Seeing an obscure staff favorite labor-of-love wine get good press is kind of like when your favorite garage band blows up. Well, kind of. Except when the band hits the big time, no one says you can’t listen to them anymore because there’s not enough of their music to go around.

So we come to the sad tale of our 2007 Gemischter Satz white from Stefan Hajszan ($20.50). Eric Asimov in this morning’s NY Times picked it as his “favorite” of a portfolio of “exquisite” wines as “a gorgeous wine that is both delicate and intense” with such “lacy lightness” of flavors that he “could not help imagining myself at a Viennese café, watching the city go by.” With such enthusiasm, it appears that even an unpronounceable winery, obscure origin (Vienna) and odd method of production (gemischter satz is mixed grapes all harvested and vinified at the same time, a process Asimov felt compelled to mention produces “particularly noteworthy” wines with “unusual complexity”) doesn’t inoculate a wine from a depression era style run on the banks.

We called (last night, thank you twitter and the internet) to make sure we had a supply of the Hajszan and the importers said they MIGHT be able to reserve 5 cases for us. And if we got them, they’d be doing us a solid because we were true fans who carried the wine long before it was famous. Apparently their phones have been ringing off the hook since the article appeared online (damn you, twitter and the internet).

As of now, we only have a case. Limit 2 per customer, first come, first served with an email to mrobertson@greenegrape.com.

UPDATE! We got the extra cases! We’re thrilled to be able to offer them to Greene Grape customers. Enjoy!

Thanksgiving is sooner than you think so reserve your bird! This year The Greene Grape offers all-natural turkeys from Amish & Mennonite farms in Lancaster County for $3.99/lb in sizes ranging from 8 to 16 lbs. They’re raised on a 100% vegetarian, wholesome grain diet of corn and soy beans, with no animal by-products, antibiotics, growth stimulants or gluten. Their environment gives them free-range access to the outdoors where they benefit from natural sunlight and fresh air, both of which contribute to the overall quality and flavor of the birds. The result is a delightfully tender, moist turkey with superb taste. If you would like to order organic ($5.99/lb), heritage ($9.99/lb), or wild turkey ($11.99), just place a special request with us. Additionally, if you desire an alternative to the traditional, our Butcher, Bryan, can order and prepare ham, goose, duck, Cornish hens–you name it and he can get it for you.

All orders will be available for pick up starting Tuesday, November 24 during normal store hours. Thanksgiving Day hours are 8 AM -3PM.

Learn a new cocktail trick at the wine stores this weekend. We’ll be pouring tastes of Crystal Head vodka (the one that comes in a SKULL) and demonstrating how to make a Halloween-themed cocktail. The event is FREE and will take place in the Manhattan wine store on Friday, October 30 from 5-8pm and in the Brooklyn wine store on Saturday, October 31 from 5-8pm.

At Provisions, we’ve got tempting treats that will prevent you from raiding the kids’ candy stock. We just got a delivery of Liddabit sweets – local handmade chocolates including amazing salt caramels and gourmet candy bars like the King Bar made with soft peanut butter nougat sandwiched between a brown sugar-brown butter cookie and a layer of fresh banana ganache, and dipped in milk chocolate. Fresh out of the oven, we’ve also got pumpkin ginger sandwiches (don’t call them “whoopie pies!”) – creamy white chocolate filling delicately spiked with white pepper sandwiched between two spiced pumpkin ginger cookies and dusted with sparkling sugar from local artisanal, inventive bakers Whimsy & Spice.

Starting tonight, the coffee bar will be adding hot cider to their drink lineup and to celebrate, we’ll be pouring free samples from 5-7pm. As with all our products made in-house, we use the same quality ingredients you find in our cases and on our shelves. The cider comes from Red Jacket Orchards in Seneca, NY and is 100% juice from New York apples.

The start of cider season also has us looking forward to breaking out the recipe for a Chimayo cocktail, one of the most unusually delicious cocktails we’ve tried and a perfect segue into fall.

Ingredients:

1/4 oz lemon juice
1 1/4 oz premium tequila (we used Cabrito)
1 1/2 oz unfiltered apple cider
1/4 oz Creme de Cassis
apple wedges, thinly sliced (optional for garnish)

Add tequila, creme de cassis, cider and lemon juice to a shaker. Blend well and pour over ice into glass. Garnish with an apple wedge.

It’s Halloween. Normally staid women dress provocatively and kids raised on watered-down juice eat twice their weight in candy. Which is why every year we briefly stray from our mission of providing you with affordable, handcrafted wines and offer you something new, odd, strange, and worthy of bringing to a Halloween party. We call it our “spooky spirit” – an eerie convergence of marketing savvy and the spirit world.

