Le Pescadou

For a new series of essays (and poems), we have invited some of our contributors to share a story, an episode, an experience that took place at a particular bar–a place that they hold in their memory for one reason or another. We hope you will enjoy reading these stories as they appear each Monday.

by Camille Sweeney

The first time I stepped into Le Pescadou on the western edge of SoHo, it was love. It was Valentine’s Day and I was on a date. A saucy French wench (in drag) on stilts teetered up to us through the raucous bistro, playing an accordion, calling out, “Entrez, entrez vous!”

The mob at the bar hardly noticed us as we squeezed past them into a larger dining room in the back for dinner. I was smitten, but it would only be a matter of weeks before I had dispatched with my date – an entertainment lawyer with anger management issues – and years would go by before I would find my way back to the bar.

Maybe not so coincidentally, my return trip some time in the spring of 1999 was with Josh, the man who would become my husband. This time, I wasn’t marooned in the back room, furtively glancing at the doorway to the bar, but rather I was at the bar with Josh, drinking rounds of yellowy Pernod and meeting a whole new cast of characters.

It turned out Josh not only knew about the place, but also practically everyone in it.

“A local,” boomed Chuck, the owner from Montreal, passing through the front room, dispensing conviviality, bestowing on Josh the highest praise and fervently double-kissing his cheeks.

In fact, Le Pescadou was Josh’s living room. He lived only three doors away. As our relationship progressed, so did my relationship with the bar and all its strange inhabitants.

There was the Chinese-Irish tour guide, the indie filmmakers, the bullish English bondsman, the young widowed producer whose toddler scarfed down fries and toddled around playing choo choo train conductor, pretending to collect tickets (and sometimes real money) from the patrons. There were the trivia heads, the pop star and his tranny girlfriend, the aristocrats, some English, some Italian, some both. There was the former French race car driver and the former Czech model and the science editor and the jazz drummer and the record producer and the actor – all the actors – sharing the bar with the firemen whose firehouse was just up the block. (Those on duty, whipping back espressos, those off duty drinking the harder stuff, warming up before going “out out.”)

Rose, an old woman, who lived nearby, would make her way around the corner and stop to stare in the doorway. Age had baffled her about life but she was sure of one thing, she wanted a little glass of something at her neighborhood bar. Arms were always offered to help her get up the step.

At Le Pescadou, conversation was an art form. Arguments rose and were settled. Relationships bloomed and died. Advice was dispensed and predictions about life, love and the pursuit of happiness were made, some right, but just as often wrong. One man would travel over a hundred blocks to wile away an evening, drinking red wine and quoting Pound or Eliot or Shakespeare to whoever would listen—the drug dealer’s girlfriend, the electrician who moonlighted as a clown, the ad exec who kept a Town car and driver waiting at the corner ready to whisk him home to the suburbs.

Wherever else we’d go on New Year’s Eve, we’d start and end the night at Le Pescadou. Whenever we had cause to celebrate, we’d go there to share the news. Some fellow patrons drove over a hundred miles for our wedding upstate and some met our daughter in the maternity ward just after she was born. (Or, a week later when we brought her to the bar in her sling.)

When snow fell, we’d sit at the bar watching the drifts pile up and the city go quiet as we sipped whiskey neat. When the blackout flipped the switch on the East Coast one steamy August afternoon, we were part of a huge crowd, cheering and toasting Chuck, who’d somehow managed to keep the ice from melting and the drinks flowing late into the night by candlelight.

When tragedy struck, we’d gravitate to Le Pescadou as well. Chuck stayed open in the aftermath of 9/11 and the bar became a place where we mutually grieved and collectively healed. Some of our firemen never returned.

Financially, the place never fully recovered from 9/11. And, eventually, about mid-decade as with many small business owners, Chuck was forced to close. My husband and I would walk by, slowing down to peer into the papered windows, wondering how it could have happened and what would take its place. Inevitably, we’d spot someone else, another local, making his or her way past the empty bar, wondering like us, would life ever be the same?

Camille Sweeney, a MacDowell Arts Colony fellow, a somewhat repentant
initiate of the Rye Bucks Drinking Society at Kenyon College and one-time
blogger (The C Spot: A Guide to the Life Erotic), contributes frequently to
the New York Times and is at work on a novel.

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by Ann Hood

The first time I drank single malt whiskey, I was soaking wet and shivering on the isle of Skye. My then husband and I had been touring Scotland for a few weeks. We’d gone on a midnight Ghost Tour in Edinburgh, looked for the Loch Ness monster, and hiked the highest peak in the Highlands. But somehow we had not even tasted one wee dram of single malt.

