New York, By Name
Walks, tables, and private days in New York City — hosted personally, never handed to a guide.
Clemenza is not a name I chose for effect. My paternal grandfather was Fortunato Clemenza — Fred, in the neighborhood — and his older brother, my great-uncle Jimmy, got his start running numbers in Brooklyn. On my mother’s side, my grandfather was Philip Giaccone — Philly Lucky, in the books that get written about such things — a captain in the Bonanno family, killed in 1981 in the most storied ambush in the history of the Five Families. He was never convicted of a crime in his life.
Family lore holds — and I tell it as lore, over a glass, the way it was told to me — that Uncle Jimmy and Mario Puzo became friends at the Duke rice-diet clinic, two heavy men walking laps in the North Carolina heat, and that when Puzo needed a name for the Corleones’ great capo, he borrowed ours. I cannot prove it, and I have never needed to. The stories are true where it counts.
The family went legit. I became a lawyer, and then a sommelier. What we kept were the stories and the wine — and these walks are where I pour both.
Leave the Gun, Take the Barolo
A Five Families walk through the streets my family actually walked — ending at one table, with the wines of Sicily and Piedmont.
3.5 hours · Late afternoon into evening · From $495 per guest · Private from $2,400
The Sommelier’s New York
An evening inside the city’s serious cellars — the lists, the rooms, and the people who keep them.
3 hours · Evening · From $395 per guest · Private from $1,800
Velluto New York
A private day in the city arranged the way we arrange a journey — around you, not an itinerary.
4–6 hours · Your pace · From $1,500 per party
By Commission
The version designed from a blank page — a helicopter over the North Fork at harvest, a room that does not usually open, a yacht at golden hour.
A day, an evening, a weekend · Price on application
Personal. Never Subcontracted.
Every evening is hosted personally by Anthony — never subcontracted to a third-party guide.
Corporate and private tastings are arranged through our sister house, Prestige Vin.
Begin With a Conversation
Tell us which evening speaks to you — or describe the one that doesn't exist yet.