Posts Written OnFebruary 29, 2008

WTNs: Jamesport Vineyards New Releases (North Fork of Long Island)

"Our wines are made in the vineyard." It’s a wine industry cliché that you’ll hear at molst any winery these days. It’s so overused and appears on so many boilerplates that much of its meaning has been watered down and lost. Like many clichés however, it is firmly rooted in fact. Even the world’s greatest winemaker won’t be able to make outstanding wine from un-ripe, low-quality fruit. Winemakers may be the celebrities of the wine world — even here on Long Island — but the good ones know how important a top vineyard manager is. It’s a symbiotic relationship unlike…

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Pindar Gettin’ in on the ‘Post Movement

By Lenn Thompson, Founder and Publisher Nice story in Newsday this week about sustainable grape-growing Long Island, particularly the use of compost in place of chemical fertilizers. Macari Vineyards, as noted in the piece, has pioneered many of of Long Island’s ‘green’ vineyard practices, but did you know that Pindar Vineyards has spent almost three years making compost for application this year? We read a lot about organic/biodynamic/sustainable farming and the benefits to the land, groundwater, etc…but this piece raises an advantage for the wineries: They can save hundreds of thousands of dollars if they aren’t buying chemical applicaitons. Maybe…

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Diploma Dispatches: Central Italy

By Sasha Smith, NYC Correspondent So it came to me on Tuesday night as I was chewing on a mouthful of Vino Nobile di Montepulciano and trying to decide if I could call the tannins both “firm” and “drying”: the Diploma is to wine what dressage is to horseback riding – arcane, academic and interesting to an extremely small, and extremely passionate, group of people. This point is not lost on Mary Ewing Mulligan, (from now on, MEM for short) who reminded us that we are “operating in some never-never land” at arm’s length from the average drinker’s experience. I…

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