Years earlier, I’d had a sip of a boyfriend’s Johnnie Walker and decided that would be my last drink of scotch. Turpentine came to mind when it burned its way down my throat. But for the past three days, Bob and I had been walking around Skye in a steady drizzle. The space heater in our B and B didn’t dry our clothes or warm our bones. By the afternoon that we walked into the local pub, it seemed that I might never be warm again. The bartender asked what we wanted. “Anything to take the chill away,” I said. He placed before me a glass of amber liquid. It smelled like smoke and curled its way around my tongue, instantly warming me.

That whiskey was Talisker, and although I became a fan, the price tag kept me from buying it very often back in the States. A dozen years later, I had a different husband, two children, and a better bank account. A bottle of Talisker or Laphroaig was almost always on my shelf.

In April, 2002, my five year old daughter Grace died suddenly from a virulent form of strep. One day she was twirling in her ballet class and the next day she lay dying in the ICU at our children’s hospital. In the days after she died, friends brought us food: lasagnas and stews, cookies and fruit, loaves of fresh bread. They brought bottles of wine too, the big ones. Sitting around our kitchen table, stunned, those bottles emptied every evening.

Sleep was impossible for me in those first weeks. The wine I drank each night managed to make me drowsy, but also had me waking up at three in the morning. The world always looks bleaker at 3 a.m., but when you are grieving, that bleakness takes on even deeper dimensions. I prowled the rooms of our house, as if I might find Grace there somewhere. The emptiness that greeted me in each room sent me into fresh waves of misery. Grief begs for anesthesia of some kind, anything to dull the pain and quiet the screams that threaten to emerge at any moment. Despite my desperate need to be numb, I realized that gulping too many glasses of Australian shiraz was actually making things worse.

The first night I stayed away from the wine, I didn’t sleep at all. Instead, I lay in bed, awake and alert, haunted by the time in the ICU and by images of my little girl dead. The wine had at least given me a few hours respite. The next night I took a few Benadryl. That knocked me out, but made it hard for me to wake up, and kept me fuzzy headed and cotton mouthed the entire next day.

When everyone gathered again at our kitchen table that night, I remembered our bottle of single malt and poured myself a good-sized amount. The thing about good whiskey is that it wants to be sipped, not gulped. My husband had some too, and soon all of us gathered there were sipping whiskey instead of wine. That night, I slept uninterrupted. Not the deep sleep that comes when your children are safe and alive in their beds; that particular sleep will perhaps always elude me now. But for many hours I slept fitfully, and woke to another day without Grace, clear headed and broken hearted.

I cannot say how long this ritual continued. Sometimes it seems that bottle of single malt was passed around our table for many long nights. Like other aspects of grief, one day I looked up and I was once again enjoying a glass of wine with my dinner. The single malt took up its residence on our shelf again, opened on chilly winter nights or special occasions.

My father kept a bottle of Jack Daniels in the liquor cabinet, beside dusty bottles of Drambuie and Crème de Menthe. That bottle came down on the Christmas night his brother died, on the cold January day when my grandmother died, and during the grief filled summer of 1982 when my brother Skip died. The sight of that square bottle with the black label used to make me tremble. It meant something terrible and irrevocable had happened. It meant my father, the person I relied on for strength and support, needed some himself. And now I have my own bottle, saved for those times when the force of grief returns. Grief, it chills me to the bone.

Ann Hood is the author of 8 novels, including the bestsellers The Knitting Circle and Somewhere Off the Coast of Maine; two memoirs and a collection of short stories. Her most recent memoir, Comfort: A Journey Through Grief, was a NY Times Editor’s Choice and one of the top 10 non-fiction books of 2009 by Entertainment Weekly. Her new novel, The Red Thread, was just published on May 1st.

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I’m not sure when it started. My problem’s been growing steadily in recent years, but I think it all began about 15 years ago when my parents received a gift from their friends in Arizona. I stood next to my mother while she opened the box and unwrapped the mounds of white tissue paper. She gently pulled each one out, and I stared, mesmerized by the colors. They were the funkiest and most beautiful champagne flutes I’d ever seen. Tall and majestic, hand-blown and thick, they were like pieces of art, with each stem differing in color—bright blue, orange and yellow—from its bowl. My mother placed them on a round tray in her dining room, where they’ve been sitting ever since.

My interest was piqued when I moved into my first house 12 years ago. No longer cramped in a city apartment with a tiny galley kitchen, I was faced with seemingly endless cupboards to fill. And that they did. First with some Hungarian clear, crystal old-fashioned glasses with small fish-shaped etchings, which I picked up at Crate & Barrel. Then with some Morroccan-inspired glasses (3 red, 3 blue, 3 green) from Shabby Chic in Soho. My husband drank his Scotch with the fish, while I sipped my wine “from” Morrocco. We also had some traditional wine glasses—basic ones that suited any kind and color of wine, and that wouldn’t make me cry if they broke. (We’d quickly returned all of our wedding-registry crystal, knowing we just weren’t mature enough at 25 to have such expensive glassware.)

