VINTUS: Emotional Wine
The Rare Room: VINTUS Brings the World of Fine Wine to New York
One exceptional bottle can transport us thousands of miles.
This week, I returned to the steep vineyards of Côte-Rôtie without leaving Manhattan. A wine from E. Guigal brought back the dramatic Rhône hillsides where some of the world’s most celebrated wines begin.
The journey occurred inside the Rare Room at the VINTUS New York Fall Portfolio Tasting.
The tasting was held at Tallow Steakhouse, a sleek destination at Fifth Avenue and 39th Street. Its glass frontage opens the restaurant to modern Manhattan. Inside, historic black-and-white photographs suggest an earlier New York.
In one photograph, a chubby child poses beside his father. In another, a man stands proudly near hanging cuts of meat. The names were unfamiliar to me, but the images created a sense of continuity. They recalled a time when businesses were built through family labor, personal pride, and attention to quality.
That made Tallow an especially fitting setting for VINTUS.
Michael Quinttus founded the national importer in 2004. His original goal was focused and uncompromising. He wanted to build a portfolio of exceptional, family-owned estates producing handcrafted wines.
VINTUS New York followed in 2019. It was created to connect those producers more directly with the city’s restaurants, retailers, and fine-wine consumers.
At the Fall Portfolio Tasting, those intentions could be felt in every detail.
The event filled Tallow’s spacious, contemporary rooms. The staff circulated quietly, keeping glasses and water refreshed. Everything moved smoothly despite the number of people tasting, talking, and reconnecting.
The Rare Room formed a special experience within the larger event. It showcased what might be called the jewels of the VINTUS portfolio. These were bottles from distinguished producers, including wines one might choose for a wedding, an important anniversary, or another occasion that deserves to be remembered.
The room was not designed around lectures or formal presentations. Guests could move at their own pace. They could pause at a familiar label, discover a producer, or return to a wine that invited a second taste.
Its luxury came from access, context, and careful presentation.
Each table represented another part of the wine world. More importantly, each bottle possessed its own identity. These were not anonymous luxury products gathered together simply because they commanded high prices. They represented vineyards, families, regions, and traditions.
For me, several also held memories.
A bottle from E. Guigal brought back Côte-Rôtie and its famous “La La” vineyards. I remembered the steepness of the land and the extraordinary experience of standing where those wines begin. I also remembered that I had arrived wearing heels, having no idea that exploring the vineyards would require something closer to climbing shoes.
Other bottles created similar moments. I have been fortunate to visit many of the world’s great wine regions. A label can bring back the shape of a vineyard, the light on a hillside, a cellar conversation, or a meal shared years ago.
That is one of wine’s quiet powers. It preserves places within us.
The people in the room carried memories too.
I recognized familiar faces from New York’s restaurant, sommelier, retail, and wine-journalism communities. Others had traveled from Philadelphia and Boston specifically for the tasting. Some were people I had met during earlier wine trips.
Among them was John Camacho Vidal, a gregarious wine ambassador with several Italian wine credentials. We had previously traveled together in Rome in a trip organized by Paolo Paven of OPC International and Silvia Meloni of I Love Italian Food. Also on the trip and at the Tallow event were NYC based Tomohiro Sato owner of Creston Wine Bar and the bar’s managing director Arisa Odaka.
These reunions added something no tasting sheet could provide.
Before Covid, New York’s professional wine world maintained an extraordinary pace. On a busy day, five different tastings or events might compete for attention. Invitations arrived from producers around the world. Winemakers came to the city, while journalists and members of the trade traveled regularly to wine regions.
That rhythm was interrupted. Although events have returned, the wine world has not completely recovered its former speed or intimacy.
Walking into the VINTUS tasting felt like being welcomed back.
The feeling was not nostalgia alone. The room was alive with working professionals. Buyers were discovering wines for restaurants and shops. Sommeliers were renewing relationships. Importers and representatives were presenting the estates entrusted to them.
Wine was being tasted, but connections were also being restored.”A
That may have been VINTUS’s greatest achievement. The company did more than line up expensive bottles. Its team created an environment in which its producers received individual attention. The wines were presented as the work of serious estates rather than entries in an enormous commercial catalog.
The Rare Room expressed that philosophy most clearly.
Great hospitality often appears effortless. The guest sees the beautiful room, the polished glassware, and the exceptional bottle. What remains invisible is the planning required to bring every element together.
The VINTUS team made that work visible through its results. Its most important producers were given room to stand apart. Guests could experience them without being hurried. Professionals from several cities considered the trip worthwhile.
For a few hours on Fifth Avenue, vineyards separated by countries and oceans occupied the same room.
I arrived at a New York steakhouse. With one glass, I returned to a steep hillside in Côte-Rôtie. With the next, I traveled somewhere else.
That is a rare experience indeed.
