Challenge your palate
The Most Interesting Person in D.C., Volume II.
Before we dive into this week’s main event, some professional news: I have a new website! If you ever visited my previous site, you will know that it was a Tumblr page that just listed all of the stories I’ve written. It was (intentionally) lo-fi and (hopefully?) kind of funny, but I had outgrown it. The new one, designed by the wonderful Bonita Mak, reflects my present-day business much better — and in my preferred color palette of pistachio, tomato, and butter.
On that note, I’m looking to take on a couple of new copywriting clients for 2025. If you or someone you know needs support with writing, editing, or communications strategy, please get in touch! I’d love to discuss.
Welcome to a new-ish series called “The Most Interesting Person in D.C.” (You can read Vol. I, with Nancy Pearlstein of the clothing boutique Relish, here.) I’ll be talking to notable figures in the city’s creative scene, because that’s what I personally find interesting. It’ll be fun and juicy even if you don’t live in D.C., I promise.
Do you know someone who I should interview for this series? Hit reply and tell me about them!
Eric Moorer tells me that he doesn’t have an official job title at Gemini, the natural wine shop near Dupont Circle where he works. When his boss suggested he get business cards for industry events, Moorer asked if they could identify him as a “purveyor of sick liquids.” (Her answer: “Absolutely.”) So that’s what he is — a core member of Gemini’s wine buying team, a champion of domestic wines, and a purveyor of sick liquids.
After getting his start in the restaurant and wine business in Pittsburgh (read more about that in the newsletter The Fizz), Moorer landed at the D.C. natural wine shop Domestique before making his way over to Gemini. (I must note that Gemini is also home to Happy Ice Cream, which serves flavors so dreamy and subtle that I will gladly wait in line a scoop — and I usually find it humiliating to queue for a bougie little treat.)
On a raw January afternoon, amid a flurry of baby snowflakes, I stopped by Gemini to chat with Moorer. The store was, blessedly, roasty-toasty. We talked about D.C.’s wine scene, how he helps shoppers break past their comfort zones, and all his favorite spots in the city for food, drinks, and long bike rides. If you want recs, look no further. This guy has recs.
When did you move to D.C.?
In 2018. I hated D.C. the first year and a half I lived here. I was going across town three or four times a day, and was like, I can’t live in Cleveland Park and want to hang out on H Street and expect to get any reasonable or decent sleep, or have a non-ridiculous Uber bill at the end of the month.
I learned that this is definitely a city of neighborhoods. You can do everything that you need or want to do within 10 or 15 minutes. It really took the pandemic for me to realize that. I started riding my bike a ton more, I started figuring out where I wanted to hang out, where my places were, and it just made me appreciate what was happening in the city that much more. Once I recognized that, I was like, Oh, this is a great place.
What’s your neighborhood radius now?
I live in Anacostia, and I hang out in Capitol Hill a lot. It’s easy to hang out in Dupont now that I work here. I don’t have to go terribly far to get back home. I’ll pop up to Astoria on a Thursday or Friday night, and I’m headed home after that.
There are a lot of lovely spots in this neighborhood, like Alfreda for pizza.
I was going to ask you about your spots around Gemini.
I go to The Coffee Bar a lot, which is a very popular D.C. thing to do. I’m fairly regular at A Baked Joint. I go to Astoria. That’s probably the bar I go to most in the city.
I went to Colombia a couple of years ago for a friend's wedding, and it turns out Emissary has a collaboration with Pergamino [a Colombian coffee producer] that’s over on 20th Street. It has this kind of lively cycling theme to it, which is originally what sucked me in. I was like, oh, I can pump my tires here and get good coffee? You look around, and there’s bike frames, there’s everything that my inner cycling nerd could want in a coffee shop.
I’d like to hear about cycling in D.C. I’m very intimidated by cyclists.
Why?
I don't know!
We’re adults riding bikes.
I know! You’re grown children! I think it’s just like —
Is it the intensity of the spandex?
Maybe it’s the outfits. Maybe it’s the dodging traffic.
I’m a big bike lane guy.
Bike lanes are important. When did you get into cycling?
I was riding a single speed fixie situation when I was living in Pittsburgh, which has way too many hills to be doing something like that. Moving here made things a lot easier. Post-pandemic, really, is when I got deep into it. I started going out to Virginia and Maryland — 50, 60 mile rides.
I live two minutes from the Anacostia Riverwalk Trail. It’s like, freedom, here I am! See ya! As you get out on the river trail, going out towards Maryland, it became this thing where my friends and I started incorporating food into it. Let’s stop at this taco place in Edmonston, let’s go to Manifest Bread, let’s go to 2fifty. Those are all within 10 to 12 miles of here, which is a respectable workout and earns you tacos.
Let’s get into the wine of it all. What’s your role at Gemini?
I’m part of the wine buying team here. I don’t take sole responsibility for that because I have a full team of people. I try to guide this program as much as I can, and then people add spice to it. Our big focus since I started here has been getting more domestic wine in front of people. For my belief system, when it comes to natural wine, if you’re not doing things in a more local sense, what’s the point? I’d like to see more representation of my own community, which is why we lean in that direction.
