Where Field Blends Really Happened

“The great European cities, and much of the American variety they inspired, are marked by their great restaurants, splendid places that wrap you up inside and treat you to an irresistible menu of food and drink.”

The Red Inn

15 Commercial St, Provincetown, MA 02657, USA
“The Red Inn was one of my favorite places to draw down a bottle of wine alongside some of the most exquisitely prepared meals any of us had ever eaten. We ordered lobster sliders and carried on with our meandering talk.”

Ross’ Grill

237 Commercial St, Provincetown, MA 02657, USA
“Were I to conjure in my mind one picture summing up the good life in summertime, I would be hard pressed to find something more compelling than the site here of a sangria on my table and the harbor view from the balcony.”

Parker’s Bar

60 School St, Boston, MA 02108, USA
“‘I suspect the bartender thinks you’re paying me to be here.’ She spoke softly.
‘Paying you is all I have to do?’
‘I should slap you for that.’
‘On the bright side, if you slapped me, the bartender wouldn’t think I was paying you.’”

Taste Wine Bar & Kitchen

101 Summer St, Boston, MA 02110, USA
“I laughed as we walked down the street and through Downtown Crossing, stepping in after a bit to a newish wine bar called Taste. There was a lovely unique wine list there.”

Yvonne’s

2 Winter Pl, Boston, MA 02108, USA
“We were on the move again after a couple of glasses to Yvonne’s, a quirkily decorated lounge known for its excellent cocktails.”

Ancestrale

Oehlenschlægersgade 12, 1663 København V, Denmark
“It was a tiny little place whose walls were half white clapboard and half old exposed bricks bent in arches around the windows and doors. A simple candle sat upon an empty table. Its wood planks were grainy, interlocking streaks of light and dark well defined, but very smooth to the touch.”

Den Vandrette

Havnegade 53A, 1058 København, Denmark
“We came upon another wine-serving establishment called Den Vandrette. They had set up a bar in a sort of tiki hut just across the street at the waterfront.”

Falernum

Værnedamsvej 16, 1619 København V, Denmark
“Up the street at Falernum there were people drinking out on the sidewalk. Large windows opened into the night and overflowed with people. Atop the menu card there was a drawing of a pudgy bald man in jailhouse pinstripes sitting on a barrel of wine. He grinned and cast his eyes to one side, as if checking in on the shenanigans that his barrel would inspire.”

Ved Stranden 10

Ved Stranden 10, 1061 København, Denmark
“The place hummed with the life of a Byzantine café talking of politics, blended with the excitement of happy hour, the ongoing promise of a weekend that showed no sign of ending, the warmth of summer in July, and passion for sharing wine — and all the world — with everyone who darkened the door.”

Vingården i Klagshamn

Möllevägen 31, 218 51 Klagshamn, Sweden
“Breeze and the rattling of leaves mixed delicately with soft conversation and the sound of dogs playing in the yard. Rows of meticulously trellised vines stretched flatly beneath cloudless blue sky until they met a line of houses a ways off. White-walled, red-roofed, encircling the vineyard in which grew the curious rondo and solaris grapes.”

Lady of the Grapes

16 Maiden Ln, Covent Garden, London WC2E 7NJ, United Kingdom
“Above our heads hung a crooked metal light fixture upon which glowed eight filament bulbs bent in on one another in perfectly right angles. They cast beams in every direction. Bottles of wine waited their turn on the shelves that covered an entire wall at the long end of the bar.”

Terroirs

5 William IV St, Charing Cross, London WC2N 4DN, United Kingdom
“Also, there was a drawing framed on the wall. White fists thrust into a field of red, glasses in fist. Terroirists. That’s what it said. Rooted in place. Shared amongst the world. Keenly aware that there was something more that made all this beautiful. A call to arms for our generation.”

1912 Museo Bar (inside the Palace Hotel)

Plaza de las Cortes, 7, 28014 Madrid, Spain
“‘Hemingway liked it here.’
‘Hemingway liked it everywhere in Madrid.’”

Alimentación Quiroga

Calle de las Huertas, 19, 28014 Madrid, Spain
Peter had somehow marshaled the crowd, and Ash had led them to Alimentación Quiroga, a popular neighborhood haunt that doubled as a fine market and typically overflowed with people in the evenings.

El Diario

Calle de las Huertas, 69, 28014 Madrid, Spain
”Predictably I went down to drink café con leche at El Diario. Ava found me there, and we drank café con leche together. She’d been feeling badly again the night before and had not slept. Coffee, fresh air, and a bit of daylight seemed to lift her up.”

