To quote Pizza Wine Co-Founder Liz McDonnell: “We wanted to break down that barrier and create a wine that feels natural, easy, and, most importantly, delicious with pizza.” If you think pizza wine is an oxymoron, just give it a try. That was the message of Liz McDonnell, CEO and co-found er, with her partner Robert Andreozzi, of the Rhode Island-based Pizza Wine, at a Parking Lot Pizza Party outside Modern Apizza on Monday night. The event was organized by Michael Pollack’s New Haven Pizza Club and featured live music, lawn games and Modern’s charred-crusted slices. Its mission was simple: win over pizza-capital-of-the-world skeptics to Pizza Wine, a lightly carbonated sparkling red wine in a spiffy red can.  Proceeds went to the Feeding Families Foundation, a nonprofit that partners with local restaurants to provide meals for the families of critically ill pediatric patients at Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital, among others. Billy Pustari, owner of Modern Apizza, who donates pizza each Friday through the nonprofit, opened his restaurant for the occasion.  “Italians have been pairing sparkling red wine with pizza for years,” said McDonnell, seated at a picnic table in the cool evening air. “It’s the original pairing for pizza.” The reason, she said: the structure of the wine perfectly balances the acidity in the tomatoes and cheese, drawing out the sweetness in the tomato sauce, the effervescence, as she put, “cutting through the fat, cleansing the palate.” Pizza Wine co-founder Liz McDonnell. McDonnell would know. A decade ago, she founded Fortnight, a co-op wine bar in downtown Providence while pursuing an advanced degree in neuroscience at Brown; the restaurant, known for its casual, proletarian vibe, earned a mention on Wine Enthusiast’s Forward 50 list, as well as rave reviews from Bon Appetit and GQ, before closing in 2022.  In 2020, Andreozzi, a chef, walked into Fortnight, notebook in hand, to work on a wine list for his new restaurant, Pizza Marvin; he would go on to earn two James Beard nominations for Best Chef there. “In the same way I was rejecting traditional wine culture with a wine bar that was down-to-earth and accessible, Rob was rejecting Michelin star culture by bringing an experience in fine dining to a pizza restaurant, but not taking itself too seriously,” McDonnell said, referring to Andreozzi’s previous post at Mario Battali’s Del Posto in New York.  Which was how pizza wine came about. The vision was to make wine as fun and approachable as pizza: no swirling, sniffing, or talk of wood notes, terroir, or minerality. “People love wine but a lot of the time they feel too intimidated to choose it over beer,” said McDonnell, whose day job is as product director at Lightspeed Commerce. “We wanted to break down that barrier and create a wine that feels natural, easy, and, most importantly, delicious with pizza. And when we couldn’t find one that tasted the way we wanted, we made it ourselves.” The result: a lightly carbonated red crafted from Chancellor grapes that are sourced from New York’s Lake Erie viticultural region, with a winemaking partner, Johnson Estate Winery, a century-old vineyard that runs on hydropower from Niagara Falls and constitutes a net carbon sink.  “It’s goodness in a can,” said Andreozzi, as a car horn sounded on State Street amid the festive strings of lights hung across the parking lot. “It’s a celebration of working with partners who care about a lot of the same things that we do, responsible farming, responsible production, and an ethical workforce.”  Launching first at Pizza Marvin in 2023, Pizza Wine, which retails at $24 for a four-pack, “has become a New England sensation, making waves from Nantucket to Newport and cementing itself as the drink of the season,” as Hey Rhody reports. To hear McDonnell tell it, New Haven is the dream; currently Pizza Wine is available at Modern Apizza, Bobbi’s Pizza, Gioia, and Hollywood Package. “Before Rob opened his pizza restaurant, we came here and drove home with a stack of 12 pies from the Holy Trinity in the back seat,” she recalled. “And now his [James Beard-nominated] pizza is New Haven-style thin crust pies.”  Another dream: Pizza Wine at Grand Central for Metro North passengers heading home at the end of a work day to accompany a slice. The duo plans to launch Pizza Wine in New York City in the spring. “This is a natural partnership,” said New Haven Pizza Club’s Pollack. “We are about bringing people together for good through a shared love of pizza, and that’s what Pizza Wine is all about, and that’s what [Modern’s] Billy [Pustari] is all about.” With that, this correspondent cracked open a can of Pizza Wine. A slice of Modern white mozzarella onion on a paper plate was waiting. A bite of pizza and a sip of wine followed, the fizziness lifting and cleansing so each new bite tasted as fresh as the first, and with each new bite, in a sort of call and response, asking for another sip to complete the experience, the two sides meeting in a certain char-edged nostalgia. In other words, joy. Photo courtesy of Pizza Wine. (Not Modern pizza). The post Pizza Wine Paired With Pizza At Parking Lot Party appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less