The holidays are a time for celebration, and in my house, that always includes good wine. And although this festive season is perfect for pulling corks on unicorn bottles, it’s important to remember that good wine needn’t be expensive—and expensive wine isn’t always good. In fact, when I talk about wine with my oenophile friends, the topic that arises most often is probably quality-to-price ratio. Nothing excites me more than a great bottle that’s also a steal.
With that in mind, I’ll be recommending wines for the next two weeks that will delight your Christmas crowd without breaking the bank. In fact, everything in these columns will be something I bought for $20 or less. This week I’m tackling sparkling and white wines.
This sparkling wine from Argentina is a steal at $12. (Photo by Cameron Kelsall)
I like to start every party or celebratory meal off with bubbles. Christmas Day will certainly feature the genuine article, vintage Champagne—but my crew likes to drink a lot, and my pockets aren’t that deep. Enter Amalaya, which I discovered during brunch at Versi Vino a few months back with Wes and David. We were all enchanted by this zippy, bone-dry sparkler from Argentina, comprised of Riesling (80%) and Torrontés (20%), a grape native to the country. When Christine mentioned the retail price was just $12, we collectively bought as much as we could carry. Grab a couple bottles to impress your friends, then watch their jaws drop when you tell them how much it costs.
A California wine with an Austro-German pedigree. (Photo by Cameron Kelsall)
The last time we were at Versi Vino, we also picked up a bottle of 2019 Tatomer Hinter der Mauer ($15). It’s a California wine, but as the name suggests, it has an Austro-German pedigree. (The name translates roughly to “over the wall.”) The Austrian varietal Grüner Veltliner dominates the blend with its trademark characteristics of spice and herb. Riesling provides a great acidity. This would be a perfect wine to open with shellfish-based appetizers like shrimp cocktail or chilled lump crabmeat, both of which are always on my holiday table.
Elbing is one of the oldest grapes known to humankind. Many believe the Romans brought it to Germany. (Photo by Cameron Kelsall)
Riesling is the predominant grape in the Mosel region of Germany. Several of the great Mosel producers, like Stephan Steinmetz, also make a bottling of Elbing. This is only of the oldest grapes known to humankind, and it’s thought to have been brought to Germany by the Romans in antiquity. Perhaps because it’s not as well known as its Mosel neighbor, Elbings are often great values, even from producers whose Rieslings command $50 or more. I buy Steinmetz Elbing from Moore Brothers all the time for $19, and it goes with everything from roasted fish to succulent pork chops to oysters on the half-shell. As this might suggest, this is the bottle to keep around or bring no matter what’s being served. The acidity is perfectly balanced, and I love the hint of candied orange on the palate.
Come back next Wednesday when I’ll be offering red recommendations!
Versi Vino opened its doors in July 2020, and it’s been shaking up the South Jersey wine scene ever since. Located in Maple Shade, the concept combines a wine bar, bottle shop and bistro under one roof. The experience is curated under the watchful eye of Christine Zubris, a longtime wine enthusiast who turned her passion into a new profession after years of working in the technology sector. With a rotating wine list, a focus on education and a refreshingly laid-back environment, Christine’s concept has attracted aficionados and the uninitiated alike.
Christine Zubris, owner of Versi Vino in Maple Shade. (Photo by Cameron Kelsall)
Christine’s concept is built around exploration. The wines offered at Versi Vino are available by the taste, half-glass, full glass or bottle, and everything served in their restaurant is also offered for retail sale. The knowledgeable staff are always ready with recommendations and suggestions for flights based on individual taste profiles.
Christine graciously made some time to speak with me recently about how she fell in love with wine, the challenges and unexpected upsides of opening a business during the pandemic, and her ultimate long-term goals for the Versi Vino experience. We also talked desert-island wines, favorite grapes and how to approach the holiday wine selection. Some responses have been condensed and lightly edited.
Can I ask you first to tell me a little about how wine came into your life?
Sure. About fifteen years ago, I started drinking wine. I would say that my first interest was in sweet wines, because that’s what everyone around me was drinking. So, Moscato from California—not even the good stuff from Italy. I started to then go into wine shops and try to figure out why was it that I liked what I liked. I started to pick other sweet wines that were from more special places—for example, from Asti in Italy. And again, I began to realize how wines had a really special sense to them. You didn’t have to buy what everybody else was drinking. So from there I started to study, because I wanted to know why that was. I purchased my first wine book, which was the Windows on the World Complete Wine Courseby Kevin Zraly. That’s really where I caught the wine bug.