I think about wine in the same way that I think about shopping at the farmers market versus shopping at a big chain grocery store. You want to be putting money in the hands of people in your community, instead of giving it to faceless corporations. And natural wine has grown in a way that you do have some of these bigger entities saying, “Oh, we’re doing this very sustainable thing.” And they’re not. It’s something I hate to see being co-opted, which is why I try to go back to the grassroots as much as possible.
I know you’re interested in pushing back on certain ideas about what natural wine is or isn’t. What’s the commonly held belief about it?
That it’s all funky, weird, out-there wine. There’s an idea that natural wine is almost throwaway quality.
I think we should stop othering natural wine. Grapes have a ton of complexity to them — they can taste like a number of things — and I think natural wine is an area where we other grapes. [People say things like] “This tastes like cider.” Well, there are wines that have orchard fruit characteristics to them. But I think we should have these conversations about wine as wine.
Right, it seems like the goal is to describe natural wine the way you would describe any other wine, rather than reflexively comparing it to a beverage that it isn’t, like cider. So when someone walks in the door at Gemini and isn’t sure about what they want — or doesn’t feel confident describing it — how do you help guide them?
I make those people feel terrible about all of their life choices. No, I love talking to people about what they drink and why they drink it. A question that I always ask is: What’s the last bottle of wine you enjoyed?
And if they can’t remember?
I’ll see if they have a picture. Or I’ll ask: Is there something that you're looking to accomplish or learn today? What’s your comfort zone for something you always drink? How can I get you out of that? I find that people are very quick to gravitate towards things they know and understand.
If you can’t think of a bottle [of wine] you recently enjoyed, what’s the last beverage that you really enjoyed? I’ll ask people all the time: How do you drink your coffee? Do you drink it black? With sugar? With cream? What you ascertain from that is that people who drink black coffee are more open to bold flavors. So you can get them something with more body and more texture and intensity, or you can flip it on its head and give them something that’s the opposite of that.
How would you characterize D.C.’s wine scene? Is it distinct from other cities in any way?
It’s a very interesting place, where you’ve had this historic old guard, kind of old boys’ club, where wine has been this very elite thing, which I hate. There are a lot of status symbol bottles that people are always after. I don’t necessarily think that you have to spend a ton of money on wine. I think you should drink more qualitatively than quantitatively.
But at the same time, the first wine restaurant I went to was Primrose. I went there without knowing anybody, and I’d just sit at the bar and drink and have snacks. One day, Sebastian [Zutant, the co-owner and beverage director] was like, “Who are you? You’re clearly industry.” I think that it’s a cool place where you can have a bit of knowledge and people will notice that and talk to you. The first time I ever went to Tail Up Goat, I didn’t know Bill [Jensen, co-owner and beverage director]. He walked up to me and was like, “You’re the Pittsburgh guy.” Then he poured me some Maryland wine.
Wine people in D.C. are fairly close-knit, and we’re all very conversational. We’re always very excited about things. I think in D.C. you can find whatever it is you want. There’s a section for everybody here who wants to drink wine. Even within natural wine, we have a different style than other places that carry natural wine.
A place that really encapsulates what our wine scene is actually like is Nido, up in Mount Pleasant, right across from Purple Patch.
Yeah, the little market!
You can go there, have a snack, have a tasting, drink a bottle of wine, and they have everything from wild, volatile natty stuff to very classic stuff.
But also, the focaccia at Nido… there’s got to be drugs in that. It’s so good. Also, the Basque cheesecake. It’s a problem.
What haven’t I asked you yet?
You haven’t asked me about the overall dining scene in D.C.
Oh, let’s get into it. What are some of your personal favorites?
I love going to Lutèce. It’s one of my favorite places.
I’ve been meaning to go.
You’re like the 30th person to say that to me!
We’ve all gotta go!
Please go! Is it easy to get in? No, not all the time. But make a plan!
What did you order the last time you went there?
It was actually for brunch, and I never go to brunch. As an industry person, brunch is the devil. I feel bad for the people working brunch, I feel bad for being there. But it was the first time in like two years that I’d gotten to have the burger at Lutèce, which I swear is the best burger in the city. People can disagree all they want — argue amongst yourselves. They only serve it at brunch. It really was the highlight of my day.
They also do this honey Comté semifreddo, which… oh my god. I would jump over any of the barricades that they’re putting up in this city if that dessert was behind it.
We started off talking about how much you hated D.C. when you first moved here. How do you feel now?
I love D.C. I love D.C. so much that I’m not leaving. Despite the world around us, I believe in this city. I believe in the people here. I believe that we, while not given the representation that we deserve, are so representative of the America that I hope to see.
There’s such a liveliness in this city. There’s everything here, and you can go to bed at 9 o’clock if you want to. People don’t give us enough credit, and I think, with very few exceptions, there is something for everybody here.
I gotta go to Lutèce,
Eliza