By Lenn Thompson, Founder and Editor It's not news to anyone in New York that the state government is running under a serious deficit. It's all over the news and even before it was being talked about so much, many knew and feared that this day would come. Now, Governor Paterson is trying to rectify the situation with his proposed 2009 budget. Economic times are tough, seemingly, every where, with everybody. This isn't a political or economic blog, so I'm not going to write today about the entire budget and the decisions Governor Paterson has made. But there are a…
Posts Tagged“wine”
Imagine Moore Winery 2007 “Joy” Dry Riesling
Imagine Moore Winery located in Naples, NY southwest of Canandaigua Lake, is a relative newcomer to the Finger Lakes Wine world. There's something undeniably charming about the operation. Co-owners Tim and Diane Moore are dedicated to sustainability and only buy fruit from sustainably managed vineyards throughout the Finger Lakes. Their labels, which are painted onto the bottles, are done with organic ink. And those labels, in addition to carrying the grape names, also feature names like Love, Harmony and Peace. There's got to be some "hippy" in the Moore's, no? I tasted a handful of their wines from the 2006…
McGregor Vineyard 2006 Pinot Noir
Wine never stops to be fascinating for me. In recent weeks I've been doing my wine tastings a bit differently. Instead of tasting them on the day I opened them, reviewing them and rating them, I'm holding off on giving final scores until I've re-tasted them again the following day. I like to taste and review wines the same way that people actually drink them, and the fact is, a bottle of wine may last a few day or longer in many people's homes. It's been an interesting exercise and I've discovered that more wines improve by day two (and…
Niagara’s 2008 Vintage: Growing Season Expectations
Bryan working the harvest at Freedom Run Winery By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Correspondent This year, only a handful of growers and wineries were expecting anything close to a full crop from their young vines here in the Niagara Escarpment. Unfortunately, Mother Nature wasn’t kind to many of them. With at least three hailstorms, relentless humidity and warm, soggy conditions, this was not the season to have your sprayer break down. Those that survived hail damage had to spray often to battle mildew and the not-so-noble sour rot. Ripening was slightly delayed with most varieties, but there’s one silver lining: if…
Macari Vineyards 2007 Estate Chardonnay
I've been a proponent of low- and no-oak chardonnay for quite some time now. Actually I wonder sometimes if it's that I'm for those wines or just strongly against over-oaked ones. It's probably a combination of both, really. One thing that I do have to admit though: chardonnay made without oak can be awfully boring on the nose. It's just not an overly aromatic grape and that's part of the reason it goes into oak so often… to bring some sort of aromatics to the wine. This 100% stainless steel chardonnay from Macari Vineyards, their 2007 Estate Chardonnay ($19) is…
Wine Spectator’s First Vintage Report Card for 2008: Who Does it Serve? Does it Matter?
By Lenn Thompson, Founder and Editor Last night over on Facebook, I learned about Wine Specator's first 2008 vintage report card, which includes an A grade for the Finger Lakes and a B for Long Island. A brief comment discussion ensued and I thought that I'd write a bit about it this morning. I have an email in to Mitch Frank, who contributed to the piece and who I know writes about Long Island for the publication, because I'm curious to learn how these grades are calculated. On the surface, it looks like winemaker and vineyard manager interviews are the…
Pompous Ass Winery Revisited
By Jason Feulner, Finger Lakes Correspondent At a recent wine event in the Finger Lakes, a few individuals approached me to express disapproval over my previous post about the upcoming opening of Pompous Ass Winery on Seneca Lake. Their chief complaint? Some felt that I came down too hard on Pompouss Ass before it had a chance to prove itself. I was told that the owners seemed like nice people. I'm sure they are nice people, but that's not really the point. Now that the winery has a liquor license and is open for business, I re-visited the website to see…
Long Island Wine in the New York Post
Photo courtesy of Wolffer Estate In case you missed it, there was a nice piece in this weekend's Page 6 section of the New York Post about Long Island wine country. Written by Cynthia Sin-Yi Cheng, someone I've emailed with a bit over the years, it provides a solid "Long Island Wine 101" overview of the region, even if the three wine picks are a bit under-inspiring. The fact that Sparkling Pointe is focused on a bit in the story isn't surprising — Cynthia's loves sparkling wine. I'm not sure how you can write this story and not pick a…
Palmer Vineyards 2007 Select Reserve White Table Wine
It's true what they say. Sometimes the sum really is greater than the parts. That is certainly the case with the latest release from Palmer Vineyards, a white blend that Spanish-born winemaker Miguel Martin has named "Select Reserve." Retailing for around $25, Palmer Vineyards' 2007 Select Reserve is a blend of 45% chardonnay, 35% pinot blanc, 18% sauvignon blanc and 2% Gewürztraminer. Sometimes, when you taste blends like these, you taste each component grape in a distinct way… almost like tasting each in succession. This wine isn't like that. Sure, you can assume that the chardonnay is responsible for the…
Drink Local Twitter Taste Live TONIGHT @ 8:00 p.m.
I'm late in posting about this and didn't think I'd feel up to participating (this damn bronchitis has been rough the last few days) but I'm feeling better and planning to at least join in the fun a bit tonight. Hosted by my friend Dr. Vino (Tyler Colman). The theme of tonight's Twitter Taste Live is is "Drink Local!" as a reaction to the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau, which seems to be hugely overpriced this year ($15 for the stuff air-lifted to the U.S. today and $13 for the ship-bound shipment). So follow us on Twitter tonight and get details…