Public, A Special Place and a Special Wine Club

We eat out fairly often. It’s almost always a good time, but the experience often feel more like a business transaction than a special, romantic evening out. Until we discovered Public. On a recent visit this past May, we learned about their wine mailbox program. It’s a whole new wine club experience.

Here’s how it works: you sign up for a minimum of six-month commitment. Each month, Chef Brad Farmerie selects a different bottle of artisanal wine and stores it in your own private mailbox, located on site. He also includes notes with each bottle. You receive a mailbox number to use on each visit when you want to enjoy your wine selection. You can either sit in the restaurant or in their Monday Room next door. We've done both, and both were equally enjoyable. In addition, wine mailbox program customers also given preferential reservations and seating, and particularly special treatment during the visit.

For our first month’s wine, we arrived a few minutes before the restaurant opened for dinner -- blame the subway. We were offered the option of sitting at the bar, which we accepted. Rather than open our bottle immediately, we selected a sherry on the recommendation of the server, who was kind to share some information about sherry and how to order it.

Once our table became ready and we were seated, our server immediately offered us a treat of complimentary fried oysters (a speciality of the house), accompanied by a healthy splash of Gewurztraminer off their wine menu-- the crisp minerality of the wine was a nice accompaniment to the fresh, light oysters.

We then asked for the month’s wine, a wonderful selection: a 2002 Vina Bosconia Reserva from R. Lopez de Heredia in Rioja, Spain. This Rioja is well-balanced, the fruit notes mingle with a slight hint of spice and worked very well with Tina’s cod and my pork (especially when considering that the textbooks would likely recommend white wine for both these dishes). The fresh, hearty flavors of the Australian-inspired food were not overpowered by this light Rioja. A very drinkable red, it served well as a summer wine.

After the meal and bottle were finished (we should mention we had help from a friend who we shared the evening with), we decided to continue with dessert and a digestif. While sifting through the delicious-sounding options, we were again treated to a complimentary taste, this time of their mouthwatering limoncello, a nice treat to cleanse the palate.

After a shared dessert and a glass of rum, we wrapped up our evening. The dinner was long and decadent. Our food and drink was wonderful, but the best part was the special treatment. We’ve been before, and it’s a great restaurant, but a few extra morsels of food, a few extra pours, and a little extra attention made the membership even more worthwhile. In case your wondering, this excellent experience comes at the reasonable price of $50 per month. Highly recommended to any New York City readers. It’s going to be tough to wait for the next bottle to show up. 


Are you a member of a wine club?  Share your experience here!