So when did it go from that to being in the wine trade? Did you work in restaurants, bartend, work in tasting rooms?
Never. I haven’t worked in a single restaurant ever in my life. In college, I studied chemistry and after that, I worked for a scientific software company for about fifteen years. I was really tired of corporate life, and I wanted to work in the wine industry. I wanted to follow my passion and my love of wine. I hopped over to the other side directly by opening a wine bar and restaurant.
What’s your history with South Jersey? What drew you to open a wine bar here?
I moved to South Jersey in 2013, but just from North Jersey. So I’m a Jersey girl. I was born in Brooklyn, but we moved to Jersey when I was a kid. My husband and I moved to the farmland of northern Burlington County, and we love our lives down here. When we were looking for a spot for Versi Vino, what I had to do was draw a circle around where we live, because I didn’t want to have to drive more than twentyish miles from my town. The thing about New Jersey is that liquor licenses are pretty expensive, and there’s just not enough of them—so you kind of have to go where there’s an available license. That’s what brought me down to Maple Shade, because there was a license that was available and affordable. For me, I also wanted to make sure we were able to find a spot that was on a major road. I didn’t want to be tucked away too far because I felt that Versi Vino, in its novel concept, needed to have some good daily traffic.
Christine discovered wine-tasting machines on a trip to Italy. A decade later, she brought the concept to New Jersey.(Photo by Cameron Kelsall)
Tell me how you came up with this novel concept, to use your term.
Ten years ago, my husband and I were in Italy, and we saw these really fantastic wine dispensing machines in Greve in Chianti, the Tuscan region of Greve. We went to an enoteca where you’d put some money on a card, and we were just set loose and allowed to taste all these different wines. I fell in love, and I wanted to know why these weren’t in the U.S. There were no wine bars or any businesses that had them. Then over the last ten years we started to see wine bars pop up in different regions—Phoenix, South Carolina, Florida—and wanted to understand why there were none in New Jersey. We figured out they’re legal, you could use them, and they’re pretty smart—they’ll cut you off when you reach a certain level. That’s when we started to come up with the idea: How could we use these machines to change the wine-drinking experience? We know there are things we really don’t like about dining out and drinking. I don’t like most wine lists because they’re too big.
Right—and they’re not customer friendly unless you know what you’re looking for. So you end up looking by price, or by what you’ve heard of before.
And if that’s not on the list, you’re out of luck. We wanted to change the way wine was experienced at the restaurant level, but also at the retail level. Because you have the same issue when you go to a liquor store. There’s 400 Chardonnays—how do you pick the right one out of 400? You either pick the brand you know of, or you just pick the cheapest, and you hope and pray when you pull the bottle off the shelf. And maybe there’s someone at that liquor store who can help you, but that can also be a little intimidating. There’s over 65,000 different SKUs of wine available for sale in New Jersey alone. How are you able to find wines without buying a full bottle, opening it and figuring out you don’t like it? You can’t do that for 60,000 items, but we tried to have that mentality—giving people the opportunity to try wine before they commit to a full glass, or to a bottle they can drink here with dinner or take home with them.
You do have a very manageable and balanced list. How do you go about curating that?
Our list changes every 60 days. We try to give something that is classic alongside something that’s a little more esoteric. Maybe it’s from a region you’ve never heard of, but it’s the same grape that you know. Or the region is familiar, but the grape isn’t. We try to give people the ability to explore, but if you need that comfort level of a Cabernet or a Merlot, we’ll have that on our list too.
What is the selection process like?
