Thirst Behavior is a project about wine, taste, and the social performances that form around them, the rituals of enjoyment shaped by status, media, money, and desire. Wine is the entry point; the real subject is how taste gets made, circulated, and contested, especially in New York and the Hamptons, where leisure and tastemaking overlap most visibly.
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Hello everyone,
My friends created what I believe will be the coolest bar in NYC, and it soft opens tomorrow night, Thursday, July 30th. It’s called Bar Etienne, and it’s located at 44 Bedford Street in the West Village in the old Daddy-O’s space. This project comes from the team behind the popular LES hangout and cig-smoking capital of Dimes Square, Bar Valentina. Etienne promises to be every bit as cool as Val’s, but maybe a little more enticing for those of us over the age of 26. I’ve installed a tiny wine program of French wines in many of the classic categories at markups that I believe are very friendly. Go pay them a visit on Thursday night.
Also on Thursday night, I’ll be deejaying at Bar Lalo. If you’re in Montauk, please come by anytime after 11. You can have a margarita, listen to some not-so-recent Uproot Andy techno cumbia remixes, and decompress after work. If we’re lucky, we might get a guest appearance from DJ SoftSkillz aka my wife, Chelsea Heller, who does not in any way identify as a DJ, but does nonetheless FW a clever transition. There also might be some bonus wine tasting opportunities behind the DJ decks. This is a new hybrid form I’m trying to launch: approach the booth, not to request a song (no, never), but to get a tiny sip of something special I brought out with me. Am I a good enough DJ to be adding this extra layer of mental and physical work? Nope. Will I do my best? Always.
Finally, another piece of news: I’ve joined the team at Hospitality Everywhere, a new newsletter on Substack from Crown Creative. They’re a hospitality-focused creative agency that works globally and they’re currently concepting a new restaurant in Grand Central Terminal. I’ll be contributing travel recs, hot takes, and beverage-related strategy notes regularly here.
TASTING NOTES
Château Léoville Poyferré 1982 — A real heavy hitter, allegedly. A guest shared a glass of this with me at work. The 1982 Left Bank vintage was generationally good — these wines are still among the most prized and expensive in the world — and this bottle arrived carrying all of that reputational baggage. It smelled and tasted exactly as you might expect: cassis, cedar, graphite, worn leather; a tasting note I could have written before the cork came out.
The wine was remarkably sound. The cork smelled kind of moldy, but the acidity was impressively intact, some primary blackcurrant hanging on, a little bricking at the rim, and an almost suspiciously smooth finish. It was good! I just couldn’t tell you whether I liked it. The problem isn’t that context is bad — context deepens pleasure, for sure. The problem is that an outsized reputation fills the gap between what you expect and what you get, and that gap is where surprise lives. Without it, it’s harder to have a direct experience of the wine. You’re encountering what you’re supposed to feel about it. If I’d tasted this blind, I would have probably said something boring like, “wow, what a remarkably even palate. Feels well-aged and uhh, pretty good, I guess.” Not exactly the language of generational greatness.
