Above: Tommaso Restaurant is located in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, one of New York City’s thriving Little Italys.

Words of wisdom were imparted to us last night by restaurateur Tommaso Verdillo of Tommaso Restaurant in Brooklyn where I joined Alice Feiring, Elizabeth Spiers, and Lawrence Osborne for some old wine, great food, and a truly enjoyable and stimulating confabulatio.

Tommaso and his restaurant may be counted among NYC’s best-kept secrets and so be it. Perhaps because Bensonhurst, Brooklyn (one of New York’s true Little Italys) seems so exotic to the uninitiated, perhaps because Tommaso hasn’t received the attention his food and his wine list deserve, his excellent cooking and thrilling-if-ecclectic cellar (a true trésor of old wine) just aren’t on the culinary radar of Manhattanite would-be gourmets.

When it became clear to Signor Tommaso that we were there to raid his cave, he warned, “You never know how these bottles will drink. There’s a wise, old saying: ‘there are no good wines… just good bottles.'” And he’s right: when it comes to old wine, even when provenance is unquestionable and a given bottle has been cellared properly, age invariably increases the chance that a bottling will have gone bad.

The menu and pairings:

Polpettine di Riso and Mozzarella in Carozza

St Joseph Offerus 1999 Chave

Porcini-Filled Tortellini dressed with melted Castelmagno Cheese

Corton Bressan Grand Cru 1983 Chandon de Briailles

Spiedini alla siciliana (breaded and skewered veal served with roast potatoes)

Barolo Le Rocche di Castiglione Falletto 1986 Bruno Giacosa

While the mozzarella in carozza was superb, the tortellini were by far the stand-out dish (I couldn’t resist sopping up the melted Castelmagno in my dish).

The St Joseph lacked the depth that I expected from such a highly touted producer but was good (granted, this is the winery’s “entry-level” wine). The 1983 Burgundy was very tired and had lost most of its body and acidity but its astoundingly low price made it well worth the experience (there are some great bargains on Tommaso’s list).

When we asked Tommaso about the Giacosa Barolo on the list, he told us he would go down in the cellar to see what was actually there. He returned with three bottles and proposed that we open the 1986 Barolo Le Rocche di Castiglione Falletto.

The 1986 harvest was a sleeper vintage, he explained, probably because it was overshadowed by the more famous and much warmer 1985. He and Bruno Giacosa were old friends, he said, and the winemaker had often spoken to him about the underrated and underappreciated ’86. The fact of the matter was that none of us had could remember having tasted ’86 Giacosa. And while I’ve tasted many excellent bottlings of Barolo Falletto by Giacosa, I’d never tasted the cru “Le Rocche di Castiglione Falletto.” (I’ve just discovered this excellent Table of Bruno Giacosa Barolo by nebbiolophile Ken Vastola. It reveals that 1987 was Giacosa’s last bottling of this cru.)

Now in the autumn of his life and career, Bruno Giacosa is one of Italy’s most revered winemakers and many would argue that his wines are among the best Italian ever (the 1990 Red Label Barolo Falletto is certainly one of the best wines I’ve ever tasted in my life). According to legend, Giacosa never studied winemaking. Tommaso told us that during the 1960s, before Italy’s economic miracle reached the Langhe hills (where Barolo and Barbaresco are made), many winemakers were forced to abandon their vineyards and travel abroad to find work to support their families. Giacosa, he told us, generously offerred to make their wines for them while they were gone, thus ensuring that their land would not be snatched up by unscrupulous speculators in their absence. This experience, he said, allowed Giacosa to refine his skill and knowledge and helped to shape his legacy as one of Italy’s greatest vintners.

Although it showed admirably for its age, the 1986 Le Rocche di Castiglione Falletto was tired (it had some good fruit left in it but the tannin had faded). It would have been better a few years ago and I wished we had opened the 1990 Villero (another cru I’ve never tasted from Giacosa). But the price was reasonable and the experience truly memorable. And after all, our simpatico host had gently warned us beforehand, “there are no good wines… just good bottles.”

Above: Barolo Le Rocche di Castiglione Falletto 1986 Bruno Giacosa paired with Spiedini alla siciliana and roast potatoes at Tommaso’s. The bottle of 1986 Giacosa didn’t have the government warning “front label” on the back of the bottle (yes, it’s called a “front label” by the TTB, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, even though it appears on the back of the bottle). But it did have a strip label that reported the following text: “Experience, love and passion allows [sic] us to obtain this product of the highest quality coming from grapes chosen and selected exclusively by us.”

