Vom Boden is, really, the curated, yet chaotic manifestation of the numerous illogical, bizarre, anachronistic, inefficient and curious choices I’ve made over the years.
To be fair, yes, some decisions were obvious: If Florian Lauer, Klaus Peter Keller or Frank Schönleber says, “Hey you wanna import my shit?” you CLEARLY and OBVIOUSLY just say yes and you pat yourself on the back for being at the right place at the right time, for having done something benevolent in a past life, whatever it was.
However, in most cases, the decisions have been neither clear nor obvious and you’ll forgive my dear mother for, every once in a while, remarking that she’s shocked that I’m still in business.
“Who buys all these wines, really?” she asks.
When we asked Erik Longabardi of Floral Terranes if we could work with the wines years ago, I honestly thought it would sorta cost me financially. This was a righteous and honorable journey and I wanted to be a part of it, no doubt. I just assumed trying to actually sell this stuff would be the “wine sales” equivalent of the Iditarod. Spiritual, soul-stirring, inspiring, and yet also painful and just very, very hard.
Obviously, as I’ve learned numerous times in my life, I don’t know shit.
As it turns out, selling Floral Terranes is more the equivalent of one of those gonzo waterslides that drop you near vertical before righting themselves horizontally and shooting you across a shallow pool of water. It’s easy, it’s fun – it’s sorta a rush and everyone’s in a good mood after.
Yes, at this point, the annual release of the Floral Terranes wines has become something of an event for us; it’s a phenomenon.
So here we are: the moment has arrived – the wines have arrived!
See the working list of NY/NJ and IL retailers and restaurants that will be getting these wines, below. For inquiries from other markets, please email us at info@vomboden.com! For everything you may or may not want to know about the wines, click here.
The truth is, Erik Longabardi and Benford Lepley (pictured above) are doing something just utterly soulful and inspiring and it registers, quite obviously and deeply, if you’re paying any attention at all – even if you don’t particularly care about Long Island, or cider, or natural wine, or preserving old apple trees inconveniently planted near malls.
It’s a deeply felt project, overseen with intelligence, purpose, and more than a little bit of passion. Both of these guys have other, full-time jobs. So far as I can tell, they spend nearly all their free time working on this project, gathering people to help them work on this, feeding and supporting the people that help them with this. At the end of the year, while I hope they make a little bit of money, being a small business owner myself, my guess is that every last cent goes to buying more fruit and the hourly wages of all this would probably be calculated in cents. In other words, through nearly any rational or economic prism, none of this makes any sense at all.
Which is part of what makes it so unique, so special. This is what we feel when we are near these wines, when we’re drinking these wines, even if we can’t articulate it exactly.
Obviously, it doesn’t hurt that the wines and ciders are deeeeeeelicious and slightly alcoholic. There’s something to say about tasty juice, ya know?
I do think their new releases – the 2020ers if you will – are superb. For me, these are easily the finest wines they have made (which is perhaps logical, as they are newer in this journey and should be learning a lot every year?). The wines have more natural balance to them, they have an ease, a center to them… the fruit is clearer, the structures of the wine more finely knit, firmer. As good as the wines are, the ciders are just on another level – these are bonkers good.
Erik and Benford were able to make a bit more wine than usual for 2020. As it turns out, in 2020 there was something of a pandemic ravaging the world? All this to say, like you maybe, both of them had a bit more flexibility at their jobs during the 2020 harvest. They were both able to be out there more, to harvest more.
But more than this, they also learned a lot about working more efficiently in their space, which is literally the size of a small garage, because it is a small garage. I think you could park a Volkswagen Jetta in there, but you’d have to put it dangerously close to one side of the wall so you could open the door enough on the driver’s side to get out. All passengers are required to get out before entering. You know this type of garage.
Whatever it was, it worked.
I emailed Erik telling him I was writing this email; I asked him if he had anything he wanted to say. He responded, “I don’t know what else to say?! I just hope the wines and ciders bring joy to everyone who tries them and a big thank you to everyone who keeps supporting this little project on an island.”
So yes, THANK YOU, to everyone, for supporting this! If you have any other questions, please just email us info@vomboden.com
Das List of Floral Terranes supporters!
New York
Artisan, Beacon NY
Beer Street South, Brooklyn NY
Bluebird Wine, Accord NY
Brooklyn Wine Exchange
Cellary, Brooklyn NY
Chambers Street Wines, NYC
Cold Spring Harbor Wine Shoppe
Dandelion Wine, Brooklyn NY
Depanneur Wines, Brooklyn NY
Duke’s Liquor Box, Brooklyn NY
Gambelli’s Wine and Spirits, White Plains, NY
Gem, NYC
The Grain & The Vine, Brooklyn, NY
Henry’s, Brooklyn NY
Homespun Foods, Beacon NY
Hound’s Tree, Brooklyn NY
Irving Bottles, Brooklyn NY
Kingston Wine Company, Kingston NY
Fulgurances Laundromat, Brooklyn NY
Leon & Sons, Brooklyn NY
Noble Root Wine & Spirits, Buffalo New York
One Kourt Studio, Greenport NY
Pinch Chinese, NYC
Rose Hill Farm, Red Hook NY
Rule of Thirds, Brooklyn NY
Strickland Hollow Distillery, Delhi NY
Talea Beer Co., NYC
Vanderbilt Wine Merchants, Brooklyn NY
Village Wine Merchant, Sea Cliff NY
Williston Park Wines & Spirits, Williston Park NY
Windmill Wine & Spirits, Saugerties NY
Wine Hut, NYC
Wine Therapy, NYC
New Jersey
Neighbor’s Wine Shop, Maplewood NJ
Riverview Wines, Hoboken NJ
Illinois
Door 24, Chicago IL
Easy Does It, Chicago IL
Red & White, Chicago IL
Fiya Restaurant, Chicago, IL
Wherewithall Restaurant, Chicago IL
> if you are a restaurant, retailer or wine/cider lover in Illinois and are interested in finding these wines, please email cmoody@vomboden.com
all other states!
> if you are a restaurant, retailer or wine/cider lover in any other state and are interested in finding these wines, please email info@vomboden.com