Posts Written OnAugust 05, 2005

Artwork by Scott Sandell, a Minnesota native and Sag Harbor resident, is on display all over the world. His “works-on-paper,” as he calls them, can be found in the U.S. Embassy in Venezuela, the U.S. State Department in Havana, Cuba, the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, the Chrysler Museum, Harvard University, Emory University and many other places. But if serious art collecting is beyond your means, there’s another way to enjoy Sandell’s considerable talent – on a bottle of several local wines. In the fall of 2002, Richard Pisacano, owner of Roanoke Vineyards in Riverhead, approached Sandell about designing labels…

I’ve never met Pellegrini Vineyards’ winemaker Russell Hearn. But through his wines, I feel a certain welcome familiarity. From my very first sip of his Vinter’s Pride Encore – a rich, complex blend of red varietals – a few years ago, I’ve been a member of his fan club, and I’ve enjoyed numerous visits to the Pellegrini tasting room ever since. Australian born, Hearn began his winemaking career at the age of 16 and brought his substantial talents to the North Fork in 1991 when Pellegrini Vineyards first opened. By combining traditional methods with some of the East Coat’s most…

Less than an hour from Manhattan, the Brotherhood Winery, in Washingtonville, NY , is "America’s oldest winery" having been founded by John Jaques, with a first commercial vintage 1839. In 1987, new owners purchased the winery and Cesar Baeza, an internationally prominent winemaker and viticulturist, took over as winemaker. His wines were first produced in the fall of 1987. Nena and I visited a year or so ago and tasted through their offerings. Overall, we found the wines to be inconsistent, but always drinkable and sometimes quite impressive. I’ll be reviewing more of their wines in the near future, but…

With so many new food and wine blogs popping up every day, it can be tough to keep an eye on all of my favorites. But, when I stumbled upon The Wine Chicks yesterday, I had a feeling it’d become a daily read. Well, their post today about a few Long Island wines sealed the deal. I’m a fan. Turns out that one of the chicks was born on Long Island and raise in wine country…and the other is a recent graduate of culinary school (you might know her as Kristin Confit). I have a feeling that some collaboration might…