The race for Spooky Spirit 2009 was over before it began. Dan Aykroyd of Ghostbusters fame has just released a vodka quadruple-distilled then triple-filtered over herkimer diamonds and packaged in a handblown glass replica of a HUMAN SKULL. Inspired by the legend of the crystal skulls, alleged ancient Mayan artifacts that give the possessor supernatural powers, this year’s selection may give you everlasting life and the ability to see into the future. Last year’s Spooky Spirit merely came in a bottle that glowed green when you poured it. And if the packaging and provenance didn’t seal the deal, this marketing video, which refers to Crystal Head as “the most challenging of the legal recreational consumables” did.

We’ll be pouring tastes of Crystal Head vodka straight and in cocktails in the Manhattan store on Friday, October 30 from 5-8pm and in the Brooklyn store on Saturday, October 31 from 5-8pm. Join us!

To reserve your bottle in Brooklyn, email mrobertson@greenegrape.com or call 718.797.9463. To reserve your bottle in Manhattan, email seth@greenegrape.com or call 212.406.9463.

Cheese, the real star

Ah but the real star is the cheese. Made from raw goat and cow’s milk, it was a surprise hit with a 4 1/2 year old picky eater. As the cheese counter puts it “expect nuttiness and fruitiness” (from both the cheese and the child).

Tonight from 5-7pm in the Brooklyn wine store, join us for a spirit tasting of 4 New York state-made spirits all made on a working farm upstate. With the success of Core, a vodka made from apples grown on the same land as the distillery, Golden Harvest farms has branched out to other ap-peeling spirits. With fruit from 2 other farms (Fix Brother’s Farm & Eger Brother’s Orchard), they recently perfected a pear brandy similar to a european eau de vie de poire or “Poire William” and will be bringing samples of their fuji apple brandy and a new applejack distilled in Kentucky at the famous Woodford distillery that’s not even available for sale yet.

You may not know that at The Greene Grape, we grind our own meat and use the same grass-fed beef and high quality pork, veal and lamb Bryan features in his butcher case. As Bryan says: “It’s a lot more work but it’s a better, safer product.”

Custom blends with different fat ratios are possible with advance notice or if the counter isn’t too busy. We did a custom blend of pork and beef for neighbor Alison C. so she could make her grandmother Erna Engel’s meatloaf. She was kind enough to provide us with the recipe (along with how to make meat patties and stuffed peppers), which also appears in the Lafayette Avenue Presbyterian Church’s cookbook.

Meat Patties (Fleischlabeln) (makes about 20 small patties)

For 2 lbs meat: (ground beef (no less than 15% fat – I’d use Provisions ground chuck but round would work too) and/or dark meat ground turkey, or ground beef, pork and veal (1/3 each) or half and half ground pork and beef or beef and turkey. If you use meat with less fat (turkey or round) you may want to use a bit more bread and/or juice and/or up the spices and condiments (mustard and capers) a bit to boost flavor.

1 large yellow onion, diced

½ cup olive oil

2 tablespoons mustard

8 oz can tomato juice (or V-8)

2 tsp. small capers

1 ½ tsp. dried thyme

2 tsp. dried parsley (or 4 tsp. fresh, finely chopped)

1 ½ tsp.dried marjoram

Fresh ground pepper (ten-fifteen turns of the grinder or to taste)

1 tsp. salt (or less, to taste)

1 or 2 eggs (use two if small or if you’re using ground turkey)

2-3 slices day old bread with crust removed (preferably rye) soaked in 1 cup water and then squeezed out

1-2 cups fine bread crumbs

1. Pour the olive oil in a large heavy skillet and add the onions, cook over low heat until soft but not browned

2. Meanwhile combine all of the other ingredients except the tomato juice in a large bowl, mixing well with your hands

3. Add the onions, let them cool a bit and mix them in; while the onions are cooling drain the excess oil from the pan and wipe it clean of any onion bits.

4. Then add the tomato juice to the meat mixture, a bit at a time until the mixture is quite loose, almost (but not quite) too loose to stick together

5. Spread a cup or so of bread crumbs on a large plate with a rim or small baking pan

6. Form mixture into a ball about 2-3 inches in diameter and then shape it into a flattened oval patty

7. Coat each patty in the bread crumbs on both side and place in the skillet. Add more bread crumbs to the pan or plate as necessary

8. Fry patties over medium heat, turning over so both sides brown.

9. Place cooked patties on paper towels to absorb excess fat

Patties can be eaten hot or cold and they freeze well.

