2015 Santo Wines Assyrtiko Santorini 750 ml

50:1 Odds at 64th and Broadway

It was the summer of 1979. Like so many American backpackers, we were bumming around Europe on $10 a day. It wouldn’t be long before the northern part of the continent became too rich for our blood.

The $20 second-class train ride from Geneva to Athens took 30 hours. We then spent a sleepless night at the port of Piraeus, fending off hundreds of mosquitoes, each waiting patiently until we dozed off. We boarded a ferry for the Greek islands the following morning. After a couple days in Milos, we booked a second ferry for the volcanic island of Santorini. The boat was two DAYS late. We arrived in Santorini at 2 a.m., and spent the night on a bed of gravel, awaking as the sun rose on the Mediterranean with a thousand small indentations on our lumbar spines.

Had you asked us back then for the likelihood that 37 years later, while seated at Bar Boulud, the #1 Sommelier in America would propose an exquisite mineral white from Santorini to accompany Daniel Boulud’s Pâté-Grand Père, we would have put the odds at 50:1. But such was the case last year at 64th and Broadway.

Michael Madrigale is the son of a Philadelphia butcher. As a result, charcuterie and southern European white wines run through Michael’s blood. Unlike most NYC somms, on a 20-page wine list dotted with Grand Cru Burgundy and Bordeaux, Michael is famous for paying as much attention to his “little wines” as he does to his classics.

Each Tuesday at 5 p.m., dozens of salesmen would descend on Bar Boulud, all toting sample bottles. The salesmen would wait patiently as Madrigale raced through every wine. With placements worth a small fortune, Madrigale was said to be “ruthless at the tasting table,” and placements were tough to come by.

The first white Michael chose for us was a gorgeous if obscure bottle from Portugal made from the Alvarinho grape. The second was equally unusual, still more tightly wound, mouthwateringly mineral, drawn from a manicured vineyard on the Greek island that we’d first visited while bumming around Europe in 1979.

Wine Enthusiast’s top sommelier in America then gave us the lowdown.

Largely inaccessible, barren, and arid, unlike almost any wine route in the world, the high ground of Santorini is home to grape-growing that is carried out with Old World passion and ingenuity. The most distinctive features of Santorini’s viticulture are the stone terraces, or pezoules. Carefully constructed and engineered by vineyard masons at up to 3,000 feet in elevation, the terraces are supported by dry stone retaining walls. They perform multiple functions, including sheltering vines from the wind and protecting fragile root structure, allowing mature vines to slurp up precious water reserves deep in the substrata under the blistering Mediterranean sun.

Bar Boulud’s 2015 Santo Wines Assyrtiko, as the name suggests, is drawn from 100% Assyrtiko, a fabulously mineral and vibrant variety indigenous to Santorini. Brilliant green-gold in hue. Piercing aromas of lime, white grapefruit, and green apple, wound-up and mineral. Chiseled and saline on the attack, finely delineated and focused, filled with a mix of ripe citrus, bitter honey, and an intriguing, almost tropical, fruit component. Crisp, vibrant, and penetrating on the finish, effortlessly cutting through the salty fats of Daniel Boulud’s Pâté-Grand Père.

91 points from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate. $65/bottle at Bar Boulud. A fraction of that number today, exclusively on WineAccess. NOT TO BE MISSED!