Posts Tagged“wine”

Frontenac: Mutant Vintage

It was very tempting to approach this subject indirectly through a wine science fiction sort of allegory. The tale of a race decimated by plague and forced to breed with other relative species in order to survive. The social stigmas faced by the viable offspring:  the challenges of relocation and settling of new lands,  the strange and divergent characteristics that began to appear in subsequent generations. It’snot far off, as a version of the inter-specific hybrid grapevine story, and of the unexpected mutants that currently exist among us, in the form of the cold climate grape called Frontenac. The Frontenac grape…

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A Toast to the Adirondack Coast Wine Trail and Others

Reports of veraison are finally beginning to arrive from the North Country, and after such wet weather, both the sunshine and this growth stage are welcome news.  It’s not just the grapes that are growing in upstate New York though — so are the wine trails. Recent legislation makes the Adirondack Coast Wine Trail an official part of the New York State Highway map. It’s just a little trail across sixty-six miles of road, linking seven wineries and cider houses, but it is a major development milestone for a new region that adds to the diversity of wine growing in the Empire State.…

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Will Changes in the Cornell Cooperative Extension Program Leave Some Out in the Cold?

Questions about the pace of global climate change and its effect on viticulture have been frequent topics of conversations in vineyards and wineries around New York. A less talked about, and even less understood change also taking place with another force that has significance to the industry.  The Cornell Cooperative Extension is on a path of reorganization, that while still in the definition phases, might ultimately change the way that folks in the field interface with its services. The Cooperative Extension service of the USDA has for nearly 150 years followed a mission to “help people use research-based knowledge to improve…

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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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New Cornell Grapes Named and Released. NYCR Reader Submission Chosen.

The Lilac Ballroom of the Riverside Convention Center in Rochester, NY filled quickly earlier this week for a late morning session of the Viticulture 2013 Conference, where the commercial names for two new wine grapes released from the Cornell breeding program were to be announced. White wine grape NY76.0844.24 will now officially be called “Aromella“, and the red grape NY95.0301.01 will be recognized as “Arandell“. Over 1100 suggestions from around the globe had poured in after the request for assistance was publicized last year, first here in the Cork Report, and then as picked up by other news outlets. Horticulture Professor Bruce Reisch…

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Adirondack Coast Wine, Cider & Food Festival: Making the Most of the Adirondack Coast

Columbus Day weekend welcomed the first incarnation of the Adirondack Coast Wine, Cider & Food Festival to The Crete Civic Center in Plattsburg, NY.  A small but well designed showing by local vendors of fermented beverages, foods, and handmade crafts was met by a much larger and very enthusiastic North Country crowd of the curious. Foul weather helped to drive folks inside for the event, after a growing season that was drier and warmer than most on record. Apples suffered in some places due to late spring frosts, but for grapes that survived the nip, it was an incredibly good  ripening…

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“My” Vineyard on the Adirondack Coast

The Cornell Cooperative Extension cold-hardy cultivar trial vineyard in Willsboro, NY, on the western shore of Lake Champlain, sits in a place of true natural beauty, and is home to a number of grape varieties that have been bred for disease resistance, and tolerance of extreme cold to points well below -25F.  Willsboro is also my own home stomping ground, which is where reporting on this place becomes admittedly a bit challenging.  Objectivity is obscured by my associations with the place, which are as long and deep as the lake itself. I was dipped in Willsboro Bay for the first time…

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Book Update: The 90,000-Word Journey

  Evan chatting with one of his book's subjects, Red Newt's Dave Whiting By Evan Dawson, Finger Lakes Editor Photos by Morgan Dawson Photography It still needs a title, but the hardest part is now over. My posts for the Cork Report have been a bit less frequent than I'd prefer over the past month, and I wanted to explain why that is. I've been in the final stages of writing a book and it has monopolized my time. My publisher set a manuscript deadline of March 15. I'll submit it several days before that date.  On Saturday I wrote…

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Wine on Tap: Local Restaurant, Wineries Go Beyond Bag-in-Box

Verace, a newly opened Italian restaurant in Islip, NY with three local wines on tap. By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief Photos courtesy of Verace  I think we've all been there — in a restaurant that may or may not pay much attention to its wine list and may or may not pay even less attention to their by-the-glass selection — more or less offering whatever is already open, and over-charging you for it. You order a glass anyway, knowing that you're playing by-the-glass roulette. Before you even take a sip, you can pinpoint how long the bottle has been open —…

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Damiani Wine Cellars 2008 Riesling

By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief Damiani Wine Cellars, on the eastern shorts of Seneca Lake, has built a reputation around its red wines — a unique focus in a region known mostly for its aromatic whites. They do make white wines — and now bubbly — too though, and while most of them have underwhelmed, this Damiani Wine Cellars 2008 Riesling ($16) stood out during my tasting last weekend. The winery sourced the riesling for this wine from one of the region's most experienced and respected growers — Sam Argetsinger. I've tasted a couple other rieslings (1|2) made with Sam's grapes…

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