Big, Artful Wine at The Modern: Bedell's Musée from Long Island
It was a coming out party of sorts at The Modern on Monday night. Food and wine writers, restaurateurs and sommeliers, and wine dealers from Amagansett, New York, to Manhattan all gathered to see and taste the ambitious blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, and Petit Verdot that has been in the making—with great secrecy and drama—for the last three years at Bedell Cellars in Cutchogue on Long Island’s North Fork.
Emblazoned with a Chuck Close daguerreotype of a cluster of grapes, Musée aspires to hold rank with grand crus from Europe, South America, and other internationally recognized wine regions&mdas;and not just because of its superstar label, a recurring symbiosis for Michael Lynne, Bedell’s owner, a modern art collector, and a film producer credited with such titles as The Lord of the Rings, whose aesthetic ranges from Freddy Kreuger to Barbara Kruger, and who has seamlessly melded art and wine. Musée hopes to inspire, particularly the laggards of the wine world who haven’t seriously considered Long Island yet. Beaming like a proud parent while swirling a glass of the silky and slightly spicy drink evoking black plum and currant and pomegranate, Lynne declared, “Musée is only the beginning. This is the message.”
