Posts Tagged“bellwether wine cellars”

Bellwether Wine Cellars 2013 Vin Gris of Pinot Noir

I don’t consider Kris Matthewson, winemaker at Bellwether Wine Cellars, to be a “natural winemaker” (what does that even mean?). True, he doesn’t like to make a lot of cellar additions and prefers a decidedly hands-off approach, but he’s not above making adjustments if a wine needs them. That said, his wines do lean toward the idiosyncratic. They invite the adventurous and open minded and aren’t for everyone. Some are truly unlike any other in the Finger Lakes region. I think he probably likes it that way. Of a lineup that also includes a handful of single-vineyard rieslings, a gamay noir-dominant rose and…

New York’s Next Wave: A New Generation is Earning Attention With Quality and Experimentation

Editor’s Note: This is my latest New York-focused piece for Beverage Media Though they haven’t saturated the metropolitan New York market by any means, New York wines aren’t the new kids on the block anymore. Rather than look to distant lands for “the next big thing,” enough intrepid buyers have looked in their own backyard to raise the profile of New York State wine to at least a known quantity. Many of the top — the classic ones, really — are known quantities. Wines from stalwarts like Hermann J. Wiemer, Paumanok Vineyards, Dr. Konstantin Frank and Channing Daughters Winery hold…

New York Cork Club: June 2015 Selections

We’re getting ready to ship the June 2015 wines for the New York Cork Club, so I wanted to tell you a bit about them. (If you missed our announcement about the rebirth of New York Cork Club, check it out here.)In the next week or so, members will get:Element Winery 2011 Syrah ($36) — Wow. This wine pushes the boundaries of what we want to include price-wise, but it’s so limited (90 cases) and so delicious (think Northern Rhone meets Finger Lakes) that we just had to include it. Bellwether Wine Cellars 2014 Dry Rose ($16) — A blend of cabernet franc, gamay…

Finding Inspiration in the Finger Lakes, by Regan Meador, Southold Farm + Cellar

Getting past New York City with a trailer overloaded with 350 gallons of wine had been a major milestone. As the truck lurched and faded, lurched and faded, every bang of a pothole had me questioning my decision on this endeavor, but I still had four hours to go until the Finger Lakes. I was taking perfectly good still red wine to Bellwether Wine Cellars in Trumansburg so I could turn it into an ode to dry lambrusco (an endeavor that had given more than a few colleagues on Long Island a good laugh). I needed to use their pressurization…

Reminder: #TasteNY With Bellwether Wine Cellars is April 10

Don’t miss the return of #TasteNY — our Twitter-based virtual New York wine tasting event — on Thursday, April 10 at 7 p.m. We’ll be tasting three wines from Bellwether Wine Cellars, a young label focusing on single-vineyard riesling and pinot noir in the Finger Lakes. You can get the details and find out how to order the wines on our previous post. We’ hope you’ll join us. And, if you’re on Long Island and want to join me when I taste them, let me know. Evan will be hosting a group up in Rochester as well, so if you’re in that area, you…

#TasteNY Virtual Tasting to Return April 10 with Bellwether Wine Cellars

It’s been a long time coming, but today I’m happy to announce the return of #TasteNY — our Twitter-based virtual New York wine tasting event — on Thursday, April 10 at 7 p.m. Joining us will be Kris Matthewson from Bellwether Wine Cellars, a young label focusing on single-vineyard riesling and pinot noir in the Finger Lakes with a decidedly hands-off winemaking style. During the event, which can be followed using the #TasteNY hashtag on Twitter, wine lovers from across the country will be tasting and discussing three wines: 2013 Dry Rose of Pinot Noir 2012 Wild Ferment Riesling 2012…

Bellwether Wine Cellars 2012 A&D Vineyard Wild Ferment Riesling

As I mentioned last week, Bellwether Wine Cellars is open for business, having opened its doors with a pinot noir and three rieslings available for tasting and purchase. The first thing you’ll notice about Bellwether Wine Cellars 2012 A&D Vineyard Wild Ferment Riesling ($27) is that it’s bottled under a crown cap — not something you see very often. It’s not just because Bellwether Hard Ciders has that equipment around, though. Along with being fermented with ambient yeasts (a topic of some debate of late), this wine was bottled with far less SO2 (only 50 ppm) than is typical in the Finger…

Bellwether Wine Cellars 2012 Sawmill Creek Vineyard Riesling

Bellwether Wine Cellars opened its doors today, offering tastes of its 2011 Sawmill Creek Vineyard Pinot Noir and three distinct rieslings. I got to taste all three — two dry, one semi-dry; one fermented with ambient yesasts, two not — and will write about all of them over the next few days. But today, we focus on the Bellwether Wine Cellars 2012 Sawmill Creek Vineyard Riesling ($22), which is likely to be the crowd-pleaser of the riesling lineup. Peach and green apple aromas are joined by a squirt of lime, honey and a bit of apple blossom on a pleasant,…

Bellwether Wine Cellars 2011 Sawmill Creek Vineyard Pinot Noir

When I recently posted a picture of a home-cooked meal on Facebook, a friend demanded to know who made the rose that filled the glass next to my plate. That wasn’t rose, friends. That was Bellwether Wine Cellars 2011  Pinot Noir ($30), a pinot that artfully reflects the cooler, cloudier 2011 season in the Finger Lakes without any color enhancement in the form of corot noir, noiret or — if this were California — syrah. If the Bellwether name sounds familiar, it should. Bellwether Hard Cider is well regarded for its often-outstanding lineup of traditionally styled ciders. The winery is a…

Harvest 2012: Pinot Noir at Bellwether Wine Cellars

Kris Matthewson, winemaker at Bellwether Wine Cellars, sends this report from their September 7 pinot noir harvest: [quote]We harvested pinot on Friday, September 7 from Sawmill Creek Vineyard on the East side of Seneca Lake. The brix were right around 23 when we picked. The grapes were in really good condition. We ended up picking most of the acre ourselves, and did some pretty heavy field sorting while we picked, and then table sorted again when we brought the grapes in from the vineyard. After all the sorting was said and done, they were some of the best grapes I…