Venturing into a smart boutique wine shop can be intimidating. It can also be a great deal of fun, as I learned at Greenpoint’s Dandelion Wine, where owner Lily Peachin and her staff are passionate, but not pretentious. Their extensive selection is neatly organized on plain wooden shelves, and arranged amid the appropriately “vintage” décor. The bottles, with old-fashioned string tags around their necks, are as pleasing to browse as books, and like books, each bottle has a story to tell (ask about the Sinister Hand!). Reading their poetic, handwritten descriptions and trying to choose just one bottle, is thirsty-making work, as is trying to decide between “Long and Lush” or “Big Purple Spicy.”
A self-proclaimed farmer’s daughter, Peachin has an unsurprising preference for “honest” wine, a quality not limited to a particular grape or region, but true of any wine that “fulfills its natural destiny,” by exhibiting the characteristics native to its grape and environment. Anything that manipulates the development of the wine—such as adding sugar or oak chips, two common practices in many “new world” regions—is considered dishonest. Dandelion Wine has a distinct proclivity for “old world” wine.
