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| Wine Expert Nancy Agasi |
 Nancy grew upon the upper West Side of Manhattan where she was exposed to all kinds of art, culture, sophistication and the very best of everything. Nancy attended Horace Mann School and Tufts University, where she received a BA in Art History & Middle East Politics and has her MBA from NYU Stern School.
As an undergraduate, Nancy went to Israel to learn Hebrew, explore her Jewish roots and experience a world different from the skyscrapers, pavement and commotion of NYC. During her first kibbutz stay in 1983 she worked in the cotton fields and citrus orchards and on her second kibbutz stay in 1985 she worked in the citrus groves and avocado orchards. For a city girl, Nancy felt very comfortable among the Israelis on the kibbutz and she loved the connection they had to the land. Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra is a paradise for exotic fruit lovers. There were leechee, passion fruit, guava, avocados, bananas and every kind of citrus you can imagine. They also ate fresh fish from the Mediterranean Sea and often went fishing for dinner. Many great meals were had on the kibbutz, to say nothing of the tomatoes and cucumbers and really until you eat an Israeli cucumber you haven't eaten a cucumber. Sarig grew up on Kibbutz Rosh Hanikra and it was there that they met. Nancy recalls that it was “love at first bite" when she tasted a wild boar stew that Sarig had made for a group of friends and she simply followed her mouth. Nancy and Sarig have been together ever since.
In 1987 they took off with backpacks for a year of travel across South America. “We ate all sorts of seafood in Chile while exploring glaciers. We ate chocolate and beef in the mountains and pampas of Argentina, drank caipirinas and ate lots of fruit while dancing the lambada and samba in Brazil. We hiked through the ice caves in Bolivia, to Macchu Picchu in the Andes of Peru and were amazed by the Incan culture. We canoed through the Amazon rain forest and finally wound up in the Galapagos Islands with the blue footed boobies. What an adventure!”
Nancy married Sarig in 1988 and they moved to NYC for Sarig to learn English and for Nancy to go back to school for her MBA. After finishing school, the happy couple moved to San Francisco and Sarig went to culinary school. While typing his papers, Nancy learned a lot of about food and wine. “We ate mostly organic vegetables and spent most weekends tasting wine in Napa & Sonoma counties.” By the end of culinary school, Nancy was pregnant with their first child and decided to no longer to eat processed foods. They moved back to New York and while Sarig worked for David Bouley and Gray Kunz at Lespinasse, Nancy was a stay home mom in Westchester, NY. |
More children soon arrived, 3 in all,
- Ziv - Aug 1993
- Geffen - May 1996
- Maytal - January 1999 |
In April 1996 Nancy and the family moved to Raleigh for Sarig to work at Nana's in Durham with Scott Howell. Nancy started teaching Hebrew part time.
In January 1999 they opened Butterflies Restaurant in North Raleigh and Nancy took over the job of managing the front of the house and the wine end of the business. “I began putting the list together for Butterflies while I was pregnant with Maytal and so I was not drinking. In fact, I barely even tasted the wines. Instead I smelled them and really learned to rely upon my nose more than most people. That has served me well over time. The wine business was the thing that I missed the most when we sold Butterflies Restaurant.”
Nancy is back in the wine business full force with Zely & Ritz and its obvious when you look at the wine list. She still teaches 4th grade Hebrew, 5th grade Judaica and coaches the JCC swim team in her spare time. |
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