Would You Try Gowanus Wine?

Does the idea of Gowanus wine sound appetizing to you? It does for Joseph Mariano, 73, a winemaker who lives a few blocks from the massively polluted Gowanus Canal, according to the New York Post.

Mariano’s wine is called Vinum Nostrum (“Our Wine”) and comes from a 50-foot grapevine that he’s tended in his backyard since 1976, according to the report. He bottles about five jugs per year.

The Post seems shocked by this, but according to a very quick Google search, there’s also a home beer brewer in Gowanus, so maybe it’s not so unusual to drink a creation made mere blocks from the canal. And after all, Mile End and Brooklyn Brine once housed their operations in Gowanus and no one died from that. 

In the wise words of Mariano (as told to the Post): “People are afraid of everything -- from secondhand smoke to wine made near the canal. I once fell into the canal -- and I’m still here.”