Braving the sweltering heat and collective grouchiness that pervade NYC streets this time of year, I had a quick bite and beer last night after work with a colleague at what instantly became my new favorite burger joint, Stand, on East 12 St.

Miniburgers, onion rings, fries, potato salad and house-cured pickles and beets on the side, microbrews (man, that beer tasted good after a long hot week in Manhattan!), and a colorful cocktail list. Didn’t get to peruse the wines but was told that they are selected by natural-wine aesthete and NYC wine über-hipster Byron Bates, wine director at Bette. Each table at Stand also sports a plastic jar of Bertman’s Original Ball Park Mustard, imported expressly from Cleveland, OH.

But what completely blew me away was the bio-degradable packaging the restaurant uses for its take-out. The straws were made from corn, the sandwich boxes from sugar, and the utensils fashioned from potatoes. I put the fork in my mouth and started to chew. While the fork was more than firm enough, I could feel it give way to the pressure of my teeth when I bit down. “It probably doesn’t taste so good,” said manager and co-owner Ray Pirkle, “but if you drop it in hot water, it turns into a noodle.”

For the Benjamin Braddocks out there contemplating a career in reduce-your-carbon-footprint take-out packaging… I want to say one word to you. Just one word: potatoes.

In other news, I really liked Dr. Vino’s recent post on billionaires.

Dining with the rich and powerful in NYC.

Last night I attended a dinner for roughly 40 persons in a private room at Porter House in the Time Warner Center at Columbus circle. Time Warner CEO Richard Parsons sat at the head table and guests tasted 9 bottlings of his Brunello di Montalcino Il Palazzone. Richard’s wife Laura Parsons and Washington insider Vernon Jordan also attended, not to mention the sommeliers, wine directors, and general managers of a number of top NYC restaurants (Babbo, Esca, Felidia, San Domenico, Four Seasons among others). I had been invited by my friend Amanda de Leon, who is president of Il Palazzone. Richard Parsons and his wife dine regularly at I Trulli and he and Ron Lauder often lunch at Centovini (two of the businesses for which I do marketing).

One of the most fascinating elements — to my mind at least — about working in the New York City restaurant scene is how the allure of fine dining and the aphrodiasic of money and power bring together some of the most unlikely bedfellows. On the one hand, between Vernon Jordan and Richard Parsons, I broke bread with two of the country’s most powerful dealmakers and Washington insiders. I exchanged pleasantries with Mr. Jordan who sat with Amanda and chatted briefly with Mr. Parsons about I Trulli. I can’t imagine any other context where I would come into contact with such luminary figures. On the other hand, after working as a writer/copywriter in New York for the last ten years, I have seen some of the more unsavory sides of the city’s restaurateurs and wine merchants. Working in the wine and restaurant business in NYC is kind of like being in the mafia: the overblown egos and the intense competition create a sort of kill-or-be-killed working environment. Politicians and powerbrokers like to eat well and perhaps more than anything else, like to feel like they are restaurant insiders. Restaurateurs like to feel like they have access to power. Having seen some of those restaurateurs and wine merchants up close, I find them strange bedfellows.

But what really blew my mind about the dinner was how Il Palazzone’s enolgoist, Paolo Vagaggini, stood up and told the party — first in broken English and then in Italian — that the Palazzone winery “respects and reflects the tradition of Brunello and makes a very traditional wine.” In fact, the wines are very modern in style: very fruit driven and concentrated, oaky and high in alcohol. What tradition is he talking about? The one launched by Wine Spectator’s James Suckling and the inimitable Robert Parker in the early 1990s? Forget Mondovino, we need Michael Moore!

Although they’re not wines I would drink at home, they are very well made modern-style wines. The 2001 Riserva will drink well in a few years and both the 1998 Brunello and 1998 Brunello Riserva showed well.

The food at Porter House was mediocre and the 1995 Brunello Riserva, which I had tasted a number of times over the last few years, seemed shot (at least the bottle poured at my table). But the evening’s glamour — borne out of the odd marriage of monied power and restaurant power brokers — made for a memorable evening nonetheless.

Stepping out into the street after the dinner, I was happy to return to the warm June night air and the smells and sounds of the Upper West Side. Those dinners remind me of Fellini’s 1950s movies where the characters fill the emptiness of their lives with meaningless conversation. Last night the welcomed Broadway street scene was the little girl who Marcello meets at the end of La dolce vita. It reminded me that there is a “sweetness” to life in NYC… where dinners like that happen every night and no one even notices. Broadway and the Upper West Side just keep doing their thing — they don’t care about overly oaked Brunello, badly cooked steak, and unsavory restaurateurs who cuddle up to the rich and powerful.