Posts Written OnFebruary 22, 2006

Need Help Finding a New York City Wine Shop?

Dr. Vino has put together a great tool for anyone who needs to find a wine ship in Manhattan. Check out his New York City Wine Shop Map, which is even available for your mobile device. With as many wine shops as there are in NYC, this is quite an undertaking, so if you know of a great shop that isn’t listed, I’m sure he’d love to hear about it. Check it out today.

WTN: Cascade Mountain Winery NV Summertide (Hudson Valley)

Many wine "experts" turn there nose up at any wine made with hybrid grapes, deeming them "simplistic" or "without character." Wine geeks like myself, however, can recognize that such wines have their place. I’ve had several wines made from seyval blanc that have been clean, refreshing and delicious on a hot summer day. Vidal blanc is another hybrid that leads to some excellent ice wines in Canada and the Finger Lakes Region of New York. Well, this non-vintage white blend from Cascade Mountain Winery, located in Amenia, New York (Hudson Valley), is made using both seyval blanc and vindal blanc.

WTN: Two Hudson Valley Strawberry Wines

Strawberry wine. It’s not something I drink regularly and probably not anything I’d drink with non-dessert food. But, over the weekend I tasted and compared two different versions from two well-known Hudson Valley wineries, Baldwin Vineyards and Alison Wines & Vineyards. I’m not going to go into full tasting note mode here…they both look, smell and taste like strawberries, there’s not a whole lot of nuance here. But there are differences certainly. Both were very sweet and edging on the cloying side of things but not quite. The one from Alison, named Fraise ($18 for 375ml), is the more refined…