About seven years ago, my appreciation of/love for/focus on (I really don’t like the word “obsession”) accelerated when we moved into a bigger house with even more cabinet space. They were just begging to be crammed with new colors, shapes, textures and sizes…of glassware.

My husband and I picked up some pilsener glasses at a brewery in Vermont, and some every day white and red wine glasses from Bloomingdales. On vacation in the Berkshires, we perused in a store in Hudson and I simply had to have these hand-blown glasses with a rich, brown tortoise pattern. I couldn’t wait to make room for those.

Now when I wasn’t buying glasses for my own use, I was deriving deep satisfaction buying them for others. I bought Reidel “O” glasses as gifts on more than one occasion, and the same set of the most exquisite, stemless champagne flutes for two girlfriends (they live far away from one another so I knew I’d get away with it).

Things got a bit more intense a year ago, when I befriended a publicist who has ties (read: discount) to a company that makes some pretty amazing glassware. My kids have started making fun of me, as the boxes arrive on a seemingly regular basis bringing so many glasses (well, I needed some stemless for us, too, and then I fell in love with a few other varieties) that I’ve had to relocate some of the older models to a basement closet. I know my husband hesitates after he opens a bottle of wine—his eyes spin around with confusion as he approaches the cabinets and their growing collection, trying to select the “right” glass.

I’m really trying to curb my habit, and have cut myself off from any additional glass purchases for a while. But I may need to eventually clear a little more space, as I’m still secretly hoping that one of these days, my mother will pick up that tray in her dining room and offer me those flutes from Arizona.

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I remember being surprised when my mother—a recovered alcoholic—told me that even in her darkest days, she just drank wine. Really? That’s it? I thought. Surely, she’d hidden vodka bottles all over the house, like Meg Ryan in “When a Man Loves a Woman.” Nope. She drank just wine. Mostly Sangria. Sangria! It all sounded so harmless, so celebratory. So safe.

Wine gets kind of sickly sweet after a few glasses, so it’s not the first drink that comes to mind when I picture a hard-drinking woman.

Wine is the woman many of us want to be: feminine, yet sexy and strong. Think of all the adjectives used to describe a nice glass of red: Full-bodied, never weak. Velvety. Oaky. Smooth.

Wine is not a broken-down alcoholic, or even an embarrassing drunk. Wine is for bonding. Wine is women at a book club, sipping as they chat about their latest pick. Wine is cheese and crackers. Wine is Meryl Streep in “It’s Complicated”—a high-earning, put together professional dishing with her glowy friends, letting loose, but only just enough to be in on the shared joked.

Wine is not a college-girl with her pissy beer and her weak mixed drinks. Wine is all grown up. Wine is snobby. If we don’t like it, we send it back. Wine is red and white, never black and blue.

At this point, when I drink, I drink wine. Only occasionally, do I have one too many glasses. Usually, my limit is two, but it depends.

Recently, I spent the night in the city with my sister. We went out for a pre-dinner drink (for me, a glass of Pinot Grigio at a rooftop bar). Then, during dinner, I had another glass of white (or two—I can’t quite remember). After dinner, at a club, I had one more glass of white wine before I switched to seltzer.

The next day, I was as hung over as I’d ever been, which really surprised me. Was I such a lightweight that 3-4 glasses of wine could flatten me the next day?

Depends on how big the glass.

With all this in my mind, Sarah Allen Benton’s recent Psychology Today blog post, “The Great Wine Myth…does it count?“ got me thinking. She reminds us that: “Alcohol is alcohol- it does not matter if you are sipping on Chardonnay or chugging a 40-ounce beer in a paper bag, it is all the same drug and it will give you the same effect. However, society views people and their drinking habits differently sometimes based on the type of alcohol that they drink or because of the places that they drink in.”

Benton also points out that most people don’t realize just how small an actual standard glass of wine—5 ounces—is. It’s “4 fingers placed from the stem of the glass,which may appear like a ‘cheap’ pour when at a restaurant.” Most people, she says, are having double the amount of wine they think they’re having.

That may have been what happened to me on my night in the city.

To hear more women angsting about wine, head on over to Urban Baby, where I found an intense discussion, after the following question was asked: “How much wine do you drink each night? After having second DB, I drink every night, about 2-3 glasses. Sometimes this worries me, sometimes I figure f*ck I deserve it. I survived another day.”

What’s your attitude toward wine? Do you treat it just like any other alcoholic beverage, or does it somehow seem safer, more sophisticated, like another thing altogether? We’d love to hear from you.

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Psych 101, Freshman Comp., Intro. to Shakespeare, and now–Wine 101?

Ah, the French.