La Fisna

Calle del Amparo, 91, 28012 Madrid, Spain
“It was a lovely place. Wooden shutters covering large doors were open wide to the warm evening. It felt as if we were outside. I was happy to be there just the three of us. It seemed possible we’d not have another moment like this.”

Mercado de San Miguel

Plaza de San Miguel, S/N, 28005 Madrid, Spain
“Vendors inside the fully glassed-in market took orders from the counters of well- appointed stalls as people milled about mixing and matching their lunches. A croqueta here, a piece of fish there, a glass of sangria from that place over yonder, then ambling off to fight the crowd for a table in the corner.”

Mesón del Champiñón

Cava de San Miguel, 17, 28005 Madrid, Spain
“Jose worked behind the bar counter. He lit up when he saw me, as he always had. Year after year, it always astonished me that he still worked here. ‘¡Hola! ¡Mi amigo! ¿Qué tal?’ Always this was his greeting, firmly shaking my hand from the other side of the bar.”

Triciclo

Calle de Sta. María, 28, 28014 Madrid, Spain
“I had in the past made multiple friends from multiple countries out of the clear blue whilst sitting at that bar.”

Buceo 95

201 W 95th St, New York, NY 10025, USA
“Ash would often take the train up from Washington, and we’d sit together at Buceo 95 drinking sangria at the little high- top in the corner by the kitchen window. Now it was summer years on, and Peter and I sat on the terrace outside, drinking sangria and reflecting on all the things upon which men in their mid- thirties might have to reflect.”

Cask

167 E 33rd St, New York, NY 10016, USA
“It occurred to me that this was the place where I had first developed an enthusiasm for drinking in the presence of filament lightbulbs. That was years ago. When between us there were fewer responsibilities and no children. Even in broad daylight the place was dark in a way that collaborated with the drinks to slow the senses to a manageable pace.”

Chimichurri Grill

609 9th Ave, New York, NY 10036, USA
“An excellent spot for people watching. The same place we had sat on that snowy night years ago. Things were cozy further back towards the kitchen. The place took one into the embrace of a delightful evening many miles from the stress of the world as the sun went down and the neon god we’d made came to life outside.”

Wine:30

41 E 30th St, New York, NY 10016, USA
“Their first date was at Wine:30, a bar near the corner of Thirtieth and Park. They had planned to split a bottle, of which Peter ultimately drank three-quarters and Ava had a glass, around which time arrived some girlfriends whom Ava had asked to come to save her from a potentially bad date.”

Cafe Louvre

Národní 22, 110 00 Nové Město, Czechia
“We ate lunch at the nearby Café Louvre. Erik went off to his meeting. I worked a bit in my room, then walked about. There would be so much to love and share about that beautiful city during our two evenings there.”

Hotel Medvidku

Na Perštýně 345/5, 100 01 Staré Město, Czechia
“A girl at Prague’s Hotel Medvidku served us beers in the small lobby as we checked in. Seems the place doubled as a brewery. Real metal keys hung on wooden charms made to look like tiny beer barrels. My room was a cavern, the ornate metal door opening atop a platform with some stairs down into the bedroom, cathedral ceilings arching over the bed like a cloister.”

Veltlin

Křižíkova 488/115, 186 00 Karlín, Czechia
“Perhaps I had needed to drink a bottle of wine with my old friend somewhere behind the once-extant Iron Curtain to put my finger on this. Or perhaps it was just that map on the wall. In either case, we sat there and meandered through some explanation of the emotional attachment we had developed—subconsciously as kids coming of age in the 1990s—to the idea that everything would be better tomorrow than it had been yesterday. In a way I was angry that we had been promised the world only to have the world brought to the brink of ruin by the very generation which had done the promising.”

Vinarna Bokovka

Dlouhá 729/37, 110 00 Staré Město, Czechia
“Our tablemates alternated between laughter and serious talk with some folks they didn’t know on the other side. There was, more than anything, a profound sense of community here as regulars and guests of all ages gathered around tables to explore wine without assumption or pretension. Bokovka exuded a revelry and familiarity that would make anyone long to find it on the corner in their own neighborhood.”

Hotel Costa Vella

Rúa da Porta da Pena, 17, 15704 Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, Spain
“I thought of a garden hemmed in by stone walls, mossy and green. In the center there was a pool. Dozens of apples had fallen in and floated quietly there, coloring the painting in my mind a brilliant yellow and red. A statue of a man crouched pensively at the side of the pool, unsure if he would pluck out an apple or jump in himself. A simple tin watering can sat beside him.”

