Newsday’s Mark Harrington is reporting today that: "Sherwood House Vineyards this week put its 36-acre Mattituck property on the block for $4.1 million, joining a list of vineyards for sale that includes Ackerly Pond, Castello di Borghese, Galluccio Family Winery, Schneider Vineyards and several smaller properties. At the same time, a "country vineyard estate" in Cutchogue owned by Mark Lieb of Lieb Vineyards went on the market for $7.75 million, along with 47.5 acres of property, according to Sotheby’s International Realty Web site. Ed Petrie, the agent at Sotheby’s handling the listing, declined to comment, and Lieb didn’t return a…
The Thanksgiving Column
Every wine writer or blogger has to write a wine-pairing column for Thanksgiving dinner. It’s a must. It’s one of the un-written rules — along with the mandatory New Year’s Eve sparkling wine column, which you can expect to see in just a few weeks. Of course, no two Thanksgiving wine-pairing columns are alike. As it should be, everybody has his or her favorites for the holiday. Sparkling wine, chardonnay, riesling, pinot noir, Beaujolais, syrah, Rioja, sangiovese, zinfandel…the list goes on and on and on. There are as many suggestions as their are wine raconteurs. Me, I tend to like…
WTN: Macari Vineyards 2006 Early Wine (North Fork of Long Island)
Le Chardonnay Nouveau est arrivé! That’s right — Chardonnay Nouveau, not Beaujolais Nouveau. Every fall, there is an unbelievable (and unwarranted) amount of hype surrounding Beaujolais Nouveau, the ubiquitous red wine made from Gamay in the Beaujolais region of France that is sold almost as soon as it’s done fermenting. It’s marketed well — very well — as a ‘fresh’ wine and we’ll soon seen bottles in all of our wine shops. Some people even consider it the perfect Thanksgiving wine. I don’t care for the stuff and it’s been years since I made my friends and family drink it…
Appellation America: Riesling’s Rebirth
Dan Berger, Appellation America’s Editor-at-Large, wrote a great little piece last week about riesling’s rebirth in America. Riesling is, by far, my favorite white grape and he mentions some of my favorite Finger Lakes producers — Fox Run and Dr. Konstantin Frank. I thought the story had a little too much California in it — I’ve never had a Cali riesling I’ve liked — but Dan brought it back into focus with mentions of the Pacific Northwest, Michigan and, of course, New York. Check out the story and keep an eye out here for more information on Michigan riesling. They…
Long Island Restaurant Week: Did Seafood Barge Bend the Rules Too Far?
I’ve never been to Seafood Barge in Southold, NY, but they took part in the first annual Long Island Restaurant Week last week. LENNDEVOURS was a media sponsor of the week-long dining event and most of the feedback I received was good — almost all of it actually. Then, I got this email late last week from a reader (who also happens to operate a B&B in wine country): "We’ve been taking advantage of LI Restaurant Week and going to as many restaurants as we can before the week is up. The best so far has been Tierra Mar at…
WTN: Wolffer Estate Vineyards 2005 Late Harvest Chardonnay (The Hamptons, Long Island)
That’s right ladies and gentlemen, Wine Blogging Wednesday is here again. This month’s ice wine-themed edition is hosted by the Kitchen Chick and it should come as no big surprise that I’ve chosen a local wine for the event. There are several local ice-style wines (I say ice-style because most — if not all — are made by freezing the grapes commercially) that I enjoy, so it was hard to pick which one to go with for WBW. But, in the end, I settled on Wolffer Estate’s 2005 Late Harvest Chardonnay ($37). If the name sounds familiar, I’ve written about…
LENNDEVOURS Cab Franc Update: Pressed
I thought everyone might be interested in what is going on with my first attempt at cabernet franc. Because my day job made it impossible to get out to the winery yesterday, Rich and Don did the pressing for me. He tells me we have about 25 gallons of wine that has "nice color, soft tannins" and is "fruity." My wine is currently in glass carboys similar to those pictured (those aren’t actually mine) where they will undergo ML, which will probably take through the end of the year. 25 gallons translates to roughly 10 cases and by the time…
New North Fork Winery: Clovis Point (Jamesport, NY)
It looks like the North Fork is home to yet another winery — Clovis Point. I had heard something about this a while back, but didn’t know they were finally open (meaning they just got their license) and selling wine. (Thanks, Sean, for the tip.) Clovis Point is named for sculpted tools found near their vineyard that were used by the earliest inhabitants of Long Island’s North Fork over 10,000 years ago. Clovis Point was founded in 2001 when proprietors Hal Ginsburg, Mary Bayno, Nasrallah Misk, Jonathan and Renae Pine, and Richard Frey bought ten acres of farm land on…
New York Magazine on Virginia Wine Country
This week’s New York Magazine includes a short story about Virginia Wine Country that is worth checking out. Too often, when East Coast wines are talked about it’s just about New York…I’m guilty of it myself. I’ve only sampled a handful of VA wines, but I was impressed by the quality and would like to explore the state more. What I found interesting about the story is how New York wines were mentioned: "Even wine snobs now admit that the Finger Lakes does a mean ice wine and that Long Island produces a number of decent Cab Francs." I’m not…
Chocolate & Zucchini Pre-Sale on Amazon.com
Back in August I was finally able to reveal what my "secret project" from earlier in the summer entailed. Basically, I helped Clotilde of Chocolate & Zucchini with her book by providing some wine pairings for the deliciously well-crafted recipes in her very first cookbook. She is happy to announce that the book is now available for pre-order on Amazon.com. I had a ton of fun working with Clotilde and learned a lot as I tasted through piles of wines to find just the right pairings. And let me just say this…this is going to be a great book. Anyone…