A report commissioned by Valérie Pécresse, the Minister for Higher Education, recommends that French university cafeterias hold wine-tasting sessions to teach students the virtues of moderate consumption.”Why is there sexual education and not viticultural education? You can learn wine too,” said Jean-Pierre Coffe, who co-wrote the report. “Drinking is not drinking a bottle. Wine is pleasure. It’s like love. It’s the same.”

Some believe lunchtime tastings would provide a good opportunity for students to learn a sense of responsibility. After all, wine is part of the French national heritage.

Others are concerned because binge drinking is a fairly new problem in France, where children grow up drinking watered-down wine. In November, the Paris city hall launched a campaign aimed at 15-25-year-olds, warning of the dangers of “le binge drinking,” which increased by about 10% between 2005 and 2008.

Alain Rigaud, president of the National Association for the Prevention of Alcoholism and Addiction, was shocked by the proposal, calling it naive. He said it was “marketing for the wine industry.”

Seems to me such a course is in the same vein as the parenting courses some have suggested in the U.S.. Also in the U.S., an organization called Choose Responsibility has advocated that we teach responsible drinking to kids, instead of raising the drinking age.

Why not learn practical and life skills in college?

Other questions: Do you think moderation can be taught? Or are wine tastings just adding more fuel to the college binge-drinking fire?

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Along with family, close friends, and travel, yoga and wine are high on the list of things I love. Just sounding out the two words in the same sentence has me smiling.

Clearly, I’m not the only who feels this way, as a growing number of yoga retreat centers are now offering wine tastings and gourmet cooking classes.

In a recent New York Times article, “When Chocolate and Chakras Collide,” Julie Moskin reports on the trend of spas and retreats catering to an increasing population that seeks the intensity of both fine flavors and the high one gets from deep breathing and yoga poses.

Yoga is an ancient practice that gradually trains your body and mind to be in a state of peace, while wine is most certainly a fleeting remedy, which can raise your spirits and relieve your inhibitions. But, according to an online story in iYoga Life, the two have more in common than you think.

“Yoga teaches you how to age gracefully just like a great bottle of wine ages gracefully,” explains David Romanelli, an instructor at Exhale Santa Monica, who teaches yoga and wine workshops across the country. “Pouring a glass of wine is a celebration of one moment in your day that you want to hone and protect.”  Says the posting, Romanelli has risked his reputation with unconventional yoga and wine workshops.

Like anything else, there is controversy on the topic, where some yogis do not agree that food and wine are compatible with the enlightenment one seeks from yoga.

“Yoga purists say that many foods — like wine and meat — are still off limits,” writes Ms. Moskin. “Others say that anything goes, as long as it tastes good. The debate is exposing rich ores of resentment in the yoga world.”

So what do you think–are wine and yoga compatible?

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I’m a wine drinker. I thoroughly enjoy the intensity of a complex red, the crispness of a smooth white, the subtle fruits of a chilled rosé.

Which color wine I drink usually depends on my mood, the weather, and often what I’m eating. I have a collection of glasses (a recent obsession that is a whole other story) and the color of the wine typically dictates the choice of glass–not the grape variety like for some wine aficionados–part of a spectrum that ranges from everyday juice glass to inexpensive stemless to fine crystal.

Thinking back to the era of the ever-popular white wine spritzer (to which I never took a liking), I was surprised to learn the news that American women prefer red wine. A recent study conducted by the WineSpectator.com surveyed 431 women in the U.S. (part of a larger global survey of 4,300 women worldwide) and found that the large majority of American women–79 percent–typically choose red wine over white and rosé (Red was the preference of 60 percent of  all of the women surveyed globally).

Of the American women surveyed, 93 percent said they drink wine once a week, and of that group, 80 percent said they drink most often with meals. When asked why they drink, 92 percent of the women said they like the taste, and 71 percent answered “because it goes well with food.” Less than 2 percent of American women said they drink wine because it’s fashionable (phew–we aren’t as image conscious as I’d thought). And a whopping 97 percent of the U.S. respondents believe that wine is part of a healthy, balanced diet!

When it comes to cost, 66 percent of the American women spend an average of between $11 and $20 per bottle when buying from a retail store, while 26 percent will spend between $21 and $50.

So, if you have any favorite reds to share, please do. My cellar (read: rack in the boiler room) could use some replenishing…

I don’t know about you, but my last few Sundays (and some Saturdays) have been filled with football. I have a husband and a son who are fairly smitten with watching overgrown boys run around a field in any type of weather throwing and chasing a ball, and then falling upon one another to retrieve what seems to be as valuable as a the Hope diamond, ignoring that they are potentially crushing someone else’s–or their own–skull.