When we first started, I reached out to a bunch of different distributors whose wine portfolios I liked. In the U.S., we have a three-tier system: You have the producer, the distributor and the retailer. I always knew from the start that I didn’t want to work with a lot of distributors, only for the fact that it’s hard to maintain all those relationships—and it’s hard to write all those checks. I’m always looking for distributors who are easy to buy from, who are consistent. As I mentioned, the list changes every 60 days. So every 60 days, I come up with a new Excel file that I send to all my distributors, which gives them the results of the prior 60 days, so they can see which wines were successful. They can take that back to their manager or boss, or they can use the information to sell elsewhere based on what was successful at Versi Vino. It also helps them know what I’m looking for. It’s never a specific wine—I never say, “I want this wine from this producer.” They have some liberty in thinking through the wines. If I’m looking for a Chablis under $20, for example, they’ll look at what’s in their portfolio and they bring it to my attention. They bring the wines, I taste through them, the staff taste them, and we pick what works. I also always have a backup list, which I call my “bench.” These are the wines I really like, but they just didn’t fit this list, or they fit the category but I went with something else.
I’d like to pivot a little bit and ask you about the process of getting Versi Vino off the ground. You opened your doors at the height of the pandemic last year, and I’m sure that wasn’t easy. What was the experience like in those early months?
It was a blessing and a curse. I’ve tried to see the positives even though there were so many negatives to opening during the pandemic. When I first purchased my liquor license and signed my lease, it was November 2019. We started construction in December 2019—all pre-Covid. January came and this thing was happening in China, and it spread to Italy, where our machines were being made. I’ll never forget the Friday night when it was announced we were stopping trade with Italy. I almost had a heart attack, because I was waiting for my wine machines to get on a ship and take their journey to the United States. There were so many things that were uncertain, so many things that were unavailable. The buildout was delayed, and our opening was delayed. I can’t tell you how frantic I was when I thought we’d be opening in the middle of March, just as the world was closing. On top of everything else, our façade sign was delayed. I remember saying, “I need this sign by the end of April, because we’re going to have this grand opening.” Of course, none of that happened.
So you were in a situation that was essentially frozen—how did you continue planning and preparing when everything was so uncertain?
I hired my first staff, and we got together for training on the 26th of June, I believe. We were opening on July 1. We all got together, we were here training, and the next day was when they stopped indoor dining again because cases were rising. No dining means no wine, no pouring. We were the saddest wine shop, with our beautiful machines sitting idle. But we opened, and Labor Day weekend was when the Governor allowed for indoor dining. But we were only allowed to have twelve guests at one time. Just to give you an idea, that’s three tables of four people—it’s really hard to run a business when you can only serve three tables at a time. But September 13 was the day we opened our doors again, as a restaurant. We just kept trucking on.
And now it’s more than a year beyond that. Do you ever look back on that time and wonder how you made it through?
I feel like I don’t take enough time to sit back and say, wow, look at this. It’s incredible. We’ve been so busy that we haven’t really had that opportunity to appreciate where we were, where we’ve been.
Versi Vino’s unofficial motto: The curious will be rewarded. (Photo by Cameron Kelsall)
It seems like your concept is fully in swing now.
It’s almost there. It’s almost 100%. The one thing we’re missing is guest use of the machines. We’ve had to be really flexible with the way we launched the business, so we ended up launching in a full-service capacity, where the servers bring the wine to you, pour the wine for you. We don’t want any sort of conflict between guests and servers who are trying to also pour wine from the same machines. We’re trying to figure out how to layer that in. Since we truly do operate as a restaurant, there will be a learning curve to understanding how we do that.
Last broad question: How have you seen the following develop here at Versi Vino? What have you learned from it?
I think what we try to do is create a really great experience for guests. The best feeling we get is when a guest comes in and they’re so excited about having brunch, or just coming in mid-day for some charcuterie and wine, or they come in for dinner and they’re really thrilled when they walk through the door. We want our guests to feel that way whether it’s their first time or their fifth time. We really wanted to embrace making sure people feel welcome, and we know that when people see our menus, it can initially feel a little overwhelming. But after your first flight comes out, you’re like, I got this! We want people to keep drinking wines, trying new things and loving the experience. We take pride in making sure that people enjoy their experience here.
Lightning Round
Favorite grape?
This is going to sound terrible because I own a wine bar! Chardonnay. 100%. Love it in blends, love it in sparkling, love it in still, love it in steel, love it in oak. Love everything about what you can do with it.
Favorite region?
Piedmont, hands down. They grow a little bit of Chardonnay too.
Do you have a desert island bottle of wine?
