Last night we got invited to visit City Winery, New York’s first private label winery.  City Winery is the brainchild of Michael Dorf, an NYC entrepreneurial visionary who founded the Knitting Factory.  Dorf and his team have transformed an old warehouse on Varick in the western reaches of Soho into a bi-level winery with tons of amenities, including 2 wine bars, professional kitchen, dining space, private event space, huge barrel room, stage for live music and events and much more.    After a quick tour of the facilities, we were put to work — fun work– de-stemming Cabernet grapes that had just arrived by refrigerated trucks.  In fact, these very cabernet grapes that we were handling were hand-picked less than a week ago from one of several sourcing vineyards in Napa selected by City Winery.  City Winery also sources its grapes from the Russian River Valley, Mendocino, Willamette Valley in Oregon and from local vineyards in the North Fork and Finger Lakes regions.  I have to say there is something strangely therapeutic about moving your hands through cold, wet freshly picked grapes (actually look more like blueberries).  We worked on the de-stemming line until vertigo had just about set in and then sampled some pre-feremented Zinfandel and Rose.

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