NY Food and Wine: Wine Shop: Trader Joe’s

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Wine Shop: Trader Joe’s

138 East 14th Street (bet. Irving Place and 3rd Avenue)
212-529-6326
http://www.traderjoes.com/

If you are the type that looks for a bargain when you shop, then Trader Joe’s is the place for you. Do not come here with a particular label in mind because chances are you will not find it. But if you have time to browse and you know your wine prices, give Trader Joe’s a try. Your shopping cart is likely to fill up quickly with some good deals.

Last month we paid a visit to Trader Joe’s and a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne was $36.99. Right around the corner at Union Square Wines the same bottle cost $5 more. In their limited style, Trader Joe’s only had the Moët and VC lines on their shelves, while Union Square had plenty of French champagne choices.

Yesterday, we saw two favorites from France. One was a red Burgundy from Volnay for only $19.99, and a Pierre Sparr Reisling for just under $10. You would be hard pressed to find better prices anywhere in NY. This brings us to Trader Joe’s famous “Two Buck Chuck” line. According to Adam who works the floor, Trader Joe’s has an exclusive on the leftovers from the giant Charles Shaw winery in California. At $2.99 a bottle, Adam steered us to both the Shiraz and the Cabernet Sauvignon as great buys. Depending on inventory, there are usually other grape varietals available as well.

One warning is to ask first about the delivery charges. It all depends on where you live. For us it was $19.95 a case, so we happily carried six bottles in two neatly packed brown bags home.

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About Us

Bill Gillen and Patricia MacKenzie are a husband and wife team, who published a monthly newsletter, “The NY Food Letter” in the 1990’s, have written food, wine and travel articles for the Daily News, and are co-authors of The New York Chocolate Lover’s Guide (City and Company 1996). They live in New York City, Columbia County and Paris.

Our Story
We were both born in Brooklyn and in our adult lives have lived in Brooklyn, the Upper West Side, Hell’s Kitchen and now Carnegie Hill, and for the past 20+ years, we’ve always ready to go to any neighborhood in any of five boroughs to find something good to eat. Some people might just go shopping to Ikea in Elizabeth New Jersey and return home. Not us. We come back via the Bayonne Bridge just so we can stop at Denino’s on Staten Island for pizza. When we go on a family trip to the Bronx Zoo, we have to eat at Dominick’s and then go shopping on Arthur Avenue picking up prosciutto rolls and other Italian treats. And on a regular weekday, we’ll go miles out of our way and walk the long avenues in Hell’s Kitchen just to buy a loaf of bread from Sullivan Street Bakery.

We are avid home cooks. On a daily basis, we love shopping for the best ingredients, and don’t think of it at all as an effort, but as an enjoyable activity. We carefully plan our special celebrations sometimes by mapping out an extravagant homemade meal, or more often by making reservations at an exceptional restaurant, including a mix of New York classics and the latest trends.

In 1986 we went to France on our honeymoon. We were in the Champagne region and ate at the then Michelin three-star restaurant, Boyer Les Crayeres. It was literally a life altering experience. How could food be this good? Up to that point, we never ate anything that was even closely comparable. Thus started a love affair with France that has only grown through the years. Our time spent there has educated us enormously on what it takes to deliver good ingredients and outstanding meals. We’ve traveled and eaten in every region in that country and since 2000 have had the good fortune of owning a tiny apartment in the St. Germain neighborhood on the Left Bank in Paris that gives us the opportunity to eat and cook like Parisians, when our schedules permit. (The spoken language is another story…)

Along the way, we became interested in wine. In 2000, we had a blast studying with Kevin Zraly in New York City at his renowned wine course. We have been to many of the major wine areas in France, Italy and California, and every year go on a buying trip in Burgundy. But much more of our education has come from simply buying and drinking on a regular basis. We’ve shopped at dozens and dozens of wine shops in New York, and always converse with sommeliers at restaurants, asking for their recommendations and learning from them. We are rarely disappointed, and more often are delighted with a new discovery. So, while we don’t claim to be experts on the more technical points of wine, we do know where we like to shop, what stores offer what, etc.

We feel fortunate to live in New York City and that’s in no small part to all of the people who have dedicated their lives to feeding the rest of us. Ethnic family food stores that have been around for generations, a master chocolatier from France who opens up shops around the city, a chef who has worked in the best of places in the Far East and Europe but has decided that Manhattan is where he wants to hang his toque, these are just a few of the many resources that we have at our doorstep. And we love it.

What we put on this website is highly personal. We really like to write about things that we enjoy, places that we’d like to go back to, meals simple or grand that are exceptional, and shops where the experience is fun and not a simple transaction. It’s really not our style to be edgy or nasty. Too many people work too hard, put in long days so the rest of us can be well fed. So, for the most part we only include enthusiastic recommendations and omit those places that don’t make the mark. But sometimes we do feel the need to issue a few cautionary remarks.

So, we hope that from time to time, the people and places that we write about might make your food and wine life a bit more rewarding.

NY Food and Wine

Tuesday, January 8, 2008

Wine Shop: Trader Joe’s

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