Eileen over at Cellarette wrote a post earlier today titled "Why so little attention?" about the Long Island wine industry that is worth a read.

In the post, she discusses the New York Times, Howard Goldberg (who ‘covers’ the LI region) and the fact that his once-weekly column "Long Island Vines" has gone from weekly to every-other-week. She also mentions that local winemakers allegedly aren’t as apt to send him samples recently.

She asks a great question with this post, but it’s not just the Times. None of the papers in the New York metro area cover the local wine industry well. Most surprising and disturbing to me, Newsday, considered by most Long Islanders to be "the" Long Island paper, doesn’t cover the region much either. Mark Harrington has written some good stories about the business side of the region, but its rare to see any coverage beyond that, and it’s not like he writes those stories with any regularity.

So why the lack of coverage? Eileen has a couple thoughts:

"Perhaps the industry does not generate enough money to make it
interesting enough for coverage. Or it’s just not being marketed well
enough."

Is money generation what makes something interesting? Not to me, but I’m just one person.

Nobody thinks that Long Island wines are marketing well enough, do they? I’d go so far as to say that they are marketed poorly on the whole. But is that why the coverage is so minimal? It could be. When was the last time that a local winery or the wine council took out an expensive advertisement in the New York Times or Newsday? Not that advertising is marketing — I repeat, not that advertising is marketing — but you get where I’m going I think.

It’s hard to understand why the local papers don’t cover Long Island wine more often and in a better way. The wines have improved dramatically in recent years, are getting more attention than ever from the wine media, and there is always something new or interesting happening in the industry.

If there weren’t, this probably wouldn’t be the 1,705th post on this blog.

So where can you get good coverage on the Long Island wine world? Here on this blog I hope, but Edible East End also publishes some good stories. It only comes out fives times a year though. Similarly, The Wine Press has some interesting stories on occasion, but it’s only published quarterly (and is funded in part by the Long Island Wine Council).

Where else do you get news and information about Long Island wine? What outlets have I missed?