Posts Tagged“lucas vineyards”

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…

Ice Wine: I’m Really Trying To Like It

A large amount of residual sugar makes me dizzy. Dessert wine tends to remind me of childhood cough syrup albeit with new and improved flavors. I hated that god awful faux cherry elixir. When the New York Cork Report gets together once a year to taste the best New York State has to offer, I sit the sweet flight out. On tasting menus in fancy pants restaurants, I bargain away my last wine pairing in the name of ‘something sparkling.” The nuance of late harvest anything is generally lost on me. Is the aversion in my head? Bias left over…