2018 Quinta de Couselo Albarino Rias Baixas 750 ml

Hopefully, sometime soon, Bar Boulud will reopen for dining in. When it does, and if you’ve never been, hustle up to 63rd and Broadway around 5:15 and stake out a couple of stools at the counter. The restaurant doesn’t take reservations. By 6:30, there’s sure to be a line out the door.

In our book, Bar Boulud is chef Daniel Boulud’s most remarkable achievement, as much for what it isn’t than for what it is.  

The dining room is like a tunnel, many times deeper than it is wide. Despite what its name suggests, this isn’t a bar at all. The long counter where you’ll be seated might have first been imagined as a bar, but for many years, it’s been entirely set aside for dining. Yet Bar Boulud isn’t a traditional restaurant either—just a small fraction of the dishes listed on the menu are main courses.  

In many ways, Bar Boulud is a period piece, a throwback to Daniel’s childhood, an ode to his French roots, and the tiny hamlet of Saint-Pierre-de-Chandieu, a bistro of humble origin that is nonetheless, somehow grand.  

Sure, the menu does what it must do offering up perfectly executed seared salmon, roasted chicken, and the requisite coq au vin. But the culinary centerpiece of Bar Boulud is in its dizzying array of classically prepared terrines and pâtés, imagined by Chef de Charcuterie, Sylvain Gasdon. Gasdon’s penchant for melding meats, fats, and sea salt into otherworldly terrines en croutes was long matched by the inventiveness of sommelier Raj Vaida, whose nose for matching high-toned, wildly aromatic whites and reds with Gasdon’s Pâté Grand-Père was unequaled.

One afternoon in late January, we hopped on the C Train at Chambers Street and sped uptown. A half-hour later, we landed two seats at the “bar.” We ordered matching slices of Pâté Grand-Père, a coarse pâté made from foie gras, pork, truffle, and Port. Then we turned our attention to the wine list. We considered a high-strung, steely Muscadet from the organically farmed Domaine de la Pépière. Then, we traveled east along the Loire to selections from Anjou, Montlouis, and Sancerre. But in the end, we did what we always tend to do at Bar Boulud, we followed the sommelier’s advice and ordered two glasses of a dazzling Galician Albariño, each served in Zalto crystal. Then, as always at Bar Boulud, the somm provided the backstory of one of the rising superstars of Rías Baixas. 

Quinta de Couselo is a manicured nine-hectare property located in the heart of the appellation of O Rosal. Situated in very close proximity to the Atlantic, O Rosal is treated to stiff ocean breezes that take the sting out of the Spanish sun. While there’s plenty of rainfall in Rías Baixas, the poor soils, composed mostly of granite, drain effortlessly, all but eliminating the risk of mildew. In the first week of September, Jose Manuel Martinez Juste’s vineyard crew harvested every row of Albariño by hand under nearly perfect conditions. The grapes were de-stemmed before being gently pressed for 1.5 hours. Then, after a long, slow, and cool fermentation, the wine was left to age for five months on the fine lees before bottling.

Quinta de Couselo’s Albariño, tasted from Zalto crystal, was glistening pale green to the edge. Pungent aromas of lime, grapefruit, with subtle hints of anise and honeysuckle. Wonderfully crisp and complex on the attack, yet surprisingly weighty in the mid-palate, finishing with textbook maritime salinity that cut the Boulud’s Pâté Grand-Père like a stiletto.