Yup, That's me in the New York Times...
- Melissa L. Smith
- Apr 10
- 4 min read
Enotrias is officially expanding to the East Coast, and I'm starting an entirely new venture simultaneously. The legal work that I've been doing as a wine appraiser and expert witness has continued to ramp up across the country, I've started some international work managing wine collections, and I've gained some more truly incredible collectors helping them to organize, build, broker, and enjoy their wine cellars. Needless to say, I've neglected this blog, I can't remember when the last time I sent a newsletter out, and my wait-list for cellar work is over five months long so my email is on a semi-permanent Out of Office, In a Wine Cellar.
Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine the first piece of press on Plas and our Vermont chapter would be on the lifestyle page of the NYT. It's a funny and amazing story, and one I will always be grateful for. As anyone that has followed my wine career journey knows, I've done 90% of my own press outreach to get the coverage I've received in the top publications in the country, and am very grateful for the two pieces that were assists from a wonderful boutique PR firm during the pandemic. It's been a challenging trek up the mountain to say the least, and it's a very small world up here...so this opportunity, in an entirely new space, was completely unexpected.
Lana Bortolot is an incredible journalist who covers art and entertainment, travel, and real estate. But prior to a few months ago, I had always associated her writing with her pieces on wine in the Wall Street Journal, Wine Enthusiast, and Forbes. She too is a bit of a homesteader in New England whose challenges I have followed, and to be quite honest, her stories of frozen pipes and spills on icy walkways kept me up at night while I anxiously watched the temperatures drop on sensors placed throughout our new home in Vermont on an app from my bed in California. I'd wake up every morning and immediately check all of the security cameras to see if I could see puddles in the house, or signs of other damage. I'd panic over health insurance coverage, what if I slipped and broke a leg? Or worse, hit a patch of black ice while driving to the Costco an hour north. And worse yet, what if my entire wine collection burst into icicles of priceless vintage grape juice because I didn't understand how basements work?
I would confess my ignorance on social media to my trusted friends, as well as in private groups of wine industry professionals. I was the butt of jokes to some, but many took pity on me and did their best to lend advice. Lively discussions would take place in the comment sections, and ultimately I went with a 'better safe than sorry' and very steep and expensive learning curve, where I had a secure monitored wine cellar built and insulated, added both a cooling unit and a heater that I could turn on remotely, and kept the entire 4000 square foot historic home at sixty degrees (five above the suggested minimum), leading to an insane amount of visits from the propane delivery company, and electric bills that combined were equal to our rent in Napa Valley.
Lana was in one of the groups and saw that I was new to home ownership in New England, and that I had in fact bought a property in her home state of Vermont. She had pitched an article on Montpelier to her editor at NYT, and he responded that yes, that was a great idea, they hadn't done a piece on Vermont in a while! Lana had meant Montpelier in France, but suggested that she knew someone that might be a good fit for their column. And that is how on March 18th, Monte's 40th birthday, we found ourselves sitting down at our dining room table drinking a bottle of 2010 Domaine Carneros Le Rêve, and recounting our very long search for Plas.
This article is a fun Home Hunter's -esque guessing game for a regular segment called The Hunt, outlining the budget and aspects of the home that the buyers were looking for, and apparently it has a massive following. You click on a link to vote for which home the subjects should buy, and then which one they actually bought. Then you get to read the rest of the article.
I look forward to diving deeper into the other places we looked at in future blog posts. To be quite honest it was heartbreaking all over again to review the listings, search through old photos of when we visited the other two properties, and recount the tough discussions that we had surrounding each potential property. But, as we know, everything worked out better than we could have imagined, we've found an amazing community, have different and possibly bigger dreams than when we started on this path, very unexpected challenges, have had a successful first season hosting numerous guests through AirBnB (with only one major snafu in which we thought a guest caused a propane leak), found trustworthy and reliable contractors that have embraced my kooky projects ("WTF is a drink donkey?!"), and trusted our story to be told in a wonderful way by someone that will be a lifelong friend and resource, on one of the biggest platforms in the world.
If you are so inclined, you can follow our journey over at ThisIsThePlas.com, and we look forward to hosting you in Vermont, it's truly a magical place.
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