Posts Written OnJune 2009

Rooster Hill Vineyards 2007 Gewurztraminer

By Lenn Thompson, Editor and Publisher Gewurztraminer is the sometimes-forgotten grape of the Finger Lakes, often playing a distant second fiddle to riesling. But if you find yourself touring any of the lakes' 100+ wineries, you will find a lot of good, and sometimes great, Gewurztraminer. Rooster Hill Vineyards 2007 Gewurztraminer ($16) shows why Gewurzt is one of the most aromatic grapes around. The nose is effusive with pineapple and apricot fruit aromas mingling with ginger, spice and white flowers. The palate is medium-bodied with apricot, pineapple and spice flavors. The acidity is fresh, balancing the light residual sugar well.…

TasteCamp 2009: An Interview with Nick Gorevic

Forgive the gap in getting this TasteCamp interviews posted. There are still a few to come, but I'll probably space them out a bit, now that we're relatively distant from the event itself. Today's interviewee is a fellow New Yorker, Nick Gorevic. As with many of the East Coast-based wine bloggers, I had to go to Santa Rosa, CA last fall for the 2008 Wine Bloggers Conference to meet him. Nick is works in a retail wine store in Manhattan, and runs Homewineschool.com, a business that provides everything you need to educate yourself about wine in the privacy of your…

Video: Riesling Month Winds Down. Interview With Dave Breeden, Winemaker, Sheldrake Point Vineyard

My Flip cam makes its video debut, but there are still some kinks; I have yet to figure out how to lay in b-roll. Bummer. We shot some extra video during the tasting and intended to lay some in. Next time. With the growing focus on aged Finger Lakes rieslings, and with so many wineries hosting riesling verticals this year, I thought it would be instructive to hear from Sheldrake Point Vineyard's winemaker about several topics, including: His thoughts on this tasting, and how the oldest riesling showed His thoughts on trying to find the perfect time to open a…

Channing Daughters Winery 2008 Mudd Vineyard Sauvignon Blanc

By Lenn Thompson, Editor and Publisher I've said it a million times and I'll say it again — there is little doubt that sauvignon blanc is the white-wine future of Long Island. And, year after year, a unique regional is emerging — one with bright citrus fruit, accented by herbs that are less overwhelming than wines from New Zealand, and minerality that is less intense perhaps than Sancerre. And, unlike sauvignon from the left coast, the wines are focused and well balanced by refreshing acidity. These are generalizations, of course, but it's an emerging style and I'm just trying to…

24 Years of Dr. Konstantin Frank Riesling

By Jason Feulner, Finger Lakes Correspondent On Sunday I had the unique privilege of tasting ten rieslings from Dr. Frank's Vinifera Wine Cellars, ranging in date from 2008 all the way back to 1985. While several other Finger Lakes wineries offered riesling library tastings as part of Riesling Month, virtually no other can reach as far back as Dr. Frank's, which has bottles dating from the 1960s. In this sense, Dr. Frank's provides an historical perspective on the region's potential. Fred Frank, president of the winery, explained that the wines included in the tasting were not selected based on any notion of vintage quality…

Local with Local: 2 Regions. 2 Chefs.

By Lenn Thompson, Editor and Publisher My ongoing Local with Local project is expanding beyond Long Island this summer. Expanding to the Finger Lakes. Today, I'm happy to announce that Chef Deb Whiting, chef at Red Newt Bistro on Seneca Lake in New York's Finger Lakes region will be joining LwL vet Chef Doug Gulija of The Plaza Cafe in Southampton, NY. (Read more about Chef Doug) Deb also happens to be co-owner of Red Newt Wine Cellars with her husband Dave Whiting, who is the winemaker. A winemaker and chef owning a winery and restaurant. Sounds like a power…

What We Drank (6/1/09)

For this week's edition of What We Drank, 5 of those who contribute to LENNDEVOURS chimed in with entries, some local, some not. From Bryan Callandrelli: Channing Daughters Winery 2007 Tocai Friulano Still bitter from missing the TasteCamp visit to Channing Daughters, I opened a gifted bottle of Channing Daughters Winery 2007 Tocai Friulano to ease the pain. I've been known to buy any Friulian red I can find at a wine store, but not so much the whites. They are too easy to find, and for this treasure hunter, I need to feel like I bought the most interesting…

Samples vs. Purchases: A Quick Bit of Housekeeping

I hate wasting blog space on navel-gazing and discussions about blogging ethics. But I've decided that going forward, in the interest of transparency, wines that were received as samples will be indicated with an asterisk (*) on the purchase price, which is always the price, at release, at the winery itself. I've also updated the Rating System page to reflect this. On some level, I think it's stupid. I taste and critique wines the same no matter how they end up in my glass, but there's nothing wrong with a little added transparency. We'll continue with our regularly scheduled programming…

Coming Soon: Video Blog From the Sheldrake Point Vineyard Riesling Vertical

  By Evan Dawson, Finger Lakes Correspondent Photo Courtesy of Sheldrake Point Vineyard While attending Sheldrake Point Vineyard's riesling vertical this past weekend, I used my new Flip video camera for the first time. I sat down with winemaker Dave Breeden, and the video will be posted shortly. Among the topics we discussed: Sheldrake's vertical featured semi-dry riesling, not dry riesling. Why? Which style does Dave prefer to lay down? Are we, as a wine community, too concerned that a bottle will pass its mythical "peak?" How can you tell when peak is approaching? How did the Sheldrake wines show?…