Fox Run Vineyards’ Peter Bell Heading to Serbia…
This is just a quick note about an email conversation I had with Peter Bell, winemaker at Fox Run Vineyards in the Finger Lakes.
He’s been telling me for months (maybe a year) that his 2005 reds are going to change my mind about Finger Lakes red wine, which I’ve never been overly impressed with. And now, it seems that his merlot and reserve cabernet franc are ready for me to taste. Hopefully I’ll have them next week sometime.
But that’s not what I’m writing to tell you guys about. Peter mentioned in passing that he’s leaving for Serbia tomorrow. "Okay, cool," I thought to myself. It’s not the most common vacation destination, but we all know that winemakers can be an eclectic lot.
Turns out that he’s not going for vaction, he’s going to check out Serbian wine country. He was hired by the USDA to "conduct an assessment of the wine industry there." He also said that he doesn’t really know what to expect.
Anyone out there had any Serbian wines?
I was in Belgrade in August and had a few glasses. Umm…they definitely live up to all the hype…
I haven’t had any dry Serbian wines but I do know that there are some people that believe eastern European red varietals can make some “big” wines here in the cooler areas of NY. I know a guy here in the Niagara area that has test planted some varietals that I cannot pronounce let alone spell. He did reference McGregor Vineyards on Kueka Lake as having a red blend of some of these grapes though.
Saperavi might be the name of the grape. They grow it at McGregor’s on Keuka Lake and it is a deep, velvety red popular in southeast Europe. Dr. Frank’s makes Rkatsiteli, a white that is very popular in eastern Europe and is starting to gain some attention as a promising varietal for the cool northeast.
Horton Vineyards in Virginia also makes an Rkatsiteli. It’s pretty good, actually.
Very interesting. Serbia is all about the plum brandy. If you haven’t tried it, I suggest you seek it out. Serbians have a tradition of families making and storing their own plum brandy so fermenting and distilling are commonly practiced there I’d think. I wonder if this is happening across all the sectors of Serbia’s economy as they inch closer to the West, NATO, the US, global capitalism, etc… I also wonder if you could find similar reports for Slovenia or Croatia, countries that were on the US’ side during the conflicts in the 1990s and are now all about travel, tourism, and shopping.
who stands to benefit? The importers? U.S. Investors? The Serbian wine industry? Constellation Foods? Time will tell