{"id":3145,"date":"2008-02-21T09:42:05","date_gmt":"2008-02-21T14:42:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/02\/faster_vintage.html"},"modified":"2008-02-21T09:42:05","modified_gmt":"2008-02-21T14:42:05","slug":"faster_vintage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/archives\/2008\/02\/faster_vintage.html","title":{"rendered":"Faster Vintage!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Plans to bring Italian varietals to Staten Island<\/a> are progressing<\/a>:<\/p>\n

The 2-acre Tuscan Garden Vineyard Project will be planted on a Snug Harbor hilltop by spring 2009, officials said yesterday. <\/p>\n

“We’ll be creating, I’m sure, a serious wine,” declared winemaker Piergiorgio Castellani Jr., co-owner of Italy’s Castellani Wines. <\/p>\n

The Italian winery, near Pisa — as in leaning tower of — produces 18 million bottles of wine annually. <\/p>\n

Castellani estimated the 2,000-vine organic plot planned for the Staten Island Botanical Garden will produce as much as 7,000 bottles a year. The vineyard is to complement the Tuscan Garden Villa at the botanic garden.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Because the three types of grapes — merlot, cabernet sauvignon and sangiovese — he intends to plant will be the same as those used in his “Super Tuscan” wines, Castellani offered up a name for the Staten Island label. <\/p>\n

“We will produce not a Tuscan wine,” Castellani said, “but a Super Staten Island Red.”<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

At the risk of sounding hypocritical, this absolutely beats the pants off tropical fish tanks<\/a>:<\/p>\n

Borough President James Molinaro, who has committed $2 million in taxpayer money to the project, said the vineyard will draw visitors. <\/p>\n

“This is part of branding Staten Island,” Molinaro said, adding that 38% of Staten Islanders are Italian-American.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bad news:<\/p>\n

The wine — a name has not yet been chosen — will not be sold commercially but will go to tourists and could be served at government functions.<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Which is to say, start contributing to the Borough President’s reelection campaign now. (And it’s never too early to pitch Talk of the Town<\/a>.)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Plans to bring Italian varietals to Staten Island are progressing: The 2-acre Tuscan Garden Vineyard Project will be planted on a Snug Harbor hilltop by spring 2009, officials said yesterday. “We’ll be creating, I’m sure, a serious wine,” declared winemaker Piergiorgio Castellani Jr., co-owner of Italy’s Castellani Wines. The Italian winery, near Pisa — as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,29,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-feed","category-huzzah","category-staten_island"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3145"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3145\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bridgeandtunnelclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}