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Sounds like a "McWine", marketing gimmick. It really has nothing at all to do with Brooklyn, or New York for that matter, except that it's available at a Brooklyn venue. It's just a way for the wine guys involved in this one to make a buck on some mediocre, udistinguished wine sold with a Brooklyn label. Not particularly appealing to me.

sorry, that should have read "undistinguished"

Actually, quite the contrary is true. The manufacturer, creator, company and owner are all from Brooklyn. At this point, they're only available in Brooklyn (www.redwhiteandbubbly.com) and they're created uniquely for Brooklyn. This blend (Feliz) doesn't exist anywhere else, so it's signature of Brooklyn. Brooklyn's mayor even proclaimed it as the official wine of Brooklyn.

Your logic is also flawed. Peter Luger's steaks aren't from cows raised in New York. The Empire State Building is built with marble from outside New York State. Most of New York's original fashions come from textiles manufactured outside New York State. Even the Statue of Liberty, the universal symbol of New York City, was built in France with materials from outside New York State. However, none of the materials included in these products make the products themselves, any less signature to New York.

Regardless, I wouldn't refer to it as mediocre and undistinguished at all (especially if you've never tried it). The wine is quite good, and Brooklynites' response has been nothing but positive.

Explanation of the Wine Company:
http://www.brooklynpaper.com/stories/30/16/30_16bklynwine.html

Tried it.

I stand by my tastebuds. It's undistiguished and mediocre. And i hold to my opinion, it's gimmicky, regardless of your plug, and smacks of a "McWinery."

Good afternoon everyone. My name is Adam, I am the owner of Brooklyn Wine Co. Glad to see there is some commentary already about our new brand.

To respond to Chris's post from May 22nd, We actually are currently working with a New York (North Fork of Long Island) winery to produce 2 wines for the brand. I can't disclose the name yet as the deal is not yet finalized however I will be sure to stop back in and announce who it is when everything is complete.

In response to the comments posted by BB:
I am actually not a winery at all. to understand what Brooklyn Wine Co. is all about, I will digress a little bit.

I am co-owner of the wine shop Red White & Bubbly, the wine shop carrying the Brooklyn Wine brand. In the 6 and 1/2 years since we've been open, we have had wonderful experiences getting to know lots of wine makers, and an even better time sharing those wines we've found with our customers.

What we are doing with Brooklyn Wine Co. is working with some of the winemakers we've forged relationships with to make many different types of wines & spirits for the brand. The Feliz Red & Feliz white were the the first 2 to be released. We wanted to create 2 wines (red & white) at a price point which was comfortable for our customer's everyday wine needs. Chris's blog winederlust was correct in noting that we have created a Meritage as well which will have been aged for about 2 years upon release in the Fall.

We are currently in the process of putting together approximately 8 new wines & spirits from a Long Island Chardonnay to a Saki from Japan.

Again in response to BB's comments regarding this Brand being a "marketing gimmick and having nothing to do with Brooklyn", that is actually very untrue. Beyond my own Brooklyn heritage (yes I am a Brooklynite as well) and being extremely entrenched in a wide array of Brooklyn life, business and charity, the brand itself is allowing me to shine a spotlight on talented Brooklyn artists whom we will be working with to gain exposure to their incredible works of art of all forms (paint, sculpture, mixed media and video art). The Brand has also opened up a whole other corridor for working with Brooklyn charity's as well as the opportunity to work with the many organizations and groups that make positive contributions to Brooklyn and make Brooklyn what it has been, what it is and what it will be. The Brooklynites for which this wine is for, have a love for wine and a love for Brooklyn. We thought it would be fun to take those two intense loves and marry them. As any great marriage should be, we will grow together, developing many different styles of wines & spirits and showcasing these wines with the many diverse Brooklyn life's of all sorts.



Take good Care

This is a private label wine, it happens all the time. Wineries will sell off excess juice because it either a) isn't good enough for their brand or b) they don't have the resources to market it.

Whenever you see a house wine it is a private label wine. In fact many of the wines you drink regularly are private labels, or virtual wineries, you just don't realize it.

Its association with Brooklyn has to do with the owners, not the juice.

This is Adam from BWC again,

In re: to Jenny D's post, you are half true. The structure of the company is (sort of) that of a private label. The other half of the statement id definately not the case. The wine wasn't excess juice from a winery at all.

Once we picked our winemaker for these particular blends, we then went through the process of determining which vineyards (with whom we have relationships with of course)would be the best choices to suit our needs. What we did was get samples of juices direct from the vineyards, sampled them for quality, and choose the juices we were happy with.

The next step was to meet with the winemaker (and these juices) and see where we wanted to go from there. That was a really fun process and I truly learned a lot about the winemaking process. Trying to determine how to use the juices:

Did we want to create a single grape varietal or blend. What we wanted the retail cost of the wines played a big element in the process. For example, the Meritage we will be releasing in the fall has 4 different vineyards juices blended. One of the Cab Savignon's juices from 1 vineyard would retail for over $100 per bottle retail if we were just to use that juice for the wine. So how much of that one vineyards juice we used would really change the retail price dramatically if we were to use, lets say 30% instead of 15%. The other factor was (and is always) the quality of the blend. Was there enough structure, balance tannin...etc.

Not to get too into the detail, the reason I have outlined some of what we did was to basically put out there the work which went into the process of the wine itself. I feel in creating special wines for our customers, we wanted the effort to be reflected in the quality of everything, from the wine, the packaging, and the stories that go behind the products. Our customers usually want to know the story that goes behind a lot of the wines we sell, so Brooklyn Wine Co. is really incorporating Red White & Bubbly's customers into the story, as this wine was creating for them.

Thanks Again

Adam