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A Video Premiere, an ’80s-Era Decanter and a Few Other Things

Plus: a fantastic book on wine & WWII, a special Portuguese library release and SWURL’s imaginary wine bar.

November 20, 2025

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Hello! Happy Thursday and Happy Beaujolais Nouveau Day! This week’s newsletter is brought to you by Table22, the platform built to fully manage wine clubs for retailers. They handle the heavy lifting, from orders to fulfillment, so retailers can focus on what they do best.

It’s been a big week at SWURL, we just released the pilot episode of our first video series, “A Night Out With SWURL.” This project has been in the works for a bit, and after teasing it in past newsletters, we’re very excited to finally share it here.

Beyond that, we’re sharing two new articles both written by Vicki Denig (who’s officially joined us as a contributing writer, welcome!) One of the articles we just published on SWURL dives into why wine clubs matter for both retailers and consumers and the other one published by SevenFifty Daily offers a closer look at the late Beaujolais winemaker Marcel Lapierre. We touched on the parallels between Lapierre and Impressionist painter Paul Cézanne recently, but this one gives a proper, in-depth look at Marcel’s life and impact.

Plus: a special library release from an incredible Portuguese winemaking family, a Beaujolais-themed cartoon from Cerise Zelenetz, some inspiration for what SWURL’s hypothetical wine bar might look like, and more.

Enjoy!

Why Wine Clubs Have Become Essential for Retailers and Consumers

Wine clubs aren’t just subscriptions, they’re curation, taste, and the personalities of the shops you know and love. For a lot of people, they’re also how a shop becomes a community, not just a place to buy wine. So what makes a wine club feel personal instead of transactional?

The Enduring Legacy of Marcel Lapierre

As a core member of the region’s infamous “Gang of Four,” the late winemaker became a defining reference point, shaping Beaujolais into what it is today.

Winemaker Jeff Coutelou at Ops (East Village)

Jean-François “Jeff” Coutelou, the pioneering Languedoc-Roussillon winemaker, is taking over one of our favorite pizza spots tomorrow. Some of our favorite wines paired with one of the best pizzerias (and one of the best wine lists), couldn’t ask for much more.

  • Date: Thursday, November 20th

  • Time: 7:30—11pm

  • Where: Ops, 176 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003

  • Original Instagram post: here

  • Reservations can be made here

Thirst Wine Merchants Beaujolais Nouveau Party

If there’s a Beaujolais Nouveau party to go to, it’s this one. Blind-taste seven wines, vote for your favorite, and the winner’s revealed at the end. Always a great mix of industry and non-industry people, and genuinely one of the events we recommend most.

  • Date: Thursday, November 20th

  • Time: 5:00—8:00pm

  • Where: Thirst Wine Merchants, 11 Greene Ave, Brooklyn, NY 11238

  • Instagram post: here

  • MáLà Project: One of our favorites. It’s a traditional Chinese restaurant with locations in the East Village, Greenpoint, and Midtown, and it always, always delivers. This time, we took a night off from wine and opened up a few Tsingtao’s alongside spicy peanuts, spicy chicken and cucumbers, cold noodles, and the crispy duck salad.

  • Swift Hibernian Lounge: Sure, not wine, but they pour a fantastic Boston Chardonnay. We ran into a friend while meeting another friend. Always enjoyable when that happens.

  • Kafana: After Swift, we headed to Kafana for a last-minute dinner (bless you Vlad for getting us in). We featured Kafana in “A Night Out With SWURL,” and for very good reason. The food is amazing, it’s cozy, and gives that tavern feel. We went with a 2021 Ribolla from Movia.

  • Hartley’s: From Guinness at Swift to wine at Kafana, then back to Guinness at Hartley’s. We wrapped up the night here and ended up running into a bunch of friends who had just finished an in-store tasting with California winemaker La Onda.

  • Elbow Bread: We like the coffee. It’s good, nothing crazy, but oh good heavens do they have an incredible bakery. We met up with our illustrator, Cerise, to talk through some upcoming projects. Elbow is a beautiful little space with tons to choose from.

  • Slope Cellars: Picked up a bottle of Giulia Negri’s Langhe Nebbiolo 2023. We were planning to drink it but ended up grabbing a beer on the corner instead, so now it’s waiting for whenever we feel like opening it. TBD on when that is, but we’ll report back when the time comes.

  • Ho Foods: First time stopping in and we wish we’d gone much sooner. Awesome spot. Quaint, cozy, perfect for solo dining but also great with a friend so you can split a bottle because their wine list has some great picks at very, very, very affordable price points. We had the Beef Noodle Soup. It was perfect. If we had a restaurant recommendation of the week, this would be it. Maybe even the month if we want to get a little crazy.

Pictured: Ho Foods wine list

Important note: We’re not claiming these are the “best” places. They’re just the spots we ate and drank at that felt worth mentioning. And we’re definitely not pretending to have discovered any of them. Just sharing what we enjoyed.

“Kids these days.”

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