It is commonplace on these long weekend afternoons for my two boys to sit on our family room couch, snacking on thick, extra dark pretzels (paying no attention to the crumbs and salt bits that fall in between the couch cushions) and drinking. If my nine-year-old is feeling really hyped up for the event, he’ll ask if he can have a soda–usually saved only for special occasions in our house–while my husband opts for a cold Saranac Black & Tan, his beer of choice on these special game days.

When game time begins and all players–and viewers– prepare for the coin toss (or on some days the pre-game show needs to be screened first), that’s my clue to take to the living room. I’ll usually curl up on the couch, with either a cup of tea or a glass of wine close by–book, newspaper, and laptop at the ready for at least four hours of quiet time (save for the occasional shrieks coming from the next room).

Once in a while, my husband will gently request (”quick! come fast! hurry up!”) that I come and join them to watch a replay of some guy running 40 or 50 yards down the field and then doing some kind of tribal dance in the endzone (that’s actually my favorite part). I oblige for the sake of my son. I don’t want him to think that his mom isn’t a woman with varied interests.

And then, I retreat to my corner in the next room. Happy. My husband chugs his beer and my son his soda, and both scream at the TV. I sip my wine (or tea), cozily engaging in reading and/or writing.

So, in truth, it turns out that football days are not so bad. This coming Sunday is a really big game, when my husband’s #1 team (NY Jets) will play against my son’s #1 team (Indianapolis Colts). There will probably be a lot of noise coming from our house as of 3:00 pm EST. I may hide out at a neighbor’s house. Or maybe, just maybe, I’ll grab a beer and sit with the boys, pretending that I actually care…

You can take away our meals out, you can take away our fancy clothes, you can even take away our fancy coffee, but please don’t take away our booze. At least that’s what the world–and especially America–seems to be saying.

According to new research, as reported on emailwire.com, wine consumption hasn’t really gone down in the recession. If anything, it’s gone slightly up. Although there was a slight drop in sales when the financial crisis first hit, wine sales increased by 3% in 2009, and are expected to increase, according to the U.S. Wine Market Forecast to 2012, a report put out by RNCOS, a market research company.

The report also says that, although the U.S. is one of the fastest growing wine markets in the world, developing countries like Russia, China, Australia and India aren’t too far behind.

The recession may not have impacted how much we drink, but it’s certainly affected how and where we drink. According to the forecast, “while restaurant volume declined, the U.S. food store wine volume increased,” which means more people are saving money by buying their own wine and drinking it at home.

But is wine really the cheapest alcoholic beverage? Anyone interested in drinking on the cheap might want to check out Cheap Booze: A Guide to Drinking Through the Recession by Christine Sismondo on the blog, Gremolata.

Has the recession changed your drinking habits at all? If so, how? If not, why not? These days, I’m not enough of a drinker to switch over to cheaper wine, so when I go out, I still like to have a decent glass or two…but I’m sure I’d feel differently if I were 20 and just starting out in the world. How about you?

by RhoRho

I’ve always said that I don’t trust people who don’t drink (yes, even out loud), so it’s only fitting that I’m married to someone who shares my affection for the booze.  We’re married with children, a dog, a mortgage and a ton of bills, and we do what most parents we know do to take the edge off at the end of the day: we drink. We don’t take any prescription or street drugs, we don’t smoke cigarettes or gamble away the family’s money on slot machines. We drink.

Sometimes my husband, who typically drinks quite responsibly, can get off his game. A few times a year, he gets around an old buddy, starts mixing it all up like a kid in a candy store, and gets good and shit-faced. He starts with vodka and Red Bulls, then goes to beer, then maybe some of my wine. He loses any shred of common sense. But me, I’m too fuzzy myself in those situations to notice, and sometimes, he doesn’t even appear to be all that drunk. But the next morning, he awakens, throws his arm across his forehead, lifts one knee up toward the ceiling, and coughs a little bit. This is when I know. The Hangover.

Now, normal people like me awaken, acknowledge the Hangover, moan a little bit, and get on with it. We have kids to feed, duties to perform, coffee to make. Not my husband. He is famous for the all-day hangover, and when he “pulls one,” as I have come to call it, he is either in the bed or hugging the toilet until about seven o’clock at night, when he suddenly pops up, takes a hot bath, and starts cleaning the house or something crazy like that.  He may not drink for a week or two after a really bad one, and I get lonely for my drinking buddy. If I do suffer from overindulging, I am out of commission (meaning wine) for one, two days, tops. What if I pulled an all-dayer, I ask?

When I see the first sign – the arm flinging over the forehead, I get furious. And I don’t mean furious on the inside, I mean steaming mad and threatening him with his life.  It’s not like, at the time, he has much control over his body, but my point is that, by God, he should’ve used his head last night and stuck to Michelob Ultra. I can’t be the booze police and have my own fun too! He has to be in fresh air to even try to recover, so on the last one, he got his ass up and out of the bed and into the yard, where he chopped wood in the rain… as he puked. What must the neighbors have thought? “That bitch runs a tight ship,” that’s what they thought.

