Posts Written OnJanuary 24, 2008

WTN: Raphael 2002 First Label Merlot (North Fork of Long Island)

Editor’s Note: Yes, I do still write for my blog. When Richard Olsen-Harbich, winemaker at Peconic’s Raphael, started his winemaking career, it was in the Finger Lakes region of central New York. As you all know, the Finger Lakes region is best suited —  and best known —  for its aromatic white wines, particularly riesling. Much of the time, the classic red varieties of Bordeaux struggle to ripen in central New York. Some wineries make wines like merlot and cabernet sauvignon anyway, but many of the better ones are made using fruit (or bulk wine) grown here on Long Island.…

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Diploma Dispatches: My first WSET Diploma Unit 3 Class

By New York City Correspondent Sasha Smith And so it begins. I had my first Diploma Unit 3 wine class last week, and I’m already feeling overwhelmed. The Good News: I’m not the only person who isn’t in the wine business. I was a little worried that the class would be wall-to-wall sommeliers and importers, but there’s a small contingent of civilians like me. From a purely selfish perspective that’s good news as it makes me feel less self-conscious, but I think it will be goodfor the class, too. In my experience from previous courses, WSET students tend to overlook…

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4th Annual Long Island Real Ale Festival: Mild Preview

By Donavan Hall, Beer Columnist Last year I attended the Long Island Real Ale Festival with my beer writer hat on. This year, I’ll be there as a brewer. On January 6, my brewing buddy, Mike Voigt, and I mashed-in and brewed up a batch of an English-style Mild that we’ll be proud to serve at this Saturday’s Long Island Real Ale Festival held annually at the Blue Point Brewery in Patchogue. The beer has been fermenting away at Mike’s house for the last couple of weeks and earlier this week it was ready to transfer into the firkin.  We…

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“Pruning” by Christopher Watkins

By Poet Laureate Christopher Watkins   Pruning Early morning, and like middle-schoolerschicken-pimpled beside a swimming pool, the once-mighty vines stand humble, naked in their rows;I swear they’re shivering—a finishing schoolof apprentice scarecrowspracticing on snowflakes… I walk the morning-after battlefield — the fightan ancient rite of deconstruction —marveling at the meagerquintessence of these vines: arms thinas antennae, slender trunks poorly mimickingtheir elder’s muscularity; reminded of a bubblegumcartoon, I imagine Old Vines walking byand kicking sand in all the littlevine’s faces, then stealing off their girls… A long year ahead, and I have no song I can singto march them onwards, but…

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