Fish & Monkeys

As casual wine drinkers, we can, 8 times out of 10, tell the difference between a pinot noir and merlot. We can even tell the difference between a chardonnay and sauvignon blanc. But we probably couldn’t talk too much about tannins, acidity, and 100-point grading scales. That hasn’t kept us, however, from enjoying all kinds of wines. We love a nice Italian dinner with a Barbaresco and we’ll stash away a few bottles of $10 primitivo at home.

The little knowledge we have about wines, for the most part, comes from our visits to wine stores over the years. In talking to various wine experts at these stores, we were able to pick up tips and facts here and there, eventually piecing together enough information to form our own opinions. In many cases, we were given recommendations to some excellent wines that made us even more curious.

A few weeks ago, we came up with the idea for a very simple site that would list recommended wines from local wine stores in New York. We would pick a theme each month and go around to four random wine stores to ask for a single bottle under $20. The site is called Barrel to Bottles, and it’ll be updated monthly with a new theme and four new bottles. We hope that all you casual wine drinkers out there will be motivated to try some of the wines we feature and support local merchants. Our first theme is rosé, a light and pleasant start to our latest project.