Petiscos do Cardeal

Rúa do Franco, 10, 15702 Santiago de Compostela, A Coruña, Spain
“Later we stepped out into the night. There was something magical about stepping out of your favorite bar in whichever city you were in, out onto the street into the dark night when it was cold enough to see your breath float out in front of you towards the sky, refracted and made delicate by the street lights. There were revelers in the streets, but we knew it was almost time.”

Bodegas Alonso Cuesta

Plaza Constitución, 4, 45920 La Torre de Esteban Hambrán, Toledo, Spain
“Everything seemed part of the storied order of things. There was a quiet desk where I knew I’d have spent hours were it in a cellar beneath my home. Were any of us to even have a real home. Rows of barrels sat in quiet repose under archways and vaulted brick ceilings, lit only by a band of light flowing in from the ground-level window near the ceiling, sunshine casting a blue hue on the stone floor. We signed a dusty leather guest book that reached decades back in time.”

Bodegas Arrayán

Santa Cruz del Retamar, Toledo, Spain
“The land unassuming and unspoiled. We left the cellar to wander about. I looked through the glass at crushed stones along a path obscured by golden hue, out to the proper tasting room in which a spiral staircase led to an exquisite library of past vintages. It was as idyllic a setting as it was a source of beautiful wine.”

Bodegas Arrocal

Calle Eras de, Plaza Sta. María, S/N, 09443, Burgos, Spain
“I read the label: Bodegas Arrocal Ángel, from Ribera del Duero. The 2011 vintage seemed to be a higher-end selection from Bodegas Arrocal, a winery I had heard of in the village of Gumiel del Mercado in Ribera del Duero.”

El Chivo

Av. Comuneros, s/n, 49810 Morales de Toro, Zamora, Spain
“In any case, after leading us to the precipice of early-afternoon inebriation, Juan had sent us to lunch at El Chivo in Morales de Toro with a bottle of his finest in hand. There the chef sat at our table and asked us if we had brought the wine. We had just walked through the door into what appeared to be a small local place fronting a charming yet luxurious dining room in the back.”

Bodegas Elías Mora

Calle de Don Juan Mora Garzón, 0, 47530 San Román de Hornija, Valladolid, Spain
“He guided us through a lineup of wine from Bodegas Elias Mora, a lovely winery up the road from the tiny town of San Román de Hornija, the last winery in the Province of Valladolid before crossing into Zamora. There a winemaker named Victoria produced wines rich in character and purity.”

Marqués de Tomares

Av. Ciudad de Cenicero, 0, 26360 Fuenmayor, La Rioja, Spain
“Ava and I once made our way to this winery’s tasting room in Rioja where our host, Sara, had paired various meats and cheeses with what was, perhaps, a bottle of an earlier vintage of this very wine. Its verdejo grapes had been grown in Rueda, around a three-hour drive southwest towards Portugal.”

Quinta do Pôpa

EN 222 Adorigo 5120-011 Tabuaço, Portugal
“Portugal has a tradition of field blends. That is, different grape varietals planted in and amongst one another such that they are harvested and blended together straightaway. There was that one particular winery whose terraced vineyards stretch 550 meters up the mountain from the Douro River, older vines near the bottom, younger further up the bank. Their field blends contain about twenty different grape varietals. This old practice in the Douro produces stunningly unique wines.”

Restaurante Alameda

Plaza Félix Azpilicueta, 1, 26360 Fuenmayor, La Rioja, Spain
“We had gone down into the town of Fuenmayor for lunch at Restaurante Alameda, a charming yet unassuming façade behind which we had found a delightful, bright dining room in which we enjoyed one of the most spectacular gourmet lunches I could remember.”

Bodega San Román

Ctra Nacional 122, Km 412, 47112 VillaEster, Valladolid, Spain
“He had once arranged for Ava Murray and me to visit the San Román winery in Toro, country that would have been wasted on anything less than the vineyards. About equidistant from the small towns of Morales de Toro and San Román de Hornija, the winery sat just a couple of kilometers inside the Province of Valladolid, east of the border with Zamora about two hours northwest of Madrid.”

The Burgundy

Yxsmedsgränd 12, 111 28 Stockholm, Sweden
“Burgundy was paneled in wood. Dark but for the small lights that ran the length of the ceiling to the back, a little lamp at each small table, rich carpets, bottles of wine lined up where they could find space. It felt as if we had stepped from summer to winter. It was pleasant to curl up here in colder months.”