NOTE : on bread crumbs: put fairly dry white or whole wheat bread in a blender or food processor and pulse until crumbs reach the desired texture.

Meatloaf:

The meat patties are more versatile, but you can also bake the mixture in a pan as meatloaf; a bit less hands on prep. Use a heavy standard loaf pan (glass or metal) or a meatloaf pan (a double loaf pan with holes in the bottom).

1. Prepare the meat patty recipe above through step 4 and preheat the oven to 325 degrees.

2. Put the mixture in the loaf pan, smooth the top, and brush on (or drizzle from a tube) about ¼ cup tomato paste

3. Bake in a 325 degree oven about ½ hr. until meat loaf pulls away from the sides of the pan and the top browns a bit. (If the meatloaf is cooked and the top hasn’t browned, turn the over setting to broil and put it under the broiler for a minute or two.)

4. If desired you can serve with a simple sauce: pour the drippings from the pan into a small saucepan, whisk in a tablespoon or two of flour to make a roux and cook, stirring constantly until it begins to thicken, then whisk in 1/2 a cup or so of beef broth (the amount of flour and broth depend on how much dripping you have, which, in turn depends on how much fat there was in the meat.)

5. Slice the meatloaf and serve with the sauce and/or a sprinkling of finely chopped fresh parsley

Stuffed Peppers

Prepare meat mixture as for Meat Patties (above to step 4) but add a bit more tomato juice; you can even use ground turkey breast or chicken for a mixture to stuff the peppers but add a couple of extra slices or bread and more juice to keep the mixture soft enough, and a bit more spice to boost the flavor.

Cut the tops off 8 peppers (more if small, less if very large), set the tops aside and remove the seeds and ribs ; you can use green, red or mixed colors of peppers; try to buy peppers which are squarish in shape and have flat bottoms.

Fill peppers with the meat mixture( if the mixture isn’t quite enough to fill your peppers you can add and mix in a another slice or two of soaked bread to the mixture), put the tops back on the peppers and place the peppers,, with a bit of space between them, in a large (6 qt or so) heavy pot or dutch oven or ovenproof casserole with a cover. (If you don’t have a large heavy pot or casserole with a cover, you can use a glass or ceramic baking dish and cover it with heavy duty foil or use a couple of smaller casseroles with a cover. In a pinch, you could use a foil baking dish placed on a cookie sheet and covered with heavy duty foil. If you do though, watch the liquid level and add more if it dries out a bit.) )

Add one large (16oz) can of whole tomatoes in juice (in a pinch you can use V-8 or tomato juice or diced tomatoes) to the pot or casserole.

Cover the pot or casserole and cook about ¾ hour (until the peppers are soft; it depends on the size of the peppers) on top of the stove or in a 325 degree oven.

Okay one’s a Mayer and one’s a Meyer, but still . . . fresh off their training with master butcher Josh Applestone at Fleisher’s, Bryan the butcher and Daniel the devilish deli man are helping Smithereen farm in Red Hook upstate butcher 2 Tamworth pigs over Halloween weekend October 31st/November 1st. Hams, hocks, bacon, boudin you name it. Every bit will be salted and savored.

The suggested donation of $125 entitles you to workshops, all meals + coffee, pickup from the Rhinecliff Amtrak station and the piggy feast. Bring warm clothes, beverages, waterproof boots, extra socks, a cooler for meat, potluck items (particularly greens & grains) and whatever you need to sleep comfortably in an 18th century hayloft. For more information or to RSVP, call 845-758-1155 or email anne.dailey@gmail.com. Work trade is accepted as part of a sliding scale.

UPDATE! Please note the location has been changed to Mead Orchards, 15 Scism Road, Tivoli, NY.

Tonight in Brooklyn, join us for 2 fabulous tasting events. Our October apple spirit tasting series continues from 5-7pm tonight at the wine store at 765 Fulton where we’ll be pouring samples of Calvados, a french apple brandy, from Lecompte. Then stop by Provisions at 753 Fulton from 6-8pm for a special beer tasting from He’Brew and Coney Island. We’ll pour Coney Island Albino Python, Coney Island Freaktoberfest, He’Brew Origin Pomegranate, He’Brew Bittersweet Lenny’s R.I.P.A. and He’Brew Rejewvenator 2009.

Though it’s hard to pick a favorite out of the beers to be poured we’re particularly looking forward to the Coney Island Albino Python. A white beer, it absolutely erupts with flavors of ginger and coriander.

See you tonight!