FINE WINE // Part 1: Stefan Mailvaganam + Brooklyn's Custom American Wine Bar

Courtesy: Custom American Wine BarPour yourself a glass of Gewurtzraminer and raise it high towards your laptop, because today we kick off Fine Wine; an ongoing series devoted to all things local wine. We'll be talking with the proprietors of your finest local wine bars, vineyard owners, hosts of wine specialty shows on public radio and beyond--all in the name of wrapping our (and your) heads around the local wine phenomenon.

Hit the jump to get into Part 1, in which we profile co-owner of Brooklyn's Custom American Wine Bar, Stefan Mailvaganam.

The genesis of Custom is one of those bittersweet scenarios: What began as an impassioned and microcosmic effort to breathe some life into a listless American economy suddenly become an inspired gastronomic experience in the heart of one of the country’s most happening neighborhoods.

When the nation’s brutal debt crisis struck in 2008, Mailvaganam was the owner of Bar Carrera, an Iberian tapas restaurant in the East Village.  Mailvaganam wanted to know what he, “as an owner and entrepreneur, could do to provide stimulus to the economy.”  As one might expect, 90% of Bar Carrera’s product was imported from Spain.  

“It was a ‘Eureka’ moment for me when I realized if I bought exclusively domestic product under a brand that focused on U.S producers, I would be contributing to U.S. farmers, winemakers, brewers, distillers, cheese-makers, truck-drivers, and the entire domestic supply chain,” says Mailvaganam.  

“Ergo: my own mini-stimulus package!”  Charming and self-effacing, Mailvaganam says the idea “sounds corny now,” but it’s actually worked quite brilliantly.

Of course it's lovely to support American commerce and agriculture but Mailvaganam iterates that American wine is especially undervalued.  “It lacks the European cache and pedigree, and doesn’t provide the exotic flair of New Zealand, South Africa or Argentina,” he says.  When he realized there was a need for a platform to “extol the merits of American wine” he conceived of the answer: “a wine bar that promoted exclusively high-value, reasonably priced domestic wine and food.”

Stefan Mailvaganam is a breath of fresh air.  Miraculously all passion and no pretense.  At one point, he was working 14-hour days in Silicon Valley, though soon he realized he “could no longer just work for the sake of money, security or status.”  In 2000, he quit his high-paying internet start-up job and moved to New York to enroll in culinary school and start from scratch.

Eleven years later, that fervor is still burning strong.  When asked what he loves about Williamsburg, Mailvaganam replies, “Almost everything.”  He’s happy to be here and of course we're happy to have him.  When you visit Custom American Wine Bar, be sure to indulge in The Elvis -- peanut butter, bananas, and bacon on white bread -- named for the legend himself and his illustrious cravings.  “After all,” Mailvaganam says, “how can you have a bar dedicated to all things American and not pay homage to the King?”

-- Margaux Weisman