Grapevine Produces Vintage New York City

By ELLEN WULFHORST

Dec. 10, 1995 12 AM PT

REUTERS

NEW YORK — A glass of 1988 Chateau de East 92nd Street with dinner, perhaps?

Latif Jiji has what he suspects is the only vineyard in the heart of Manhattan--a four-story vine behind his house that yields 500 pounds of Niagara grapes a year. From this most unlikely source come 150 bottles of sweet, fruity white wine, which Jiji sells for $20 apiece.

A wine expert at a posh New York restaurant once declared Jiji’s wine very good, but the amateur vintner said he cannot vouch for its quality year after year. “Sometimes it’s good; sometimes it’s not good,” he admitted. “But I’ve never had vinegar.”

Although it may not be the best that New York State’s vineyards have to offer, Jiji’s wine, with its delicately hand-painted labels, has caught the eye of a few offbeat collectors and at least one restaurateur, who is planning dinners with a Big Apple theme.

“New York is a crazy place. People with a lot of money want something different,” Jiji said.

Although he is reluctant to concede that the city’s not-so-clean air gives his wine a distinct bouquet, he does admit to washing his crop of grapes more carefully than some vintners might. “I feel better washing it,” he said. “It is dirty.”

Just a little twig when Jiji stuck it in the ground 20 years ago, the gnarly vine first produced grapes, much to everyone’s surprise, a decade ago. Now the hearty plant grows five feet a year. As thick as a tree trunk at its base, it has climbed up the back wall and onto the roof of Jiji’s brownstone.

Jiji makes his wine each autumn, with a little help from friends. He lets each bottle age two years.

Jiji, who has several hundred bottles stashed in a wine cellar and elsewhere around his house, acknowledges that he and his wife do not drink it much and would not mind if the as-yet meager sales picked up a bit.

But he will stick to his day job as a college engineering professor, he said.

“I don’t know if I can make a living out of 150 bottles,” he said with a smile. “It doesn’t go very far.”