Just a quick post today after a great long weekend with friends and family. On Saturday, we visited a couple local wineries (Lenz Winery and Paumanok Vineyards) with my parents and sister. It's been a while since I posted a family portrait, so I thought I'd do so. More on the winery visits in coming days, including some pictures of Jackson's first barrel room visit.
Posts Written OnNovember 2008
Heron Hill Winery 2005 Riesling Reserve
Nena and I both love riesling, but not always the same ones. When we visited the Finger Lakes last spring, our differing preferences arose at nearly every winery stop — if the winery had more than one riesling. For the most part, I preferred (and prefer) the drier, more minerally styles and she preferred the semi- and off-dry wines. It isn't so much about the sweetness, but she prefers the richer fruit flavors — the peach, tropical fruit, etc. And we both want riesling with racy acidity. That brings us to this wine, Heron Hill Winey's 2005 Riesling Reserve ($30).…
Happy Thanksgiving from LENNDEVOURS
I hope that each and every one of you is eating and drinking well today. Happy Thanksgiving. I'll be doing a brief wine wrap-up from our own Turkey Day dinner… but you can bet there was plenty of riesling and cabernet franc involved. Cheers!
Palmer Vineyards 2007 Select Reserve White Table Wine
It's true what they say. Sometimes the sum really is greater than the parts. That is certainly the case with the latest release from Palmer Vineyards, a white blend that Spanish-born winemaker Miguel Martin has named "Select Reserve." Retailing for around $25, Palmer Vineyards' 2007 Select Reserve is a blend of 45% chardonnay, 35% pinot blanc, 18% sauvignon blanc and 2% Gewürztraminer. Sometimes, when you taste blends like these, you taste each component grape in a distinct way… almost like tasting each in succession. This wine isn't like that. Sure, you can assume that the chardonnay is responsible for the…
Long Island Wineries Collecting Toys for Charity
I was happy to hear over the weekend that Long Island wineries will be participating in a project to collect toys for underprivileged and sick children across Long Island. From Saturday, November 29 through Sunday, December 21, participating wineries will have collection boxes for visitors to donate new, unwrapped toys. The program is being coordinated by the John Theissen Children’s Foundation, a 501(c)3 Non-Profit Organization that has collected and donated more than 550,000 new toys to children in over 185 hospitals and child care facilities across Long Island since its inception in 1992. There will be collection boxes in the…
LENNDEVOURS in the New York Times
The New York Times is probably the newspaper in the U.S… if not the world, so you can imagine my surprise and happiness over seeing this blog mentioned in its pages earlier this week (just saw it online this morning). Howard Goldberg, writer of the every-other-week column "Long Island Vines" recommends LENNDEVOURS as one of the websites people should use to check in on Long Island wine country, saying: "The best wine blog for chatty reviews and news is Lenndevours, published by Lenn Thompson, whose day job is in Internet marketing. It is reached at www.lennthompson.typepad.com. Mr. Thompson has a…
Croteaux Vineyards 2007 Merlot “181 Clone” Rose
Today, I offer my review of the third Croteaux Vineyards rose from the 2007 vintage (see the other reviews). This wine, the Croteaux Vineyards 2007 Merlot "181 Clone" Rose ($18) is the lightest and most delicate of the lot. Made from the 181 clone, from Pomerol, it was fermented entirely in stainless steel and is a pretty pale salmon-orange. The nose is light and fruity, with peach aromas dominating and a bit of strawberry. Similar fruit carries over to a light-bodied palate that also features nice, thirst-quenching acidity. It's surprisingly light on flavor, however. Even at room temperature, I was…
Drink Local Twitter Taste Live TONIGHT @ 8:00 p.m.
I'm late in posting about this and didn't think I'd feel up to participating (this damn bronchitis has been rough the last few days) but I'm feeling better and planning to at least join in the fun a bit tonight. Hosted by my friend Dr. Vino (Tyler Colman). The theme of tonight's Twitter Taste Live is is "Drink Local!" as a reaction to the arrival of Beaujolais Nouveau, which seems to be hugely overpriced this year ($15 for the stuff air-lifted to the U.S. today and $13 for the ship-bound shipment). So follow us on Twitter tonight and get details…
Croteaux Vineyards 2007 Merlot “3 Clone” Rose
I definitely enjoyed this wine's 10% barrel-fermented sibling, but Croteaux Vineyards' 2007 Merlot "3 Clone" Rose ($18) was fermented entirely in oak and aged for 5 months in older oak barrels… and I just don't 'get' this wine. I like that Croteaux makes "rose on purpose," even if it seems a bit insane in such a tremendous vintage to use all of that beautiful merlot fruit for rose. And, it's kind of interesting that they do three different ones (I'll post my review of the third tomorrow), but this wine is just weird. Sometimes weird is good. Here, I'm not…
A Long Island Thanksgiving: The Turkey
This year I wanted to do something a little different to celebrate Thanksgiving here on LENNDEVOURS. So, I've asked some local chefs to contribute some of their favorite Thanksgiving recipes and pick a local wine or two to serve along side. The turkey, obviously, is the centerpiece of most Thanksgiving celebrations, and David Page (seen at right), former executive chef and co-owner of Home in Manhattan, and current co-owner of Shinn Estate Vineyards has offered this recipe for roast turkey. This is actually the recipe that I'm going to follow next week, and it comes from David's cookbook, Recipes from…