At this point, yes, the booze is our stress relief, but when we think about the thousands of dollars that could be sitting cozily in the bank, we do question ourselves. And those dozens of hours lost on all those Saturdays, while the kids are asking, “Mommy what’s wrong with Daddy?” are irreplaceable, and he lost them to something as ridiculous as bingeing like a frat boy.

I do get nervous before a night out, and start threatening him before he even thinks about mixing. He doesn’t want The Hangover any more than I do. And me, I want a husband I can take places. But to his credit, it has dwindled down to only a few times a year.

We don’t really see ourselves ever giving it up totally, and we question what we would do if there were ever an ultimatum. Spouse or alcohol? Could the former even cope with the other if not for the latter? Make sense? So for now, we’re trying to be responsible drinkers, take taxis so the DHS doesn’t come get our kids, and enjoy it rather than depend on it. We’re trying, I said. Our own little Days of Wine and Roses.

RhoRho is a mother of two, wife, freelance writer, blogger, kid taxi service, budget traveler and wine enthusiast, among other things. She has been freelance writing here and there for several years, with writing for a magazine like National Geographic Traveler being one of her many ultimate goals. Rhonda lives with her husband, two kids, a Welsh Corgie and a Dwarf bunny, and travels whenever possible. Her blogs are: Momwhodrinksandcusses and Wine4poorishfolk

From time to time, we will post short interviews with interesting people about their thoughts and feelings on women and drinking. There is such a wide array of perspectives about this topic, and we are excited to gain insight into as many as possible and to share them with you.

Jennifer Simonetti-Bryan, is one of only four women in the U.S. to earn the MW title, Master of Wine, the highest and most difficult wine title to achieve in the world. In 2009, she was invited by The White House to visit its wine cellar with the Head Usher and White House Chef, Cristeta Comerford.

Drinking Diaries: How did you get interested in wine–enough to make it your career?

It was a business lunch that changed my life.  I was working in investment banking in London.  We had a client lunch at the executive dining facilities and they served an herb-crusted salmon and a Sancerre.  Sancerre is a 100% Sauvignon Blanc, high acid wine (I know this now…no clue back then).  Now salmon is a very fatty fish and the high acid cuts through it, creating a cleansing sensation on your palate, preparing you for that next delicious bite.  I never experienced anything like that before and it occurred to me that the chef didn’t just say “Oh…what the hell, give them the Sancerre they won’t know the difference.”  There was actual decision to put these two things together for a reason and that fascinated me.  I was working 80+ hours per week and I promised myself at that moment I would spend one hour a week going to a wine class.  I got bit by the wine bug (and hard!) and I needed to know everything yesterday!  I moved back to the States and left my six figure salary to work for a wine store in Greenwich Village in NYC.  My family thought I was nuts, but it was my passion and as the saying goes, if you love what you do, you never work a day in your life.  I never stopped studying though and now I’m one of only four women in the US to ever achieve the Master of Wine title, the highest and most difficult title to receive in the world of wine.  I never look back.

Were you always a wine drinker?

No, as my family really doesn’t drink.  It’s not that they have anything against it. It was just never a focus. I didn’t drink wine until my mid-twenties. It was living in London that really sparked it. I cultivated my passion there.

Wine is obviously serious business for you at work, but do you ever just drink for fun?

While studying for the MW, where you have to identify 36 wines blind, I was a fanatic about analyzing wines.  It got to the point where I was tasting only to analyze.  I remember distinctly this one seminar I went to and someone sitting next to me asked simply “which one is your favorite?” Favorite?! It didn’t occur to me to choose a favorite. That was when I knew I was getting way too serious and had to take a step back and remind myself why I got into this industry in the first place…for enjoyment!  So now when I’m out with friends or with my husband at home, I try hard NOT to analyze it and just enjoy it.

Do you ever crave a cold beer or something alcoholic that is not wine? What’s your favorite drink?

When I went to Bordeaux, I went to 35 chateaux in 5 days (average 7 per day) and they all wanted me to taste different tanks including Chateau Lynch-Bages where they had a table full of bottles of just Petit Verdot they wanted me to taste. Petit Verdot is inky black and extremely tannic grape variety. So to say the least, my teeth were instantly black.  At the end of that week, my palate was exhausted and all I wanted was a beer.  However, the nonalcoholic beverage I drink most often other than water would have to be hot peppermint tea.

Do you ever worry that you’re drinking too much for work?

