Posts Tagged“La crescent”

Corks of the Forks: There’s (Good) Wine in the Mountains of Vermont

I just got back from three days immersed in the Vermont craft beverage world as part of my annual TasteCamp conference.  I started it in 2009 right here on Long Island and we’ve visited wine regions like Northern Virginia, Niagara (both sides of the border), the Finger Lakes, Quebec and the Hudson Valley since. Typically, I’m joined by 30-40 fellow writers and members of the wine trade. The idea is to taste as much as we can and meet as many brewers, winemakers, growers and other fermentation-ists as possible. It’s not a junket, either. We all pay our own way.…

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Upper Hudson Wines Smell Like Victory

In 1777, the Battle of Saratoga was declared a decisive turning point in the struggle for American independence. Just a few miles from that pivotal ground, Victory View Vineyard slopes in three directions spinning from Southeast to Southwest situated along the local highway, NY State Route 40, and there they are firing warning shots that herald a new revolution in upstate New York agriculture. The site was selected because of its visibility from the road but it turned out to be a lucky choice because it turns out to be excellent for both air and water drainage. Mary and Gerry Barnhart have a…

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Tasting for Terroir in Cold Climates

Harvest is closing in fast and winery tasks are in high gear, whether it be crush pad prep or the bottling of last year’s vintages. From large producers to little amateur outfits like our own, the story is the same as one season rolls quickly into the next, and what comes in through one door must pass out another and make room in between. While I was bench testing blends for the 2013 whites, I got to thinking about a very interesting and informative cold-climate tasting from earlier this summer, when it seemed like we still had all the time…

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Cape Winery Sprouts in the Thousand Islands

The official opening of the Cape Winery in Cape Vincent, NY is not until Memorial Day, but a recent springtime Saturday “soft opening” saw over a hundred people in the tasting room, more than a dozen cases of wine leave the premises in the hands of happy consumers, and folks joining the infant “case club.” The current version of the New York State Wine Regions map shows expanded areas all around the state, and this latest opening already asks for those boundaries to be expanded even more. Situated on a spit of limestone-based land that has Lake Superior on one…

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The Grapes of North Country: La Crescent

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…

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