Posts Written OnOctober 2009

Photo courtesy of Heart & Hands Wine Company By Evan Dawson, Finger Lakes Editor Listen carefully, and you can hear the din of late-night celebrations at Heart & Hands Wine Company on Cayuga Lake. They are toasting the warm, nearly arid September for resurrecting the pinot noir that is now coming in. "September not only saved the vintage, but we're looking at some of the ripest fruit I've seen so far," says owner and winemaker Tom Higgins, now in his third vintage. Heart & Hands makes 90% pinot noir and 10% riesling, so there was a lot riding on September.…

Chardonnay juice being presssed at Peconic Bay Winery — 20 minutes ago. By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief Photo courtesy of Peconic Bay Winery Peconic Bay Winery is picking (yes picking, right now) around 21 tons of clone 124 chardonnay from its 10-acre Oregon Hills Vineyard.  Brix was right at 22. TA and pH data isn't available yet, but I'm sure we can get that information later. According to Jim Silver, general manager: "A smidgeon more than 2 tons per acre harvested. Nice low yields. Very clean fruit. Hand harvested and machine harvested both. It’s so tasty, it’s dreamy. I can’t stop…

By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief Stoutridge Vineyards located in Marlboro, NY, is still one of the newer producers in the Hudon Rivery Valley AVA. It opened in 2006 and is built on the site of vineyards planted in the late 1700s. A winery on the site was closed in 1902 by prohibition. Owned by Stephen Osborn and Kimberly Wagner, with Stephen also serving as winemaker, Stoutridge produces a variety of white, red and rose wines, mostly with French-American hybrid varieties. Varieties like Frontenac, a University of Minnesota-born hybrid released in 1996. It was grown from a crossing of the complex interspecific…

This iconic old barn greets visitors to Hermann J. Wiemer's Magdalena Vineyard By Evan Dawson, Finger Lakes Editor In a challenging vintage such as this one, Hermann J. Wiemer has two advantages over many other producers: low yields and a thoughtful picking strategy that brings grapes in on multiple days. First, the picking strategy, which has been carefully developed over many years — first by Hermann and then by current owner and winemaker Fred Merwarth. Instead of picking riesling and gewurztraminer in one sweep, Wiemer brings the grapes in during numerous waves. The last of the three waves of gewurztraminer…

By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief What We Drank is a little bit different this week. In honor of Regional Wine Week, organized by DrinkLocalWine.com, which started yesterday, I asked our contributors to pick a New York wine. Of course, that's no problem because we're all drinking local wines anyway. From Evan Dawson: Heart & Hands 2007 Barrel Reserve Pinot Noir If blind tastings occasionally seem cliche, I would argue they are imperative in proving the strength of New York state wines to doubters. A brown bag can disarm biases. This weekend, after sorting and stomping grapes at Heart & Hands Wine…

By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-ChiefPhotos courtesy of Hudson-Chatham Winery Saturday morning, I got an update from Carlo DeVito, owner of Hudson-Chatham Winery in Ghent, NY, our first harvest report from the Hudson River Valley region. Over the past two weeks they have harvested fruit from their four local vineyards “after a very tough year in the Hudson-Valley, which suffered a heavy frost (27 degrees) on May 19th, the crops recovered just in time for harvest.” The first stuff they brought it was from Kinderhook Vineyards — Elvira, Dutchess, and Seyval, all of which were “about 20 brix,” which will become field…

Pinot noir hanging in Heron Hill Winery owner John Ingle's Ingle Vineyard By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief Photos courtesy of Heron Hill Winery This afternoon we have our second quick harvest update, this one from Heron Hill Winery in the Finger Lakes, where they picked pinot noir this morning from owner John Ingle's vineyard on Canandaigua Lake (John is pictured at right).  The pinot block is only about an acre and they pulled in 2.3 tons of fruit today. Brix was 21.5 with pH of 3.46 and TA of 7.2 g/l.   Assistant Winemaker Brian Barry says: "The pinot noir fruit from Ingle…