This article is adapted from the February 26, 2022, edition of Gastro Obscura’s Favorite Things newsletter. You can sign up here. Last summer, I went to an upscale wine bar in the East Village, Manhattan. The waiter informed me that the menu’s theme that week was “unusual wines.” My mind immediately went to a rare type of wine I’d become interested in. Excited, I asked if they had any made with grapes native to the Americas. The waiter gave me a quizzical look. “No,” he replied. The problem was not…