Gaston

Mälartorget 15, 111 28 Stockholm, Sweden
“Meanwhile life was good in Stockholm. It was the height of summer, and there were people everywhere, so the bars were open. One evening I sat alone with a glass of wine at Gaston. Geoff was on the phone out front—it was of course still daylight—hashing out details with an investor to his hurricane recovery effort down in the islands. Jannie had just refilled me with a Hungarian white. I looked into the glass as I often did, watched it bend the light of the small candle into a constellation of twinkling stars…”

Grus Grus

Karlbergsvägen 14, 113 27 Stockholm, Sweden
“A long leather piece the color of cappuccino stretched across as the tabletop, soft and full of character, made beautiful by the wine stains of evenings past. In the center of it all were three marvelous chandeliers. Two layers of wineglasses hung upside down in layered circles on each, a solitary filament bulb in the center, shining out through the glass as a thousand points of soft yellow light. It was one of the most beautiful pieces of art that I had ever seen.”

Hornstulls Bodega

Hornsbruksgatan 24, 117 34 Stockholm, Sweden
“Little candles dotted the table and set the mood as the sun made its long descent through the evening. There were others at the table, too, an American and a Brit and a Swede we befriended. We six drank glasses and ate Brussels sprouts, and Geoff flirted with Ash until dusk.”

Meatballs for the People

Nytorgsgatan 30, 116 40 Stockholm, Sweden
“There we also found a restaurant called Meatballs for the People. They served meatballs, and they were delicious. I preferred those made from elk. On another day when I was feeling adventurous, I tried the chickpea edition. I think we went twice.”

Tweed

Lilla Nygatan 5, 111 28 Stockholm, Sweden
“It was largely of a piece with the lushly warm décor, but inside Tweed there were rich leather armchairs. Burgundy’s hardwood gave way to green carpet upon which were arranged little leather-topped low tables for glasses. We sat at the bar and talked with George as he gleefully handled cocktail shakers and flames and all manner of bottles, producing brilliance in a glass as an artist might impress his patrons. He was a whirlwind of movement and had profound things to say.”

The Ashby Inn

692 Federal St, Paris, VA 20130, USA
“A path led us to a covered terrace as we wandered up through the garden. Ours was a beautiful day, so we took brunch outside, sitting under vines meticulously maintained in the ceiling above the terrace. We angled for a table near the steps so that we could stare out into the garden and the unobstructed view of the hills beyond. Inside was a bright, light-soaked dining room, rustic tavern, and cozy library. I thought that we all should return to sit and drink in them when winter came.”

Delaplane Cellars

2187 Winchester Rd, Delaplane, VA 20144, USA
“Sounds of a lone man playing his guitar wafted through the high vaulted ceilings and out the open door onto the patio. Friendly people poured glasses for a throng of revelers at the bar. Light shone in, reflecting angelic white from puffy clouds in the sapphire sky that stretched over rows of grapevines sloping down gentle hills and across lush green fields to the blue mountains beyond. A white manor house and impeccably kept white country fence hemmed in the yard below.”

Greenhill Vineyard and Winery

23595 Winery Ln, Middleburg, VA 20117, USA
“There were some people gathered by the little road, on the side where it met the head of the rows of grapevines. One of them was taking a picture of a beautiful young woman posing beneath a tree in front of the vineyard. She told the girl how happy she was that they could visit together now. I imagined she might be turning twenty-one—beautiful smile, full of life. I wondered what books she might write one day, or paintings she might paint, or software she might create. Tall, flowing hair, auburn made just a bit blond by the sun. Quirky round sunglasses, flowing white top. A woman who may have been just in her sixties joined them and called the young woman Emily. They all looked alike. I imagined they were three generations, playing by the side of the little road.”

Joselito

660 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, Washington, DC 20003, USA
“We ordered more tapas and wine. It gurgled from bottles into beautiful glass decanters that resembled swans. Laughter and happy conversation filled the room adorned with polished marbled tables and glasses, twinkling as the candlelight refracted through their sparkling contents. The party’s blend of elegance and warmly familiar charm could only have been the work of Javier.”

SER

1110 N Glebe Rd, Arlington, VA 22201, USA
“Looking around, I thought of how table arrangements on the patio would evolve as the day and night went on and the happy hour crowd migrated outside. It was tough to not smile at the world as we sat there. Work seemed a million miles away.”