to Italian Wines and 500 Top Italian Wines, has espoused the theory that judging a wine’s inherent quality is uncomplicated and that any wine—be it Haut-Brion or Goats Do Roam—can be assessed by measuring three basic parameters that lead directly to something everyone can understand: pleasure.

Speaking at a recent seminar at New York’s Astor Wines & Spirits, Maroni (above), whose annual SenseofWine tastings in the Eternal City draw more than 20,000 attendees over a four-day period, insisted that if a wine, even one with a great reputation and a high price tag, doesn’t move you in a good way, that’s not your fault; it’s the fault of the wine. “All people have the same receptors. The only difference between one taster and another is the ability to use the brain to process and then explain sensations,” he said.

According to Maroni, wine is pleasurable when its taste genuinely recalls that of the fruit from which it was made. If you ask me, that’s a fair bit of mumbo jumbo. However, I do support Maroni’s assertion that there are but three basic things that impact pleasure: substance (consistency), balance and integrity.

Substance, he said, is any compound that doesn’t evaporate when wine is boiled. Practically speaking, substance is what leads to color, aromas, taste, viscosity and overall texture.

Balance, he added, is achieved when perceived sweetness equals acidity plus bitterness. In essence, a wine is properly balanced when the sweetness (or roundness) of taste is equal to the sum of acidulous compounds and bitter substances (tannins).

And integrity, which is driven by cleanliness and freshness, determines the clarity and quality of sensations perceived. Specifically, Maroni mentioned five common defects that adversely affect a wine’s integrity: sulfur, volatile acidity (vinegar), lactose, fading and overt wood.

While Maroni chooses to break things down for evaluation purposes and then build them back up again to rate his wines on a 99-point scale (he says no wine can achieve a perfect 100 because there will always be another wine to come that will be better), his methods aren’t all that different from what I and my colleagues do here at Wine Enthusiast Magazine. We also consider color, aromas, evolution in the glass, texture, viscosity, mouthfeel, flavor scope, complexity, balance, finish, etc., etc. And while Maroni’s very good to excellent wines struggle to make it to 90 points on the SenseofWine scale, ours do.

Diffetent strokes for different folks, I guess. But at the end of the day, I agree with Maroni’s bottom-line assessment: “Quality is nothing more than the pleasantness of taste.”

If you’re interested in learning more about how the pros judge wine, Luca Maroni will host his first SenseofWine tasting event in the United States. It will be held February 20, 2009, at Cipriani 42nd Street in New York.

Like La Mancha in July, Spain as a source for wine remains hot, hot, hot. Wine and tapas bars have been sprouting up like daisies; retailers are moving Spanish wine like never before; and the variety and number of new Spanish wineries selling their fermented juice in this country continues to rise despite tough financial times.

The other day I attended Spain’s Great Match, an annual multi city wine-and-food event organized by Wines From Spain, the U.S. marketing branch of the Spanish Trade Commission. I’ve been attending the Great Match in New York since its early days in the early ’90s, and I’ve followed the evolution of this trade and consumer gathering from its nascence as a lightly attended but rather exclusive high-end event through its adolescence when the crowds began to grow and some of the best offerings started to disappear.

Now that the Great Match is all grown up (this was the 15th go-around in New York), it is a totally different animal than it was eight, ten or twelve years ago. For starters, the Great Match, while still offering attendees an opportunity to taste a lot of Spanish wine while chatting mostly to sales people, is now a big commercial tasting that welcomes all comers, including a number of importers sporting brands I’ve never heard of. Disappointingly, several of my favorite importers of Spanish wines—outfits like European Cellars and Classical Wines—were nowhere to be found, while a stalwart such as Fine Wines From Spain, a k a Jorge Ordoñez, has noticeably lowered the quality of what it is pouring at the Great Match.

This leads me to a pair of conclusions with respect to importers: one is that Spain has arrived to the point that the Great Match and similar events no longer fall into the must-participate category; two is that importers are convinced that consumers, helped by the wine press and their own experimentation, are familiar enough with top-end Spanish wine that they no longer need to pour their best stuff. Either way you slice it, the result is a lot of everyday table wine being poured and very little on display that would garner 90+ points.

All complaints aside, there were some nice wines at the 44 tables at this year’s Great Match, like a special 2001 “Artisan” bottling from the Rioja producer Lealtanza. This wine, imported by Florencio Navarro of The Artisan Collection, is in wonderful condition and shows touches of both the Nuevo Classico style and the traditional style. Other winners were the 2007 As Laxas Albariño, which I gave 90 points when I tasted it in July, and Bodegas Montecillo’s excellent 2001 Gran Reserva (91 points).

But overall, I’d say it’s time to put the Great back in the Great Match. One of Spanish wine’s premier showcases should include the country’s showcase wines. Here’s hoping they return in 2009.

Syrah Palin is balanced. Syrah Palin is mainstream. Syrah Palin, you are invited to dinner at my house any time you can make it.

And now you’re asking: Mike, did you forget to hit your politico spell-check button? And aren’t you the same guy who recently blogged that John McCranky’s choice for vice president reminded you of the band Molly Hatchet? So fix that typo and explain why you’re now singing the praises of Sarah Palin.

