Via email and comments on this here blog, several of you have chimed in on what you are serving with your Thanksgiving holiday meal a week from today. Now let’s make it official. If you haven’t done so already, tell (via a comment) all of us out here in cyberspace what wines you’re planning to serve next week.
Posts Written OnNovember 2006
Shinn Estate 2003 Merlot Best With Thanksgiving Dinner According to NYT
Like I said the other day, every wine writer has to do a "what wine works best with Thanksgiving dinner" story or column and Eric Asimov of the New York Times is no different. What I love seeing, however, is the wine Eric and his tasting panel chose as the best pairing wine of their tasting — Shinn Estate Vineyards 2003 Merlot (See my review). Both that merlot and their "Red" (a merlot-heavy blend) are terrific food wines. Of course, co-owner David Page is a well-known chef (he and Barbara Shinn also own Home restaurant in Manhattan), so that the…
Update from Barb Smithen @ Sherwood House Vineyards
Barb is one of my favorite people out East, and when I asked her for an update on their plans and the vineyard sale, she responded quickly with: "We want to do more traveling and (as) you know, we bought a house in Antibes (France).Ten years is a long run and we’ve fulfilled our dream 20 times over. But, we still are continuing business as usual. In 2008 our blend is coming out (merlot,cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot) and our Rose will be released this April. I will be working that much harder to keep our standards as high as…
Two More North Fork Properties for Sale
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…