The Grapevine

Wine Stories Worth Sharing: Hidden Cellars, Undiscovered Italy and More

February 2nd, 2017

Some of the stories we’ve found this week that you may want to share with your wine shop customers include a pair of wine cellars hidden beneath the Brooklyn Bridge in New York, two lesser-known wines from Italy, a winery that survived Prohibition, and the Queen’s foray into fizzy. [level-members]

First, the Queen. She’s produced some sparkling wine from her vineyards at. Forget getting your hans on any. All 250 cases have already been spoken for. Read the full article here.

Jumping across the channel to the continent, we have two wines with exploring from Italy: Corsica gives us sciaccarellu-based reds and Trebbiano from Umbria. The article on Corsica is particularly interesting with its discussion of terroir more broadly.

Back in the US we head to the wine hotspot of … Washingtonville, NY? Yes. It’s home to Brotherhood Winery, which managed to survive Prohibition. It is now the longest continuously operating winery in the country. Their secret to survival was to bring in clergy and claim that they were producing sacramental wine. Interesting story from an unexpected corner of the wine world. Read the full article here.

Finally, another piece of hidden New York wine history – literally hidden. NPR offers the story of the wine cellars tucked into the base of the Brooklyn Bridge on both the Manhattan and Brooklyn sides. They were originally a way to help offset the cost of the bridge’s construction. (Which was a whopping $15 million.)

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