The thing is, I’m not talking about the Alaska governor. I’m talking about a new organic wine from Chile that’s pronounced Pah-LEEN and, by all accounts, is stirring things up at the handful of wine bars and wine shops across the United States that carry it. According to newspaper articles and blogs, Palin’s 2006 Syrah has become red-hot in conservative cities like Houston and, after selling well this past summer, has morphed into vino non grata in free-spirited San Francisco.

Here’s how I discovered Palin (the wine; not the well-read moose hunter). This past Monday, while shopping at New York’s Appellation Wine & Spirits for a couple of decent kosher wines for Rosh Hashanah, I stumbled across Palin in the South America section. I asked Scott Pactor, Appellation’s owner, “What is this?” And Scott, whose store specializes in organic and biodynamic wines, said, “It’s a new organic wine from Chile, and it’s made by your buddy.”

True enough: a few years ago Alvaro Espinoza (above), who I’ve written about many times since 1999 and consider to be one of Chile’s most progressive and talented winemakers, teamed up with partners Sergio Reyes and Juan Carlos Faundez to launch Geo Wines. With vineyards in Chile’s northerly Limarí Valley, Palin, which is a Mapuche word for the small ball used in a primitive field hockey game, is Geo’s organic line. In addition to the Palin Syrah, which debuted with the ‘06 vintage, Geo also bottles an organic Carmenère and Cabernet Sauvignon as well as wines under the Chono and Rayun 8 labels.

But it’s the Palin Syrah, priced at about $12 and characterized by forward fruit, foresty aromas, spice and good overall balance, that is a wine for these times. So after buying and tasting this Syrah—I’d give it 87 points and Best Buy status if I were rating it for Wine Enthusiast Magazine—I called back to the store wanting to know how it was selling in the bastion of liberal elitism that is New York City. And the answer: like caribou burgers in Fairbanks. Pactor told me that he began carrying the Syrah in June, but sales were nothing more than average. In the past couple of weeks, however, Syrah Palin has been flying off the shelves. “I’ve sold 50 cases in the past two weeks, and I’ll go through another 50 cases before the election,” he said, noting that it would normally take three or four times longer to sell a similar wine not named Palin.

As for Espinoza’s take on the situation: “The wine is very good, I think, with character of the place. Not like Ms. Palin.” His words, not mine.

Today more than most days, it is clear that all good things must end. And last night, so ended a helluva an era in New York. After 85 years, Yankee Stadium—the House that Ruth Built and George Steinbrenner resurrected before bailing out for greener pastures and a mountain of greenbacks—played host to its last game. And while I wasn’t there in person to see the big house in the Bronx stage its final act, I did make it to a bunch of games this year, including the penultimate tilt this past Saturday versus the Orioles.

Since arriving in New York City in October 1988 to begin a career in magazine journalism, I’ve taken the D or the 4 train to the Bronx more than 150 times to watch the Yankees play. There were lousy teams in the early ’90s, upstart teams in the mid ’90s and great teams in the late ’90s. Next there were accomplished but flawed teams in the early part of this decade and finally disappointing teams the past couple of seasons. But now that the most famous venue in sports is about to be shuttered and razed, I realize that win or lose, there was no place I’d rather have been on a sweaty summer Saturday afternoon or a crisp October evening than the Stadium.

When I first started going to games in 1989, attendance was meager and good seats were plentiful. There were no Derek Jeters or Mariano Riveras blazing trails to the Hall of Fame; just a bad shortstop named Spike (Owen) and a clueless manager called Stump (Merrill) reminding you that good teams are ephemeral and winning is far from guaranteed. The upside of the times was that you could stash two full bottles of wine in your backpack, and then drink them openly at your seats from plastic cups. Try pulling that stunt in these days of heightened security.

Baseball fans know things changed circa 1995-96, when the team embarked on a playoff run that would last 13 years before crapping out this season. During this span there were so many wonderful days and nights spent at the junction of 161st Street and River Avenue that I could fill a book with recollections. And as the crowds swelled and tickets became more expensive and scarce, I was proud to be a core fan at the greatest forum in American sports.

Now that the Stadium, which will be replaced by a modern monster across the street, is on its way to becoming a relic, I will have to rely on memories: the aforementioned wine smuggling; taking family and friends from as far away as Amsterdam, South Africa, Oregon and Petaluma to their one-and-only Yankees game; seeing no fewer than three playoff or World Series games end with walk-off home runs, including one in the bittersweet fall of 2001; and of course always heading back to the subway with “New York, New York” ringing in my ears, be it Sinatra after a win or mournful Liza Minnelli after a loss.

Who knows what the new Yankee Stadium will bring. I don’t foresee 26 championships, although hopefully there will be a night like the one in October 2003, when Aaron Boone silenced the Red Sox one more time before the Bostonians finally got our number the following year. Saying good bye to an old friend, especially one that has been such a big part of my adult life, is really hard. Too bad nothing good lasts forever.

If you have a favorite Stadium moment or memory, please share. The possibilities are potentially endless.