No. Firstly, when it’s work, it’s tasting for analytics, not drinking for consumption. In the industry, it is very much looked down upon to be inebriated in any way. I am spitting during tastings (although it is understood that a tiny amount of alcohol does get absorbed into the bloodstream through your mouth). The definition of safe moderate drinking by The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism is up to two drinks per day for men and one drink per day for women and older people. This level causes few, if any, problems. (One drink equals one 12-ounce bottle of beer or wine cooler, one 5-ounce glass of wine, or 1.5 ounces of 80-proof distilled spirits.). Personally at home, I will generally have a glass of wine with dinner, but that’s about it.

What’s the best ‘cheap’ wine you’ve had?

I’ve had a few favorites lately. Bogle Petit Sirah (no relation to Shiraz or Syrah) at $12 is one of my favorites. Excelsior Cabernet Sauvignon from South Africa at around $8 is another great find for Cab lovers.

What do you think of wine in a box?

Box wine is getting higher in quality every year.  I like that the technology can keep the wine fresh for up to three months.  In fact a few years ago chef Daniel Boulud and Daniel Johnnes, wine director for Boulud’s The Dinex Group, along with vigneron Dominique Lafon, introduced a Mâcon-Villages Chardonnay bag-in-box wine called DTOUR.  I loved it!  You can keep it in your fridge and just pour one glass easily and not waste opening a whole bottle just for you.  Wish we could see more like it.

Do you think there’s a difference between men and women when it comes to drinking wine?

Absolutely. Women have less body mass and muscle generally and therefore have less water to dilute alcohol which means that any alcohol in their bloodstream is automatically at a higher concentration level than for men. In addition, women’s bodies are less efficient in the way their bodies metabolize alcohol (has to do with levels of enzymes). That’s why women’s safe moderate consumption level is less than men’s. However, on the plus side, the way women’s bodies have evolved over the millennia, we have a more sensitive sense of smell and there are more “super tasters” among women than there are men. So the irony is that men can drink more, but women sense and enjoy it more.

Is there discrimination against women in the wine world?

I don’t think so, and there are more women coming into the industry every day. For example MW candidates years ago used to be predominantly men, now I think it’s more women than men (in the U.S. anyway). However, I’ve had to go around the country presenting to distributors (22 states in the last four years alone). Most of the time, when I walk into a distributor to train, it is over 75% men and many of them looking like [the character] Tony Soprano. It was very intimidating at first. One guy even came up to me before one training to say, “Little lady,  I’ve been selling wine for over 25 years…how old are you?” Great. Not only was I a “little lady,” I was too young too. However, after my course, he was my biggest fan!

Is there a high rate of people with drinking problems in your profession?

Honestly, I don’t know the figures, so I can’t say.  Drinking problems and drunkenness are really looked down upon in the industry.  You are seriously looked on as a low-life (even if you are a head winemaker…doesn’t matter who you are). We in the industry are more educated on safe levels than most and one hypothesis is that because we have access to it more often than anyone else, it’s not forbidden fruit.  I will say though we in the industry know the tricks of the trade to drink better quality, not more.

The other day, I opened up the fridge in my kitchen to get something to drink–like a glass of orange juice or sparkling water. I pulled the door ajar, and noticed an open bottle of Fiddlehead Cellars Sauvignon Blanc, flanked in between a container of milk and the Hershey’s chocolate syrup. I couldn’t help but wonder: what do my children (ages 16, 13 and 9) think when they search for a beverage and come across that green bottle, half full and stuffed with a cork?

The truth is, I don’t think they think much of it. And I’m glad they don’t. In our home, wine is enjoyed with food by my husband and me as much and as frequently as a mug of hot cocoa or a chilled glass of lemonade. My kids ask for the occasional taste, and we allow them, hoping that this may be the better–and more sensible–route to avoiding the “forbidden fruit” phenomenon.

On the other hand, they have come to realize–and we have openly discussed–the fact that their grandmother is an alcoholic. So, I assume there is some concern on their part when they see their mom and dad sipping away during most of our family dinners.

My great hope is that our model of moderation is something they are steadily absorbing. That they understand that it is possible–for many, but not all–to enjoy the fruit of the vine without getting drunk, plastered or addicted. They’ve seen a close family member in bad shape. And in some way, I’m not unhappy that they’ve seen it, because it perhaps shows them that when abused, drinking can lead them down a potentially tragic path.

So for the meantime, we’ll continue to leave those open and unfinished bottles of wine in our fridge (when my mother is not around, that is). And it’ll hopefully continue to be as mundane for my kids as a jar of mustard, a container of yogurt, a bottle of marinade, or whatever else they’ll find in there…

Nope, it’s not the 1970s but it is about to be the start of a new decade, and why not bring feminism and wine together? The California National Organization for Women (NOW) and Bottlenotes, a website covering all things wine-related, have joined forces to launch the Feminist Wine Club.

“All wines in the Feminist Wine Club have been carefully selected by Bottlenotes to showcase some phenomenal wines made or imported by women, or produced at wineries owned by women,” says the Feminist Wine Club website. “All proceeds from the Feminist Wine Club go to the California National Organization for Women.”

