Just a Sip

I had lunch at the marvelous Gramercy Tavern on East 20th Street on Monday. Cauliflower soup with lobster -- delicious -- and an earthy butternut squash risotto. The elegant dining room has great acoustics, soft lighting and amusing people-watching (the woman next to us had her injured arm in an Hermès-scarf sling. This is not my regular lunch crowd). Since I'm not consuming alcohol at the moment, I had just a wee taste of my lunch date's pinot noir. The menu listed it as a 2006 AP Vin Keefer Ranch Vineyard Calif. Russian River Valley ($13 a glass). At first I found notes of cherry and found it quite mouth-watering; later after it had aerated a bit, there was a hint of pepper.
The restaurant also offered pinor noir juice ... which is what I drank. A pretty decent lunch beverage, and the zero alcohol helped me stay awake for a very long matinee of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button.