Wine lovers on wine and the vinous life.
My next participant in the By the Bottle series is Martin Sinkoff. I first met Martin in 1980 in Dallas, where he had recently taken a job as the fine wine director for a small but growing wine wholesaler, Glazer’s (now SGWS). Martin brought the company into the world of fine wine and changed a lot of lives (including mine) as a result of the waves he created. He went on to start his own import company, Martin Sinkoff Wines, Inc. and a very successful wine label, Reserve, St. Martin. Martin sold the company to a budding importer, looking for a bevy of well-made and value-driven French wines. Not content to rest on his laurels, Martin was lured back into the world of fine wine by Richie Cacciato of the Frederick Wildman, where he helped redefine the company’s image and direction. He now heads up an international consulting bureau, Martin Sinkoff Associates, with offices in New York and Tel Aviv. And he moved to Tel Aviv, where he is a (still new) Oleh Hadash in Israel (almost two years). He writes a frequent wine column for the Times of Israel when he is not devoting time to enriching his cultural spirituality, studying the Torah. Martin is fluent in French and is now learning another language, Hebrew. He is the embodiment of a modern-day Renaissance person. [*Note: This "conversation" took place before the current violence. We are both wishing for peace and calm.]
What wines do you have standing up right now?
Tzora Vineyards “Judean Hills” 2018 (Judean Hills,
red); Chateau Senejac 2016 (Haut Medoc, red); Moulin de Gassac 2019 (Languedoc,
red); Itay Lahat “Adom” 2019 (Galilee, red); Francesco Cirelli Montepulciano
d’Abruzzo 2019 (Montepulciano, red).
What’s the last great wine you drank?
Hmmm. Depends on the definition of “great”. The last wine that took my breath away was
Chateau Beaucastel served by Marc Perrin himself at my friend, Etienne Hugel’s,
wedding, now I am guessing close to 10 years ago (maybe fewer). Etienne is now no longer with us and so the
wine and the event both remain in loving memory.
Are there any classic wines that you only recently had for the first time?
Not classic but “up- and-coming”: several wines from Georgia (the country not the state). With thanks to my friends Lisa Granik MW (in the US) and Vova Diachenko (in Tel Aviv) for the introductions.
