Posts Tagged“billsboro winery”

Orange Wines in the Finger Lakes: What Was Old is New Again

Across the Finger Lakes, creative winemakers like August Deimel, Katey Larwood, Steve Shaw, Peter Becraft, Vinny Aliperti and others are employing traditional techniques with well-known grape varieties to produce innovative, new wines. Frequently referred to as “orange” or “amber,” these new wines are challenging establish perceptions of mainstay wines made from varieties such as chardonnay, gewurztraminer, vignoles and even riesling — the iconic grape of the region. What the wines have in common is that they are white wines that utilize extended skin contact during maceration and subsequent fermentation. This approach represents a major deviation from winemaking practices commonly employed…

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Billsboro Winery 2012 Cabernet Franc

Billsboro Winery 2012 Cabernet Franc ($25) is ripe and fruit-forward on the nose with cherry and plum aromas that stay this side of jammy and accents of tobacco, baking spice and dried herbs. The first sip is a bit disjointed and almost comes across as hot (an indicator of higher alcohol that isn’t balanced) but with some air that fades and this medium-bodied, ripe-but-not-too-ripe red settles in with red and black fruit notes that are tinged by toasty vanilla oak-born spice and a bit of brown sugar. Structure is provided by juicy acidity rather than the tannins, which are soft and rounded. On…

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Billsboro Winery 2012 Pinot Noir

Billsboro Winery 2010 Pinot Noir ($25) offers aromas of black cherry sprinkled with potpurri, root beer and smoke and toasted oak that is just a little distracting. The fresh, nicely concentrated palate brings more cherries — black and maraschino — a bit of chocolate and subtle. It’s less oaky than the nose and has soft, supple tannins and a nice bit of juicy acidity. Producer: Billsboro Winery AVA: Finger Lakes ABV: 12.5% Price: $25 (sample) (3 out of 5, Very good/Recommended)

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Billsboro Winery 2012 Pinot Gris

Billsboro Winery‘s 2012 Pinot Gris ($16) is an under-stated wine that shows delicate aromas of mandarin orange and pink grapefruit backed by lightly floral notes and and interesting blanched-almond quality that emerges as the wine warms. Light-bodied and with just a bit of residual sugar (1%) that shows on the mid-palate, it’s fresh and lightly fruity with apricot, grapefruit and citrus blossom flavors.  The finish shows a bit of pithy citrus that combines with vivacious acidity to help it finish dry and refreshing. Producer: Billsboro Winery AVA: Finger Lakes RS: 1% ABV: 11.5% TA: 9.4 g/L pH: 2.86 Production: 274 cases Price: $16* (3 out of…

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What Bottles are We Really Laying Down? A Brief Look at My Cellar

This is going to be a strange way to contact someone who owes you wine, but Kim Aliperti, Lenn and I would like to finally collect on our case. I was thinking about laying Finger Lakes wine down the other day and it occurred to me: Lenn and I went in together on a case of Billsboro Winery 2008 Riesling. That wine happened to be our first-ever Finger Lakes White Wine of the Year, and deservedly so. It’s wonderful. Lenn and I thought it was the right kind of wine to cellar. Here’s the odd part: I’m reasonably sure that we paid…

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The Strange Story of Syrah in the Finger Lakes

It’s easy to get confused about red wine in the Finger Lakes these days. Is there a ‘flagship’ red variety? Is it pinot in the hands of the right people? Is it cabernet franc, that workhorse that occasionally finds profundity? How about lemberger/blaufrankish? When did that bandwagon hit a massive pothole? And now here comes syrah. If you grew up on west coast syrah or Australian shiraz, syrah seems an unlikely choice for the Finger Lakes. But that ignores its happiest home, which happens to be the much cooler Northern Rhone. No, Cote-Rotie is not Seneca Lake, but nor is…

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New York Cork Report Tasting Table — November 16, 2012

It has been my goal for some time to retire the “Tasting Table” posts. I prefer to give every wine an individual post — even a short one — but unique circumstances have brought the Table back again. Though NYCR headquarters didn’t suffer any flooding or tree-falling-on-house damage, we were without power for 11 days in Hurricane Sandy’s wake. That meant only sporadic Internet access (primarily on my iPhone) and while there was plenty of wine drinking (what else can one do in the dark, by candlelight… wait, don’t answer that) there wasn’t much opportunity for writing. Add to that…

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Why Don’t Finger Lakes Wineries Offer Riesling in Magnum?

The other day I picked up a magnum of Hermann J. Wiemer 2008 Dry Riesling in magnum. It had me thinking: Magnums are so sexy. How come almost no one in the Finger Lakes offers riesling in magnum? I was going to say that no one in the Finger Lakes bottles their wine in larger formats, but of course that’s wrong. You can find Red Cat in magnum. Fox Run’s Ruby Vixen, , Arctic Fox, Chardonnay perhaps. Some of Bully Hill’s offerings, I’m sure. But why not riesling? After all, the world’s finest riesling ages gracefully for many years, and…

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The 2011 New York Cork Report Wines of the Year

By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor I think I can speak for my fellow editors and contributors when I say that our 2011 Wines of the Year tasting was a fun, challenging and inspiring day of 16 wine tasting flights. I always come away with myriad story ideas swirling in my head after this tasting. This year is no different. Look for pieces from the team over the next few weeks. But today, we announce the winners — including our first-ever New York Wine of the Year, Peconic Bay Winery 2007 Lowerre Family Estate. Our 2011 Regional Wines of the Year…

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Billsboro Winery 2010 Dry Riesling

By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor My Finger Lakes-focused colleague Evan Dawson and I sometimes lament what sometimes happens to Finger Lakes riesling when it’s fermented dry. Depending on the fruit and the winemaker, the wines can become shrill, hollow and overly austere. Casually, we refer to them as “lemon water riesling.” That’s not a compliment. It seems though that dry rieslings from longer and/or warmer growing seasons — like the long 2010 one — tend to avoid this problem more often.   Billsboro Winery 2010 Dry Riesling ($16) is an fine example of that. Made from fruit grown at Sawmill…

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