Posts Written OnJune 2008

Today is the day for the  third edition of Wine Book Club, and hey, I’m hosting! The book I selected is George Taber’s To Cork or Not To Cork: Tradition, Romance, Science, and the Battle for the Wine Bottle. As I said when I announced the book, the whole cork/Stelvin/Zork topic is one that I’ve found myself getting more and more interested in, so this was a book I really wanted to read. And I still do… and will. What do I mean? Well, I’m apparently not a great host. I only made it about half way through the book.…

This review is going to be a quick one. I’ve enjoyed Raphael’s sauvignon blanc for several years. It always seems to capture Long Island style (or terroir if you prefer) — straddling the line between Old World and New World. It typically has the minerally character you’d expect from a Loire Valley rendition and some, but not all, of the intensely grassy components that make New Zealand sauvignons so unique. So how does the 2007 release stack up? Pretty well. The nose is classic sauvignon blanc — bright grapefruit, lemon, kiwi and lemongrass aromas. The palate, which is on the…

Eileen Duffy is well known on Long Island’s East End. She co-owns a wine shop in Westhampton, has been a writer and editor for a local newspaper and, now, is the Sommelier at The Frisky Oyster (beware: annoying website) in Greenport, NY. And now, she’s joined the blogging world with Cellarette. Her foray into blogging will chronicle her work at ‘the Frisky’, her journey on the way to a Master of wine, and (we can hope) a lot of information on local wines. She has also inspired me to bring back the LENNDEVOURS Q&A series, where I ask a few…

I’m proud of every wine that I choose for the New York Cork Club, but this month’s selections are wines that I’m particularly excited about. One is hard to get (we couldn’t get any last year) and one is one of the best sauvignon blancs to come out of New York. First up is the wine that can be difficult to get if you’re not a member of Paumanok Vineyards’ wine club — their 2007 Chenin Blanc ($27). it’s a delicious and unique-to-the-state white that has been praised by writers like Eric Asimov of the New York Times. And, it’s…

This edition of Vineyard Visuals features John Zuccarino from Silver Springs Winery doing a little work in the vineyard. 

I’m a week late (and forgot to take a picture of this week’s share) but I wanted to post about our CSA share at Garden of Eve Organic Farm out on the North Fork. From left to right (more or less): rhubarb, asparagus, strawberries, garlic scapes, eggs, Russian kale, mesclun, leeks, Swiss chard, red leaf lettuce and green leaf lettuce. Lots of salads this time of year, but Nena also made some killer shortcakes to accompany some of the strawberries we got this week. Amazing how different locally grown strawberries are from the hard, flavorless berries at the grocery store,…

Pinot grigio isn’t a grape that you hear much about on Long Island. There isn’t much of it grown and only two wineries bottle it varietally — Channing Daughters Winery and Martha Clara Vineyards. In the past, I’ve found MCV’s to be pretty bland, boring and flat on the palate. But, the 2007 bottling, winemaker Juan Eduardo Micieli-Martinez’s first with the winery, shows promise and balance, bringing much more to the table than your average cheap grigio from Italy. On the nose, all of that classic citrus character is here — coming through mainly as grapefruit, lemon and lemon zest…

Sorry for the lack of blog activity while I was in the Windy City for work. It’s not that I wasn’t eating or drinking anything interesting. I was. But with spotty WiFi and without being able to dump pictures from my camera onto my work laptop, blogging just wasn’t in the cars. But, I’m home now and hope to catch up this weekend. So look for some notes on my stay in Chicago, some Long Island wines I tasted just before I left and also some interesting goings on in the New York wine world.