On the red side, I’m a big Pinot Noir drinker. I’ll drink it from Burgundy—and I’m talking within budget—so I’d either go with just a classic Burgundy from the general Bourgogne appellation. But if I had a few extra bucks, I’d go with maybe something a little more special, like a Volnay or a Pommard. But my favorite of all time is Occidental Pinot Noir. I have a bunch of that in my cellar that I’m hanging on to. I think Steve Kistler is a genius winemaker.
Lastly, since it’s coming up: What wines will be on your Thanksgiving table?
I host Thanksgiving, so it’s important for me to have great wines. I will definitely have Burgundy. I’ll pull some Chateau de Laborde from here. We currently don’t have a dry Riesling on our list, but I’d probably go to the store a pick and Alsatian Riesling, something a little higher quality. I also love a good, make-it-yourself cocktail as well. We’re going to have some kind of apple cider sangria on the table. And for sangria, always use the cheapest wine you can get. You don’t have to buy it from Versi Vino! I might also splurge and bring home some Gamay as well.
Thank you, Christine, for taking the time to speak with Vin de Jerz! Versi Vino is located at 461 Route 38 W in Maple Shade, NJ. For menus, hours and more, visit versivino.com.
What comes to mind when I you hear Rosé? I bet I can guess: A hot summer afternoon spent by a pool, sipping glass after glass as a way to keep cool. Sounds lovely, right? But it’s equally important to remember that Rosé is not just a warm-weather beverage, and that the best expressions of it can pair well with any number of food. (And, as I previously mentioned, don’t be afraid to age your Rosé!)
A good Rosé is welcome all year long.
I was in the mood for a substantial Rosé to pair with the Provençal-style roasted monkfish I made for dinner last week, so I grabbed a bottle of 2020 Chateau de Pibarnon that’s been sitting in my wine fridge since the summer. Clearly I didn’t get to it when the weather was hot! A blend of Mourvèdre and Cinsault, this wine comes from the Bandol appellation, where the famous Domaine Tempier overshadows just about everyone else. This Rosé is as good as Tempier, and it’s $15-20 cheaper, depending on where you buy it. I noticed watermelon and cantaloupe on the nose, with similar flavors on the palate. This wine’s body is on the heavier side, so it could stand up to a meaty, assertive seafood like monkfish. You could even serve it with meat! ($33, purchased at Versi Vino in Maple Shade, NJ).
Italians sometimes call Barolo the King of Wines, and bottles often command a princely sum. Made from the Nebbiolo grape, Barolo must be aged for 3 years before it is released, with 18 months of aging in wood. A good-quality bottle can run anywhere from $50 to $500. So I was surprised when friends mentioned finding 2014 Covalli Barolo at Costco for $15. That kind of price is unheard of. I had my doubts, but I wanted to give it a try.
Barolo is the King of Wine.
Is this the Barolo that will change your life? No. But it’s a surprisingly good expression at its price point. The familiar aromas of leather, tobacco, tar and coffee are there. The tannins are grippy and firm, even with a long decant. It was not the most complex wine I’ve ever tasted, but you could tell it was made with skill. At $15, I can’t complain.
A no-recipe recipe: Pasta with mushrooms, onions, parsley and Pecorino cheese.
Barolo is usually served with hearty roasts and steaks, but I love to pair it with pasta. This is a favorite no-recipe recipe of mine: Sauté onions in butter until they’re just on the edge of caramelizing, then deglaze the pan with some Sherry or good-quality chicken stock. In a separate pan, brown whatever mushrooms you have on hand. Meanwhile, boil a long noodle until it’s just shy of al dente, around 2 minutes less than the package specifies. Finish cooking the pasta in the skillet with the onions, adding a splash of pasta water if needed to stretch the sauce. Off the heat, fold in parsley and Pecorino Romano, then top with the mushrooms. Abbondanza! Dinner is served, and it’s fit for the King of Wines!
When visitors and out-of-town guests ask me for a restaurant recommendation, I point them straight to Taste of Szechuan. Located in a nondescript strip mall in Cherry Hill, it serves some of the best food I’ve ever eaten. It’s not the first Sichuanese restaurant in this neck of the woods—Han Dynasty has been in Philly and the suburbs for decades—but to me, it’s tops. Proof positive: Whenever my mother-in-law, who was born in China, comes to visit, this is where she asks to go for dinner.
