Winemaker Matt Spacarelli sends this picture of baco noir bud break in Benmarl Winery’s 50-year old estate baco vineyard.
Baco Noir Bud Break at Benmarl Winery
Browsing CategoryRegions
3 Heads “The Common Man”
Craft breweries make their bones by marketing big, unique beers to big, unique individuals. High alcohol levels, forceful flavors and innovative ingredients put many great brews on the map, but remain the characteristics of a niche product. Most of the “great” American beers are a bit much for the casual beer drinker to have out on the porch with the sun beating down. Conversely, most “mainstream” craft beer styles, brown and pale ales come to mind, bore hardcore beer lovers to death. It’s hard for a brewer to win. Three Heads Brewing, however, thinks they’ve found the perfect formula, and…
Shmaltz Hop Manna IPA
Selecting a beer called “Hop Manna” is about as close as I’ve come in years to celebrating Passover/Easter, but it had been too long since I’d had a Shmaltz Brewing Company (Saratoga Springs, NY, and San Francisco) brew and I was feeling particularly like a chosen person. Hop Manna is a new IPA brewed with Citra, Warrior, Cascade, Centennial, Amarillo, and Crystal hops and dry hopped with Centennial, Citra, and Cascade. It’s the brewery’s first single IPA, released last year in four test batches and in distribution for the first time this year. It’s got a beautiful hop nose: fresh, with orange…
Standing Stone Vineyards Vertical Gewurztraminer Tasting: As Unique as the Grape
The wine tastings at Standing Stone Vineyards are hardly typical, but then again, owner and winemaker Marti Macinski isn’t your average wine industry professional. A former lawyer with a degree in piano performance and philosophy, Macinski purchased the winery with her husband Tom in 1991; they’ve been making wine since 1993. On April 1, Standing Stone conducted a vertical gewurztraminer tasting, featuring six wines from their library: 1995, 1996, 1997, 2006, 2008 and the recently-released 2009. With 9 of us seated in the main tasting room around a low picnic table outfitted in a white tablecloth, it felt more like…
A Trip to the West Side (of Keuka Lake)
Well, I’m once again the midst of my annual month-long break from alcohol –– but that doesn’t mean I can’t still enjoy a trip to Finger Lakes wine country. In need of a road trip and eager to take advantage of Wednesday’s lovely weather, I hopped in the car and headed to Keuka Lake for a long overdue visit. (Note: to the tasting room servers’ credit, I didn’t get a single stare or snide comment when I asked for a spit bucket, which I’ve heard can be a problem at many wineries. I thus managed to taste responsibly and maintain my detox.)…
Merlot Bud Break at Shinn Estate Vineyards (April 6, 2012)
What was mere speculation and conjecture just a few weeks ago is now a reality on the North Fork. Shinn Estate Vineyards’ David Page sent me this photo this morning of bud break in their estate merlot vineyard, marking what appears to be the earliest bud break Long Island wine country has ever seen. The grape-growing process is a marathon, not a sprint, but the North Fork is certainly out of the gate early. Now local growers get to stress over nighttime low temperatures for the next month or so, hoping to avoid crippling frosts that could decimate their crops. Hopefully we’ll get…
Artisanal Cheese Pairing Event at Peconic Bay Winery
As a cheese geek I am continually preoccupied with the age-old question that plagues the majority of the cheese obsessed here in NY and elsewhere. “What makes the better cheese pairing? Wine or Beer?” I am clearly not alone in this as a sold-out crowd was on hand at the Artisanal Cheese wine and beer pairing event this past weekend, hosted by Peconic Bay Winery. Working with The Village Cheese Shop in Mattituck, and Greenport Harbor Brewing, the staff at Peconic Bay chose 4 different cheeses and subsequently paired them with complementary beer and wine. This is a pretty perfect…
Cornell to Fill North Country Trial Vineyard Tech Position
Just in from the Cornell Cooperative Extension Northeast NY Commercial Fruit program, is announcement of an open position at the cold hardy hybrid wine grape trial vineyard in Willsboro, NY. I’m well acquainted with the vineyard, having volunteered there for a few years, and I’m deeply connected to the area, due to family ties, and a lifetime of summers in the town. Were I in a different place in my life now, or if this was 15 years ago, I would not even be sharing this information. Rather I would be doing everything I could to assume the position myself,…
Bedell Cellars 2010 Syrah
Winemaker Rich Olsen-Harbich did some things differently during his first crush at Bedell Cellars in 2010. He brought his ambient yeast fermentations, of course, but he also made a couple blends by co-fermenting the grapes together — making his blending decisions from the outset. Bedell Cellars 2010 Syrah ($50) is one of those wines, made with 90% syrah and 10% viognier in the model of the Northern Rhone. That squirt of viognier is most apparently on a pretty, effusive nose that shows melon and honeysuckle aromas layered over fresh red berries, plums and a combination of earthy cumin and coriander. The…
Villa Bellangelo: A California Family Brings New Ownership, New Winemaker, Lofty Goals and a Sense of History
A small cluster of vines dating to 1866 is, one would assume, the proudly held evidence of some European estate’s history. Given the relatively short history of winemaking in the Finger Lakes, such a cluster of vines might seem out of place on Seneca Lake. That is exactly why Chris Missick loves this little piece of local folklore. Because the vines are real, and so are his family’s dreams of building something new and exciting around them. Chris Missick looks like he was cut out of a piece of granite, and the photo of him holding a rifle while sitting…