By David Flaherty, New York City Correspondent Starting this Sunday, and running for one week, countless gallons of hard apple cider will fill glasses throughout New York City and the Hudson Valley like never before. And after years of toiling away in relative obscurity, artisan producers from the Finger Lakes and throughout the Hudson Valley will expose there wares to a mostly naive public. It's about time. We in the Northeastern United States have some of the best climactic and geographic conditions in the world for producing cider apples (learn more about the making of hard apple cider). Two years…
Posts Written OnOctober 2011
7 Things You Need to Know About Regional Wine (Jeff Siegel, Wine Curmudgeon)
Editor's Note: It's Regional Wine Week and while it's difficult to make this website any more locally focused, I wanted to draw some attention to the effort. As a member of the Drink Local Wine board of directors, I wanted to re-publish this post by DLW president, Jeff Siegel. I think it captures the essence of what DLW is all about. By Jeff Siegel, The Wine Curmudgeon This is DrinkLocalWine's fourth annual regional wine week, which means all sorts of goodies and festivities at DrinkLocalWine.com, including the 47-word essay contest and voluminous links to regional wine stories, photos and…
2011 Harvest: Late-Season Thinning to Encourage Ripening at Clovis Point
By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor There is some rain in the forecast later this week, but we're in the midst of a week-long string of sunny, dry days — conditions that were and are direly needed to keep disease pressure at bay in local vineyards and help grapes mature and ripen. Before the sun came out late last week, many local vineyards — including Clovis Point — were working to thin red wine crops, hoping that the reduced crop load will ripen more fully. According to Hal Ginsburg, managing partner at Clovis Point, the vineyard crew there dropped more than…
Kevin Zraly at Bedell Cellars Sunday, October 16 at 2 p.m.
By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor This Sunday, October 16 at 2 p.m., Bedell Cellars will host wine educator, wine author, and recent 2011 James Beard Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award Winner, Kevin Zraly for a talk and tasting. Zraly will offer his perspective on the wine industry after 40 years working in it, focusing on how far the United States has come in wine — of course discussing Long Island in particular. A Q&A and book signing opportunity with Zraly’s newest release Complete Wine Course 2012 Edition will follow. Books will be available for purchase ($27.95). Each guest for the lecture…
Saranac Wet Hop IPA
By Mark Tichenor, Rochester Beer Correspondent It might not yet be a gold mine, but farmer Rick Pedersen of Seneca Castle, New York is definitely sitting on something. Pedersen Farms is one of the few in Western New York to fully embrace the craft beer revolution by cultivating hops. In doing so, they spur the resurgence of this once-ubiquitous New York State crop. This makes it possible for breweries like Saranac to brag that their new Wet Hop IPA is made with all-New York hops, a claim that, until recently, would have been untenable. Wet-hopping is basically adding fresh hop…
The New York Cork Report Tasting Table — October 6, 2011
By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor These are tasting notes for some wines that have been tasted at the NYCR tasting table but won't be reviewed in standalone posts. As always, these notes come almost directly from my notebook. Bashakill Vineyards 2010 Wood Duck Chardonnay ($15): Fruit from Seneca Lake. Nose is almost all raw oak with just a bit of apple and lemon behind. Great acidity and mouthfeel on the palate, but also a lot of oak covering up most of the apple, pear and citrus fruit. Hermann J. Wiemer 2009 Dry Riesling ($18): Big slate aromas with juice pear…
Reserve Your Seats for “The Wurst Beer Dinner” on October 24 at Luce & Hawkins With Greenport Harbor Brewing
If you'd like to join us, please call the restaurant at (631) 722-2900. Your payment information will be taken when you call and we will have a 48-hour cancellation policy.
Harvest Update: At Hudson-Chatham Winery, Tough 2011 Slows Growth
By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor 2011 was supposed to be a big harvest at Hudson-Chatham Winery where, according to owner Carlo DeVito, the plan was to harvest 20% more fruit than last year. Mother Nature — largely in the form of Hurricane Irene — had other plans. "We probably just held serve, so we may experience some small growth because we still have some older wines, but we'll see a hiccup no doubt about it," Carlo told me. The winery grows more four acres of vines itself, but depends on other growers — in the Hudson River Region and elsewhere…
Harvest 2011: Wild Ride for Niagara So Far
Pinot Noir grapes still hanging at Freedom Run Winery in Lockport, NY By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Region Editor For Jonathan Oakes, winemaker at Leonard Oakes Estate Winery and Schulze Vineyards and Winery, the 2011 growing season can be summed up in one word: wild. “It’s been one of the wildest rides I’ve seen in a long time,” he said. Thanks to Mother Nature, of course. It started with a cool and excessively wet late spring followed by an intensely hot and dry July. The good news for Oakes is that all that heat enabled the vines to catch up to…
Heron Hill Winery 2008 Ingle Vineyard Cabernet Franc
By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor The image of Finger Lakes red wines as typically underwhelming — especially compared to the regions often outstanding white wines — has begun to evolve in recent years — mostly thanks to two warm vintages (2005 and 2007) and a handful of producers really pushing the quality envelope. The region is getting its due for its red wines too now — at least here and there. Here's a wine from the more "normal" 2008 vintage that further proves how silly it is to generalize when it comes to wine. Heron Hill Winery 2008 Cabernet Franc…