2019 Chendawg Yeah! from Extradimensional Wine Co. and BBQ Wine from Swick Wines.
Beyond the great food and unfailingly friendly service, another perk is that Taste of Szechuan is BYOB. As you must know by now, I love the challenge of pairing food and wine and curating a dining experience from top to bottom. Chinese cuisine offers so many avenues for this. A major flavor component in Sichuan cooking is called mala—the spicy and slightly numbing taste that comes from Sichuan peppercorns. It’s prominent in dishes like Mapo Tofu and Seven-Flavor Wontons, and it cries out for an acidy white wine. At the same time, the preponderance of smoky grilled and stir-fried meats can stand up to a hearty red. Often, I split the difference and bring a bottle of each!
David is a big fan as well, and we found ourselves at dinner there the other night, after seeing a play. I grabbed two bottles of wine that I’d never had before and really wanted to try. The first was a brand-spanking-new offering from a brand-spanking-new label: 2019 Chendawg Yeah! from Extradimensional Wine Co. Yeah! (Yeah!) This is a new project from Hardy Wallace, formerly one-half of the much-loved Dirty and Rowdy Family Winery. Dirty and Rowdy ceased operations in September of this year, and no sooner did Hardy announce the first four releases of his new label. I was lucky to snag a bottle of each, as the entire drop sold out within six hours.
Unbelievable appetizers: Crispy stir-fried beef and cold cucumbers in chili-garlic sauce.
The wine is a white blend dominated by Old Vine Chenin Blanc and Old Vine Sémillon. I took the winemaker’s advice and decanted it for 60 minutes before heading to the restaurant. The nose was full of honey, lychee and wildflowers, with similar flavors on the palate. The balanced acidity reminded me of sour candy. This would be perfect with Sichuanese food—in addition to being great on its own. It also held up for days after dinner…I had my last glass almost a week later, and it was still fresh as a daisy. I don’t know whether this wine will be available out in the wild; if not, find a friend with a bottle and invite yourself to dinner. ($42, purchased directly from the winery.)
You can never go wrong with cold chili noodles.
My other selection was the aptly named BBQ Wine from Swick Wines. Joe Swick spent years working harvests around the world before returning to his home state of Oregon and opening his eponymous winery. He sources grapes from many sites in Oregon and Washington State, which he uses to make a wide-ranging portfolio. I’ve been a member of his wine club for some time and have always been impressed by the breadth and depth of his offerings. This wine is 100% Pinot Noir from the Columbia Gorge, made in a slightly chillable style. Smoke, strawberries and a hint of oak on the nose and palate. This would definitely pair well with Korean barbecue in addition to Chinese dishes. ($18, purchased directly from the winery.)
Mapo tofu pairs perfectly with an acidy white wine.
Our appetizer round featured some standbys, like cucumbers in a rich garlic sauce that brought out herby notes in the Chendawg and spicy cold noodles that were as bold as the BBQ Wine. Crispy stir-fried beef was a star that went well with both wines—the sweet-chili sauce complemented the white while the jerky-like flavor and texture of the meat was made for Pinot Noir. Entrees were an even split: As predicted, the mouth-numbing heat of Mapo Tofu was ideal for white wine, while the chariness of stir-fried long beans matched the smoky notes of the BBQ Wine. But really, when you’re eating food and drinking wine this good, everything just works.
I love cooking big, intricate meals, and I’m not afraid to do it on a weeknight. (More on that later.) But there are also times when I just want to get dinner on the table with as little effort as possible. Nights like those are why I keep sausage in my regular rotation. It’s my go-to sheet pan supper: A package of high-quality sausages, a hearty vegetable (usually Brussels sprouts or broccoli), and baked or roasted potatoes—all of which can cook together in the same oven, virtually no assembly required, and end up on the table in an hour or less. It’s a lazy gourmand’s dream.
2015 Fifteen 10 Red Blend from Derby Wine Estate. Grown in Paso Robles, this is a Rhône-style blend, with Mourvèdreas the primary grape.
