Posts Written OnJune 2006

As I’ve written previously, early next Wednesday morning (too early if you ask me) I leave New York for San Francisco. I’ll be in conferences all day Thursday through Saturday, and then Nena joins me Saturday afternoon to make a little mini-vacation/anniversary trip out of things, but…I’m loooking for some suggestions from the booming Bay Area blogging community. I tend to be a lone roamer when I’m on business trips by myself…I just wander the streets in search of something to do. But, given that I have all of you as a resource, I thought perhaps I’d be a bit…

Today on Hamptons.com, my column focuses on Jamesport Vineyards, its East End Series of wines and its support for the Southold Project for Aquaculture Traning (SPAT.) Check it out. And if you’re an East End resident, contact SPAT to learn how you can grow your own shellfish — keeping half for yourself and cutting the others loose in the bays.

Much like food and wine, wine and art are forever beautifully entangled. The splendor of a vineyard as it dances through the growing season begs to be  memorialized with a camera or on canvas. And, similarly winemaking, while at its core a scientific undertaking, is a craft done best in the hands of true artisans. Art is necessary to sell wine as well. Wine shops can be overwhelming — shelf after shelf of many different wines from many different locals and many foreign to the consumer. We’ve all picked up a bottle based on the label, and Australian wineries, perhaps…

John Irving Levenberg of Bedell Cellars can be heard this week on Vinetopia discussing the winemaking process and features the music he listens to while winemaking and drinking wine. I have yet to meet John, but I like what he’s doing with the wines at Bedell. Before joining Bedell, he worked at Paul Hobbs and other Napa wineries as well as in Bordeaux and New Zealand — bringing an interesting mix of Old and New World experience. Listen now.

As someone who reviews 6-12 wines a week, I dump a fair amount of wine down the wink. I’m no teetotaler, but for the sake of my liver (and preserving things like my job and my marriage) I just can’t drink that much wine in a week. So, for a long time, I’ve found myself dumping lots of wine down the sink. Some is pretty bad, so it’s a welcome dump, but there are also a lot of good wines too. I’ve knocked around the idea of making my own vinegar for quite some time, but when The Obsessed One…

Too often, the term "food friendly" is meant as a negative in wine journalism — applied to wines deemed unable to bring pleasure on their own. This, of course, is absolutely ludicrous. It’s impossible to separate the two. Food and wine are forever intertwined — like Abott and Costello, peanut butter and jelly, or the Pittsburgh Steelers and Super Bowl rings. Labeling a bottling as a "food wine" should be an accolade, not a comment on its overall quality. Given their pedigree as restaurateurs, it’s no surprise that David Page and Barbara Shinn, owners of Shinn Estate Vineyards in Mattituck,…

My "corks of the forks" column this week over at Hamptons.com features Raphael, one Long Island winery getting a lot of attention these days. From appearing on The Apprentice to scoring well in the Wine Spectator to making the house red at The Modern, Raphael is making news and bringing attention to the North Fork. Good for Raphael and good for overall Long Island wine industry. Read more.

This Saturday, Paumanok Vinyeards is hosting "Oysters and Vin Blanc" at its tasting room from 2 -5 p.m. I’m not much for oysters, but I’ve long been a fan of Paumanok’s whites — including their oyster-friendly chenin blanc, steel fermented chardonnay and sauvignon blanc (which is in its second vintage I believe). Stop by, enjoy some local oysters with local wine.