Time, it is said, heals all wounds. And while that’s true to an extent, such a sentiment ignores the scars and bad memories that certain horrible events leave behind forever.

Seven years ago this morning I was having breakfast and probably reading some article about the Yankees and their push toward a fourth consecutive World Series. An airplane passed over the top of our West 23rd Street apartment, and I remember saying to myself, “that sounded awfully loud.” Within ten minutes the phone rang, and my wife, calling from her midtown Manhattan office, said, “Turn on the TV. A plane just crashed into the World Trade Center.” No sooner did I turn on the tube, and a second airplane smashed into the other twin tower.

Up to the rooftop of my building I went, and from our water tower I stood in shock for about 45 minutes, barely believing what was happening. With my own eyes, I looked about three miles to the south and watched both towers belch smoke and crumble in a mushroom cloud of dirt, dust and hate.

Downstairs I retreated, and for the next few days (weeks, for that matter) New York would be filled with deathly silence offset only by the piercing howls of police and ambulance sirens. I still recall the acrid stench of Ground Zero and the myriad negative thoughts I had about the status of the world and the future of New York City and the United States.

At least we didn’t lose any close personal friends in the attacks, and for that I remain grateful. Sadly, thousands of other New Yorkers were less fortunate. They did lose loved ones, and I can only wonder to what degree their wounds have healed. Have they been able to get on a plane and travel? Have they been able to accept the fact that most people in this world are nonviolent and good at heart? Have they been able to let loose and enjoy something as simple as a play, a movie or a ballgame? I hope so but can understand if not. Having a loved one stolen from you must be the worst feeling on earth.

In the aftermath of 9/11, I thought New York would make a bold statement by rebuilding the World Trade Center as quickly as possible. I imagined it would take ten years for the site to be completely redone—memorial, train station and office buildings included. But anyone who has been down to Ground Zero recently knows that big business, victims groups and politics have stalled rebuilding. When the World Trade Center will be fully rebuilt is anyone’s guess, and maybe that’s not as negative as you might think; maybe not having to see replacements for the twin towers helps people move on. Out of sight, out of mind, right?

On the other hand, I still cringe when I see a low-flying jet over Manhattan. A hovering helicopter is a reminder of what once happened right here. The smell of burning plastic continues to trigger ugly memories. Seven years is a long time…and not long at all.

Along with change, the past two weeks of heavy politics have thrust another buzz word onto our plates: Elite along with its derivatives, elitist and elitism.

Webster’s defines elite as the top of the heap; the cream of the crop; the best in a certain class. It also says the elite are persons who by virtue of position or education exercise much power or influence. It doesn’t say the elite must be rich and live in major cities; yet if we’re talking about wine collecting, let’s be honest: wealth and access to what’s good and ageable matter most.

Personally, I’m not a big collector of wine. I believe wine is meant to be drunk and enjoyed when fresh and vital, not saved like a keepsake that tarnishes and then gathers dust. However, there was a time when I bought and cellared a lot more wine than I do today, a time when I naively hoped to build a sizable private collection. And that time was before wine became so expensive that only those with big bucks could dabble in collecting.

Take Château Montrose, for example, the nexus of my modest wine collection. A bottle of the highly regarded 1989 vintage of this classified-growth Saint-Estephe cost me less than $30 when I bought it in 1993. Today it is worth at least $150, which is fine and dandy but not my point. Guess how much the just-released 2005 Montrose costs: $145 at one Los Angeles shop; $135 at Zachy’s, one of the New York area’s best but priciest wine stores. It’s pricing like this that has forced a working journalist like myself to pretty much give up on collecting, and I don’t think my story is unique. Even gasoline, the current measuring stick for runaway pricing, hasn’t seen inflation of 500% over the past 15 years.

What I haven’t given up on is taking note of wine trends. And while I get the impression that the Pinot Noir craze is fading at about the same pace at which people are associating the actor Paul Giamatti more with John Adams than Miles in “Sideways,” rosé seems to have rumbled through yet another summer.

On Labor Day, for example, the rosé was flowing on the rooftop of the Soho House, a quasi urban country club in New York’s meatpacking district. Sitting but ten feet away from us was Boris Becker (above), my favorite tennis player 15 to 20 years ago, along with his fiancée and entourage. And what were they drinking on a gorgeous no-humidity day? Rosé…and plenty of it. Makes me wonder if we may soon see a new ad for a particular rosé region: “Boom Boom Becker here on behalf of Bandol. Game, set and a perfect match with whatever I’m serving.” And then Boris tees up one of his patented aces.

Finally, let’s have some fun in this tense election year. If you could attach the name of a famous band to each of the Final Four candidates in the upcoming presidential election, what would you suggest? Here are mine:

Barack Obama: Journey; from Hawaii to Harvard and from the South Side of Chicago to the Senate and maybe the White House.
Joe Biden: Train; perfect for a guy who keeps telling us that he commutes to and from Washington every day on Amtrak.
John McCain: Rage Against the Machine; his acceptance speech included 43 mentions of the word “fight.” That’s a lot of anger.
Sarah Palin: Molly Hatchet; if you caught her speech in St. Paul, need I say more?

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.

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