As with so many meals, my go-to wine for Sausage Night is Pinot Noir. But having received an influx of new wines recently, I wanted to branch out a bit. While my delicious Sherry and Shallot Berkshire Pork Sausages from True Story Foods roasted alongside Brussels sprouts and creamer potatoes in the kitchen, I decanted a 2015 Fifteen 10 Red Blend from Derby Wine Estates, a boutique vineyard in Paso Robles, California. As with the Arcane VI Les AmoureuxI wrote about last week, the Fifteen 10 is a Rhône-style blend; the primary grape here is Mourvèdre, and the resulting wine is predictably rich and tannic. I left it in the decanter for the full hour it took to cook and rest my dinner before serving.
Sherry and shallot Berkshire pork sausages with roasted Brussels sprouts and potatoes. A one sheet-pan dinner that comes together in under an hour.
I picked up coffee, licorice, Coca-Cola and hints of tar on the nose, as well as the faint aroma of oak. (The wine was aged in 15% new French oak barrels.) The color in the glass was slightly lighter than I would have expected—a soft-hued garnet that could have been mistaken for Pinot Noir. You wouldn’t think that once you tasted it, though. Although the combination of bottle age and decanting mellowed the tannins, they were still fairly firm, and the wine finished quite long. It complemented the heartiness of the meal, although I think I’ll stick to Pinot for my next Sausage Night.
The 2016 bottling of Fifteen 10 retails for $34 on the Derby Wine Estates website, and that price is in line with what I’ve seen online for the 2015. I’m not sure I’d pay that—and luckily, I didn’t. I got my bottle from Last Bottle Wines. I paid $15, an ideal price-point for an everyday wine and some experimentation. Last Bottle Wines sells one wine at a time, moving on only when the current inventory is depleted. As such, I recommend creating an account, downloading their app, turning on notifications and discovering the diverse array of wines they sell. You’ll find many gems at wallet-friendly prices.
Remember how I said I love a cooking project? I hope so, since it was like three paragraphs ago. Well, I’m not entirely sure that Bolognese sauce counts, since it’s a mostly inactive process, coming together over a low flame for several hours. But it requires more energy that dropping sausages on a sheet pan, so I say it does.
A Dutch oven full of Rigatoni Bolognese. I always follow Marcella Hazan’s legendary recipe, with some minor variations.
One of the perks of working from home is that I can take a break in the early afternoon, get my pot of sauce going and then get on with my afternoon. By the time I’m finished with my tasks, dinner’s nearly ready—and in the meantime, my house fills with the savory smell of slow-booked beef, simmering tomatoes and onions sweated perfectly in butter, oil and wine. What else do you need? Oh, right—the ideal wine to go with it.
For me, that’s usually a rustic Italian red. Nothing fancy—save your $100 Barolo for some other night. I’m talking the kind of wine you might find on any table in Bologna, served alongside some simple home cooking. So what was I to do when I opened up my wine fridge and a Chianti or Sangiovese was nowhere in sight? The answer laid closer to home.
2019 William Heritage Estate Grown Merlot. This winery is 10 minutes from my house.
I named this site Vin de Jerz after all, so it makes sense to highlight the best wines being made in New Jersey. As luck would have it, one of the top vineyards in the state is just a few miles from my house. William Heritage Winery, in Mullica Hill, makes a variety of top-notch wines in different styles. A few weeks ago, a friend gifted me a bottle of their 2019 Estate Grown Merlot, which retails currently for $30 on their website. This silky, seductive wine not only paired perfectly with my pasta—it stood up admirably to any Merlot I’ve had from California or New York (or even Bordeaux!).
In many ways, this wine reminded me of the Napa and Sonoma bottles I’ve been privileged to taste from the 1970s, ‘80s and early ‘90s—before the winemakers there generally adopted a “bigger is better” mindset. It’s very fruit-forward, with moderate tannins that make it already quite approachable and food friendly. Twelve months of aging in French oak (12% new) gives it a refined structure. I picked up strawberry and wildflowers on the nose and the slightest hint of quince on the palate. This wine also sipped quite nicely on its own after dinner was done.
Good enough to eat…and drink!
If you’ve never tried New Jersey wine, this is as good a place to start. The William Heritage property in Mullica Hill is also beautiful to visit, and they’ve recently opened a second tasting room in Downtown Haddonfield, where you can buy a bottle before heading out to one of that town’s many wonderful BYOBs. (My husband Wes and I love The Little Hen.) And if you want to make Bolognese, you can’t beat Marcella Hazan’s legendary recipe.
Vin de Jerz 