In the past, the cavernous space at 213 N. 8th St. in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, was a creamery, a funeral home and a nightclub. But since opening there in 2010, Brooklyn Winery has felt like the right fit for the rapidly gentrifying neighborhood and foodie destination.
“We had to seal up the foam vent,” head winemaker Conor McCormack explains, concealing the vestigial remains of the nightclub days. In replace of the dance floor are giant containers of grapes fermenting, towering distillers and a room of 350 barrels aging 18 different wines. Last year, the winery produced 9,000 cases. Working with 11 separate vineyards, McCormack is still experimenting and expanding the inventory.
Brooklyn Winery is also devoted to education, offering weekly courses on wine and frequent tours of the winemaking process for $35.
McCormack's wines help guide the conjoined dimly lit, wood paneled restaurant that caters to a casual clientele with food that borders on fine dining. McCormack and head chef Michael Gordon recently collaborated on a five-course tasting menu to show off Brooklyn Winery’s approach. Below is Gordon’s menu and McCormack’s commentary on the wine pairing.
Roasted Beets, curried cider poached apple, watercress puree and coconut milk with 2012 Barrel Riesling from Finger Lakes, N.Y.
“It’s unusual to age Riesling in barrels. It would have been something that really happened a lot before stainless steel tanks were invented. It’s a bit of a hark back to an old school technique. But I really, really like the results when I started playing around with it. The fruit comes from Seneca Lake…It’s barrel fermented and barrel aged about nine months. The fruit was grown by the guys over at Anthony Road Wine Company…It’s aged in 15-year-old barrels, so it doesn’t impart and new oak flavor. It’s more oxidative. More oxygen gets through the barrel, so there is more of a textural component. It softens the mouth feel for a creamy mouth feel and we find that worked really well with the buttery component of the puree and the beets.”
Shitake Mushroom Custard, shaved kabocha and scented with kaffir lime leaf with 2012 Barrel Chardonnay from Finger Lakes, N.Y.
“You’re probably all familiar with barrel chardonnays because they exist all over the world as these big, heavy, oaky butter bombs. This is a take that’s not quite that. If you use a lot less new oak and a more refined technique you can get tons of flavor without it being heavy. It’s barrel fermented in neutral barrels—there’s not a lot of new oak barrels. The more important thing is we age it Sur Lees, which means, on the leaves. So that sentiment drops out into the barrels and we stir it up every two weeks. That helps build up texture in the mid-palate and flavor as well, which we found works really well with this custard and the earthiness of the mushrooms.”
Moulard Duck Breast, braised rainbow chard, chocolate, chile and a vanilla-chive tuille with 2011 Cabernet Sauvignon from Napa, Calif.
“This is an interesting vintage, 2011. If you guys are familiar with the 2011 vintage in California, it was a very odd, cool vintage for them. So I have a lot of friends who were like, ‘I don’t know what to do with these ‘11s.’ For me, I embrace it. I’m like, ‘Oh, this is fun. This is like California from the 70s and early 80s. This is how they used to make wine. It’s much more European style, a little bit leaner, a bit greener. You’re going to get more earthiness components. You’re not going to get those big, huge Napa fruit bomb. This is what Cabernet in its essence really is. So we’re talking about lower alcohol [content], about 12.5 percent, a thinner body. It hits those earthy components, that fresh jalapeño pepper, kind of a spicy component. And then as we were tasting this and going through with the gaminess of the duck, it just sung. This cabernet worked the best because of the bitterness of the sauce and the sweet element of the vanilla, it just all chimed. This vineyard is more at the southern end of Napa, more at the cooler end of Napa, if you can even call it that. But I thought it was a distinctive wine from a distinctive vineyard.”
Buttermilk Semifreddo with Concord grape ice and lemon verbena
“[The wine is] actually in the grape. This is a little bit of a break. It’s a palate cleanser before the last dish. This grape came in today, a petit sirah. It’s very fragrant. Wine grapes are actually sweeter than table grapes. They have a high amount of sugar. It’s an interesting wine and a grape—sirahs—because there’s nothing petit about it. It’s a massive, massive wine. Very deep in color, big in tannins.”
Sweet Potato Tart, Middlebury blue cheese, red wine, brûléed caramel and walnut crust with 2011 Old Vine Zinfandel from Lodi, Calif.
“This is a pretty special vineyard from our in Lodi, California. Zinfandel is a good example of a grape that cannot grow on the east coast. The skins are way too thin, they would be decimated by humidity. So fortunately I can bring it in and make wine from all over the country. This vineyard was actually planted in two blocks. The first block was planted in 1960 and the next block in 1965. So this is an old vineyard—big bushes, very sandy. When you have an old vineyard like that, it produces a lot less fruit, but the fruit it does produce is really intense. So this works for a dessert. This is a very good example of a big, modern style wine, whereas that Cabernet before was very old school, very Old World. It works well with the sweetness of this dessert because it’s an illusion of sweetness in the wine. There’s actually no sugar in it. It’s very fruity, very round.”
Some of this may sound a bit heady for the novice wine drinker, but an evening spent at the Brooklyn Winery will have anyone immersed and engrossed.