The founders say the new wine club aims to provide subscribers with “an easy, enjoyable, non-intimidating way for women to learn about wine, build community, and support women winemakers and causes as well.”

Mona Lisa Wallace, a spokeswoman for the group, told the San Francisco Business Times that the effort is meant to celebrate “women succeeding in business and breaking into areas previously dominated by men.”

According to a study published in a recent issue of the Journal of Sexual Medicine, women who drink a glass or two of red wine may experience greater sexual desire, lubrication, and overall sexual function.

According to the study’s authors, members of the departments of Urology and Public Health at the University of Florence in Italy, the results help give a clearer picture on the female sexual response cycle.

The study, supposedly the first of its kind, examined red wine intake and the sexual function of 800 women between the ages of 18 and 50, none of whom had ever reported a sexual health problem. The women were divided into three groups–one group drank one or two glasses, another group drank less than one glass and a third group didn’t drink at all. Those drinking more than two glasses of wine were excluded from the study.

The participants answered a questionnaire called the Female Sexual Function Index (FSFI), a questionnaire used by doctors to assess sexual health in women. The results revealed that the levels of sexual desire were higher in women who were moderate drinkers of red wine than in their counterparts who preferred other alcoholic drinks, or were teetotal.

Typically, medical studies on sexual health focus on men and dysfunction, so this was a welcome change. “Historically, the aspects of wine and sexuality have been well known since the time of Ancient Greece,” said the study’s lead author, Dr. Nicola Mondaini, who was quoted in an article in the Wine Spectator and is publishing a book on the subject next month, titled Vino e Eros. “But the field of female sexual dysfunction is still highly unexplored.”

The researchers’ conclusion stated that “While this finding needs to be interpreted with some caution, because of the small sample size, self-reported data, and the lack of support from laboratory exams, it nevertheless suggests a potential relationship between red wine consumption and better sexuality.”

Any chance you’ll be testing this on your own?

by Caren Osten Gerszberg

I don’t know about you, but my Thanksgiving came with a mixed blessing.

Surrounded by a large number—18 to be exact—of family and close friends, I revel in the togetherness of this day. It is with great joy and appreciation that we fill our family’s table with people we love and consider as family, even if we are not of blood relation. I cook for days, mostly alone, and without stress or anxiety develop a menu including an array of dishes that I know most at our table—kids included—will enjoy. With abandon, I sauté and carmelize, roast and bake and love practically every minute of it. With my husband, I select wines we will drink throughout the afternoon and evening, and make sure all beverages are in check.

Yesterday arrived, and although I wondered if my 24-pound turkey, who I’d named Matilda, would ever actually be done (she took about 6 hours), my hopes were high for a lovely day. My husband and kids played basketball out front in our driveway, and my dog trailed me, sensing when I was going to use the turkey baster and hoping she’d get to lick a drip of anything meat-related. Following an urge to blast some loud music, I decided to be a bit zen and put on Mozart instead of Dave Matthews. The day was going without a hitch.

And then, my mother arrived. At 75, she looks good physically, and I was glad to see her. But the predictable was only moments away.

“Can I please have a glass of wine?” she asked.

“You can have one glass, with dinner, so just wait until then,” I answered.

My mother, a French native who has always loved wine, grew to love it too much about ten years ago, and her love morphed into an addiction which continues to plague me at every event—both big and small, mundane and celebratory.

Moments later, a friend was chasing me around the kitchen, clutching a glass and obviously uncomfortable as my mother anxiously followed her.

“Here, Caren,” she said. “This belongs to your cousin but your mother was drinking it when he got up to go to the restroom. I thought you may want to know.”

I looked at my mother-turned-child, and like the stern authority I needed to be—lest she get drunk, slur her words, and become an embarrassment to her grandchildren—I told her: “NO! You can have some wine with dinner and you need to wait.”

We sat down at the table. She drank a glass of Sauvignon Blanc, and without hesitation, asked for more. This continued throughout the meal. And dessert. While we talked Thanksgiving trivia and my son told Thanksgiving jokes, friends were moving the bottles to the other end of the table, trying to make the temptation a little less for my mom. She followed me into the kitchen, asking again and again, until finally, I picked up the phone.

“I need a taxi. How long will it take?” I inquired, trying to breathe deeply and keep calm.

Ten minutes later, I ushered her into a taxi. She complained but I stood firm. I was just trying to cut my losses before it got worse for both of us.

Once she was gone, I could finally relax, but not without feeling brokenhearted. I wanted my mother to be here, to share in a tradition to which she exposed me. For years, she had seamlessly hosted a house full of people, where being grateful went along with a table laden with scrumptious food.

But she’s not the mother I knew. I miss my mother. But I still love Thanksgiving.