“Office Hours” with Steven Graf

Our friend Steven Graf (& co.) is a hero. Steven and his colleagues import wine to the United States, which might be one of the reasons why - at this very moment - you have a delicious bottle of wine waiting for you at home or at your favorite restaurant. It takes a “Steven” to visit winemakers, learn their stories, taste new cuvées and vintages, and introduce the wines to those of us who are temporarily fixed to the mainland.

On Mondays, Steven and his team introduce a new wine (or several wines made by one producer) to professionals in the food & beverage world, wine buyers, sommeliers, and the like. What follows the tasting is usually further education in the form of “blind tastings” or “blinds” for short. A “blind” is a guessing game amongst wine nerds, using context clues in the glass to guess where a wine is from, and if you’re really good, who made it.

My claim to fame is guessing a cuvée of Catherine Riss’ on a “blind” shortly after we moved to Brooklyn.