Sigh. The 2005 vintage was widely expected to be one of the best ever on Long Island (particularly for red wines). A hot, dry growing season led to small, concentrated fruit that was ripening extremely well. We literally have had almost no rain all summer and early fall…until the last few days. Rain has been soaking most of Long Island (and the eastern seaboard) for days…and I fear all that water is going to dilute the flavors and potentially neccessitate earlier-than-wanted harvesting. I know several vineyards already picked their chardonnay (and some other whites) before the rains…but most were holding…

I’ve been using LENNDEVOURS to share my experiences with New York wines for well over a year — but over the next two weeks I’m taking things to a whole new level. To start, the juicemaster general, Beau of BasicJuice, will be in my neck of the woods later this week (along with the Wine Goddess), so I’ll be playing tasting tour guide on Friday. Any excuse to take a day off of work and taste wine, right? As if that weren’t enough, next week the obsessed one, Derrick and I are teaching a class at Stony Brook University together…

The frenetic pumpkin-picking season is upon us, and while the throngs of families in SUVs and minivans can make it that much more challenging to get around the East End, this is one of the most exciting times to visit Long Island’s vineyards. Harvest festivals abound and wineries are filled with the intoxicating aromas of freshly squeezed juice fermenting. Bedell Cellars, one of our region’s most well-known producers, has much more going on than harvesting and fermenting the 2005 vintage. To upgrade both the winemaking process and the customer tasting experience, they’ve been busy making exciting changes to the facilities…

If you like acidity and character in your riesling — you know the type of wine that shows why riesling is the king of all white grapes — you probably don’t like California bottlings. That’s all about to change for riesling produced by Creative Wine Concepts in Napa Valley. They just bought fives tons of Finger Lakes riesling grapes. I think that Creative Wine Concepts CEO, Scott Harvey says it best when he says he wants to “to make rieslings from where they grow best.” In the U.S., that means the Finger Lakes region of New York State. If you…

It seems like New York is welcoming new wineries into the family most every week, which just goes to show how successful the state’s wine industry is and how many people want to live the "vineyard life." Charles John Vineyards is one of Long Island’s newest vineyards, having been planted in 1999. Named for owners Jackie and Matt Campbell’s son (who was born the same year), their 17 acres are planted with traditional Bordeaux varietals — merlot, cabernet sauvignon and cabernet franc. Matt, much like myself, has a "day job" in marketing for a major tech company. But wine is…