Made using Finger Lakes fruit, this Arrowhead Spring Vineyards 2010 Semi-Dry Riesling ($16) is a friendly, fruity wine with aromas off green apple, lime zest and just a touch of blanched almond. The palate is juicy, with gentle residual sugar that is balanced by solid acidity, with fruit cocktail flavors of green apple, peach and citrus. Producer: Arrowhead Spring Vineyards AVA: New York ABV: 12% Price: $16* (2.5 out of 5, Average-to-Very Good)
Now that the New York Cork Report has expanded to cover New York’s North Country wine region, it makes sense to take a look at the important and most-planted grapes. Over the next few months, we’ll look at some of the more promising grapes, starting with La Crescent. La Crescent is an inter-specific hybrid bred by Peter Hemstad and James Luby at the Minnesota Horticultural Research Center, and is one of four very promising varieties patented and released by that project in the last 15 years. The new vine has been available since 2002, but the story of its development…
Chardonnay. Merlot. Chardonnay. Merlot. Sauvignon Blanc. Chardonnay. Cabernet Franc. Merlot. Chardonnay. Cabernet Sauvignon. During the course of tasting any and all Long Island wines I can get my hands on — it seems like that is all I taste. Very little variety. A lot of the same. Those are important grapes for the region — no doubt — but who doesn’t like something a little different every now and again. That’s one reason I appreciate what people like Miguel Martin of Palmer Vineyards are doing with new-to-the-region grapes like albarino. It’s hard to envision a time when Long Island is…
After a hot summer bike ride, nothing tastes better than a good root beer float. But why not substitute sarsaparilla for stout? I like my floats with all sorts of malty, sweeter beers, and after a morning bike ride over the weekend my boyfriend and I hit on what might be the world’s greatest beer float. The beer: Southern Tier Brewing Company Creme Brulee Stout Unlike many brews by the Stout Kings of New York, Creme Brulee doesn’t have any chocolate flavor –– instead, it’s bursting with vanilla bean and caramel flavors thanks to real vanilla bean and dark caramel…
Wolffer Estate Vineyards winemaker Roman Roth makes some of my favorite oak-influenced chardonnay. Yes, I do have favorites in the category, I just don’t reach for them often. His best chardonnay, “Perle” is one of the top made on Long Island, and I guess you could call Wolffer Estate Vineyards 2010 “White Mischief” Chardonnay ($35) its sister wine — but made with ambient yeasts. Fermented 70% in stainless steel and 30% new French oak, the nose overflows with tropical pineapple, peach, and pear fruit aromas and notes of lilac and lavendar and only the faintest evidence of vanilla oak. Mouth-filling and…
It’s nice to see more and more New York wineries making better and better stainless steel chardonnays, including this Leonard Oakes Winery 2010 Chardonnay ($15). Sometimes steel chardonnay can be lacking on the nose, but with aromas of fresh-cut Golden Delicious and Gala apples and light floral overtones and subtle nutty lees character, the nose is interesting enough and leads into a medium-full bodied palate that is fruity — more apples and pears — with fresh, nicely incorporated acidity and a clean, lingering finish that shows just a bit of lemon and spicy lees. Though not particularly complex or interesting, this is…
Where I went to college, there was a lot of beer. Disclaimer: I didn’t drink any of it*. Natty Light, The Beast and an occasional mystery keg abounded, sending me directly to the bottom of a bottle of bourbon. The blanket statement of “I don’t drink beer” made me pretty unpopular when I lived in Boston, Massachusetts during graduate school. I danced to chants of “you’re so wicked high maintenance” as I threw another stoli doli on my credit card. It wasn’t until I started worshipping wine that I saw the potential craft brews had to offer. But a girl…
If you’re not hip on the cider train, that’s okay. If your experience with cider up till now has consisted of a pint of syrupy sweet Magners from your local O’Fooligans, or you’ve gone one step further into darkness by mixing a half pint of lager with a half pint of Strongbow (known conspicuously as a “Snakebite”, and with after effects not so far off from a Cottonmouth Water Moccasin snake sinking its fangs in the meat of your calf, filling your bloodstream with toxins), then you’ll be okay. And if you’ve never tasted a farmhouse cider before, I’ll give…
“The perfect solution would seem to be to buy local. If only New York wines were worth it.” That is the opening salvo from wine shop owner Marco Pasanella, who has written a popular new book called Uncorked: My Journey Through the Crazy World of Wine. Pasanella tells the story of how he built a successful wine shop from scratch in Manhattan. He writes about which wines sell, which don’t, and how he waded through bureacracy to finally build a thriving retail store. It’s an interesting read, if flawed, and my full review of the book will be up on…