Before L.A. native Etty Lewensztain devoted herself to wine, she worked the line at restaurants like Angelini Osteria, La Terza and A.O.C.. She transitioned east to New York and ended up running the marketing and promotional campaign for the Wines of Chile. From 2005 – 2009, Lewensztain became so enamored with wine that she returned home to Los Angeles to launch Plonk Wine Merchants, a website that sells value wines that never top $30 and features suggested food pairings, video reviews, and beginning in 2011, interactive online tastings with winemakers. We recently met at Covell, where Lewensztain shared several wine insights, delved into her background and shared some holiday-related wine recommendations.

Tell me about your philosophy on wine.

I look at wine as a condiment for food. We were talking about how lemon and acidity plays with food, and the way you go to squeeze lemon on some fried shrimp, something like that, it’s sort of the acid jolt to whatever you’re adding it to. I tend to look at wine that way when it comes to pairing and finding complements.

What are some secrets to food and wine pairing?

Instead of looking at proteins, like fish goes with white and meats go with red, I tend to look at the weight of food and also the preparation, the sauces, the marinades and spices, as opposed to the proteins. You can be kind of limited in your choices if you look at it strictly that way. If you’re pairing a pork chop, pork is a white meat, but a pork loin chop or a pork rib chop is pretty hefty. So I think it can stand up to something pretty tannic and brawny that maybe you wouldn’t think to pair with pork…A lot of fish dishes go great with lighter bodied reds like Beaujolais. Gamay is a great grape that goes wonderfully with fish. The red and white, those strict rules are a little naïve. You sort of broaden your horizons a little bit if you think about how heavy or light a dish is, and you can discover some more fun pairings.

What is it that inspires you about wine?

What inspires me most is the novelty. It’s one of those categories of interest that’s constantly changing. There’s always something new to discover, and it’s sort of voluminous and endless, and I never tire of it. Something that can keep your interest like that, I think is really fun and exciting.

Do you have a first wine memory?

One of my more profound wine memories, my brother had an ex-girlfriend whose dad was a serious wine collector. We had a birthday dinner at Ago on Melrose, and he brought out some really cool stuff from his cellar, including some really amazing Pouilly-Fuisse, white Burgundy. It was the first time that I really tasted Burgundy and it was a really eye opening experience. I never really knew Chardonnay in that guise, so it was cool to see what Chardonnay really tastes like in its birthplace.

Was there a point that you knew you’d work with wine for a living?

Prior to my job running the Wines of Chile campaign in New York, my experience with wine was fairly pedestrian. Once I started learning about wine in a really academic way, I got immediately turned on to it. Starting serious wine coursework and looking at wine in the way you would study as seriously as any other topic, convinced me that this is something I could dedicate my life to.

The term plonk isn’t necessarily flattering when it comes to wine. Why did you decide to name your site Plonk?

Plonk is a derogatory slang British term for cheap wine. The reason I decided to name my company Plonk is because the theme is all bang for the buck wines, super high quality at low prices. I was trying to find a tongue in cheek way of expressing that. I’m sort of redefining what Plonk means to people. In this day and age, we’re in a time when people want to be lean with their spending and everyone wants to find a good deal. Everyone still wants quality and no one wants to drink less often. It’s important to find a wine that everyone can drink every day, and nobody’s going to drink a $100 bottle of wine every day at dinner. I always thought there was a sweet spot at about 25 bucks where you could find cool, amazing, inspiring wines. It’s learning how to find those hidden niches and hidden little gems. Plonk kind of fits into that. There’s this whole new cheap chic kind of thing that’s happened in the past few years because it’s cool to be frugal, in a way. People aren’t embarrassed that they want to find values anymore. Wine had a snobbery associated with it. I don’t think it does anymore. Wine has become much more pedestrian, which is a great thing. It’s kind of taking a model after Europe. People drank table wine for centuries in France and Spain, and it was never this “I need a white tablecloth to open a bottle of wine” kind of thing that it was in America. I think low price points can be something people can embrace if the wine’s of good quality.

How did you decide on the $30 threshold?

It’s a fine line. There are wines that are $32 that I think are great, that I would love to feature, but I try to keep things below that price point. Most of the things I sell are in the lower category, $15 – $18 range. Once you’re entering the $30 to $40, it’s expensive. I also don’t think you can find wine that’s really amazing under $10. I try to use these bookends of 10 and 30 to set my price point. There are exceptions. There are wines for eight bucks that may not be revelatory, but drink like they cost 15 bucks, for instance. But I kind of use the $10 mark as my lowest and the $30 as my highest.

You have suggested food pairings with each of your wines. Why was that important?

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