Going Up the Country
Words by Jennifer Green | Photography by Victor Garzon and Josh Aldecoa
I’m going up the country, baby, don’t you wanna go? / I’m going up the country, baby, don’t you wanna go? / I’m going to some place where I’ve never been before / I’m going, I’m going where the water tastes like wine / I’m going where the water tastes like wine / We can jump in the water, stay drunk all the time
- Country Joe McDonald, Woodstock, 1969
We’ve been blessed, or cursed, with a restlessness that has always found a respite upstate. Feeling especially nostalgic lately and confined to wherever our bikes will take us in the radius of Greenpoint, Brooklyn, we’re headed north for a virtual escape.
We miss our friends. When we first moved to New York two years ago, these were the people who welcomed us and showed us the way. To be specific, Heather LaVine and Corey Mitchell from 22 2nd Street lured us up to Troy when the ink was barely dry on the incorporation papers for our import company Super Glou. That same weekend, we wound our way down the Hudson to meet Tracy and Jamie Kennard at Brunette and west through the Catskills to discover Meg McNeill, her husband Kevin Cooke and Abby Chalmers at Upstream. Kortney Lawlor of Wild Common Wine, still deeper into the Catskills, was a friendship arranged by our pal Dan Sorg from Regular Visitors in Brooklyn (our first New York retailer for Glou Glou) and boy, did he hit that one out the park.
Since then, these people have become friends who’ve hosted us for countless drop-ins, winemaker visits, rescheduled tastings doomed by fender benders and ramp-foraging expeditions doomed by too many pies at Table on Ten and late-night bottles of Anders Frederik Steen.
We’ve never sensed an ounce of competition between them. Rather, capitalism seems to melt away in favor of mutual exchange. They’ve helped each other open their doors, piggy-backed on each other’s deliveries, sent customers between each another — one sprawling, friendly coven of business owners splayed out across the great divide framed by Route 17, I-87 and country backroads.
Our urge to hit that dusty highway has never been greater. For the time being we’ll sit it out down south, nursing this moveable feast of memories. Some of our friends are hustling harder than they ever have to fulfill orders from rural communities now swelling under the weight of the virus. Some are waiting out the storm. Some are no longer at the helm of the businesses they created. But for us, the moments we’ve shared are anchored in carefree joy and the generosity of chance encounters.
They say wisdom is crystallized pain. These people have shown us it is also crystallized happiness.
Troy, NY
Twenty-Two 2nd St. Wine Co. :: 22 2nd St., Troy, NY 12180
Lucas Confectionery :: 12 2nd St., Troy, NY 12180 (takeout available for pickup and delivery)
Peck’s Arcade :: 217 Broadway, Troy, NY 12180 (takeout available for pickup and delivery)
Little Pecks :: 211 Broadway, Troy, NY 12180 (takeout available for pickup and delivery)
Kingston, NY
When Tracy and her husband Jamie would come up to Kingston for the weekend fifteen years ago, they would pack up the car with their dogs, their cat, their box of CSA vegetables they picked up that day, and wine they’d bought at Vine Wine. “I don't have this vast history with wine that a lot of people do but it doesn't mean that I'm not as passionate about it,” Tracy has told us.
“It’s not about being on trend. This is just the wine that we drink.”
“I don’t think you have to be an authority on wine to be warranted to sell it or share it with other people. Our approach is very friendly and our descriptions are not technical at all. They’re really just about how the wines taste — in a very colloquial language, like what they're reminiscent of.”
“I don't even know how we exactly got to [opening] a wine bar. It's just that thing when you look around and say, okay, there's nowhere to get natural wine up here.”
“We’d go to Vine Wine, when they were in Queens— a very long time ago, I probably still have a punch card. We really knew nothing about wine but we would go to her tastings, and [owner Talitha Whidbee] was probably the first person who just talked about wine in a regular way. Not condescending, no fancy language, but was really excited to introduce you to something…
… And then we would just buy whatever wine we tasted. We did exactly what the textbook says to do: you go in, you taste it, you like it, you buy it. And then you come back and you trust every single thing that this person tells you.”
“Hot dogs pair with everything.”
Brunette :: 33 Broadway, Kingston, NY 12401 (temporarily closed due to COVID-19)
Livingston Manor, NY
For one reason or another, it’s always been an adventure to actually arrive on the steps of Meg McNeill’s Upstream Wine + Spirits, the cozy nook to end all cozy nooks at the edge of the Western Catskills. Whether it’s a fender bender the night prior or an uncooperative engine or a dramatic missed turn, we always seem to get there barely intact, if at all.
But our troubles melt away the minute Meg swings open the door, warming us with her infectious laugh, a glass of something delicious, and an offer to relax in the hammock toward the back.
Despite whatever Oregon Trail-level obstacles we’ve faced in the past, we are determined to return for some original photos post-quarantine…
…especially with the arrival of Sunshine Colony, the wine bar (read: modern saloon of our dreams) that Meg and her husband Kevin just opened down the street, beacons of hope for us all.
Upstream Wine + Spirits :: 34 Main Street, Livingston Manor, NY 12758
Sunshine Colony :: 47 Main Street, Livingston Manor, NY 12758 (temporarily closed due to COVID-19)
Photos courtesy of Meg McNeill
Andes, NY
It’s always a little awkward to write about people very close to you, who exist in your mind’s eye as a kaleidoscope of images because all the experiences you’ve shared simply can’t be compressed into a snapshot. So we’ll share several pictures instead: of Kortney’s wine shop-turned-community hub, Wild Common, of her gracious hospitality toward our visiting winemakers, of her cat Oliver, of her adventures with us to repay visits to said winemakers.
As a business owner, especially in the wine industry, your personal identity is conflated with your work. Tasting events become excuses to spend days on end with ‘colleagues.’ Producer trips become reasons to traverse the globe together. Producers themselves become more than people whose wine you sell; they become members of your extended family you hand-select for life. I am forever grateful to know Kortney in all turns of the kaleidoscope.
Wild Common Wine :: 49 Main St., Andes, NY 13731
From Andes, NY to Lombardy, Italy
