Posts Written OnJanuary 2010

Wine for Haiti Auction: The New York Lots

By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief A couple weeks ago, I published a simple post and send a quick email to the New York wine community, alerting members to the Wine for Haiti Auction over at Palate Press. The response has been nothing short amazing — not to mention generous. 18 New York wineries donated wine in all, and we're not talking a couple 750ml bottles here or there. We're talking cases of great wines and super-rare large format bottles of age-worthy wines. To make it easier for NYCR readers to find and bid on the lots, I thought I'd put together…

Ice Wine Science, Part 2: Frozen Assets

By Tom Mansell, Science Editor In my last article on ice wine, I talked about how volatile acidity is an important aroma characteristic in ice wine and how it can contribute to peach and pineapple aromas. To conclude our discussion, let's talk about some other famous ice wine descriptors, including honey. For our purposes, it's best to think of ice wine grapes as late harvest (well, really late harvest).  Grapes are left to hang until December, January, and even February until they are frozen on the vine.  During this time, all kinds of physical, chemical, and biological changes are happening…

Ithaca Brewing Company Le Bleu Sour Blueberry Ale

By Kevin Burns, Beer Columnist As the craft beer world grows, brewers are becoming more and more creative with their brews. One of the recent trends is the use of wine ingredients into beer such as grapes or champagne yeast, or the aging of beer in wine barrels.  Le Bleu was brewed with New York State blueberries and Brettanomyces, The beer is a blend of barrels filled in 2007, 2008 and 2009. It's finished in the bottle with Champagne yeast.  The beer is named after Ithaca Beer Company employee Bret LeBleu and is an extremely limited production.   Le Bleu…

Shinn Estate Vineyards 2007 Estate Merlot

By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief Shinn Estate Vineyards gets a lot of well-deserved attention for their Estate Merlot. New York Times chief wine critic Eric Asimov regularly points to it as a favorite. And I consistently appreciate the wine for its quality-to-price ratio (QPR) and it's elegant, food-friendly style.  That's why I came away from my tasting of the Shinn Estate Vineyards 2007 Estate Merlot ($25) a bit disappointed. I expected ripe — this is 2007 we're talking about — but as much as I enjoyed Rebellion, this wine's wild fermented sibling, I wasn't quite as into this one. The nose…

Tasting a Treasure: Restaurant Turns Up Rare Bottle of 1966 Dr. Frank Riesling

By Evan Dawson, Finger Lakes Editor Photos by Morgan Dawson Photography I could barely believe the photograph, sent from a friend. The bottle in the picture said Dr. Konstantin Frank 1966 Johannisberg Riesling, but it did not make sense that a restaurant was selling such a bottle in December of 2009.  In Florida. My mind raced. How did the restaurant get this wine? How did they know it was still worth drinking? How could it possibly be worth drinking at 43 years old? If it was real, could I get one? And what would it smell and taste like? A…

Q&A: John Ingle, Owner, Heron Hill Winery

John Ingle, working the harvest in his namesake vineyard By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief Photo courtesy of Heron Hill Winery By the time John Ingle, owner of Heron Hill Winery on Keuka Lake, graduated from the University of Denver in 1971, he was reading organic gardening magazines regularly and had been bitten by the “back to the earth” bug. After marrying his wife, Josephine, after graduation, they went looking for their promised land. Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Alberta, British Columbia, Washington and Oregon all received consideration but they landed in John’s backyard – Seneca Point, Naples, New York. There they lived in…

What We Drank (January 25, 2010)

This week's WWD is a bit shorter than usual, but I'm sure we'll be back with more taking part next week. By Andy Freedman: Kluge Estate 2004 Albemarle 'Simply Red' Selecting my WWD this week was no easy task. I had some amazing beers, including a bottle of Tröegs Nugget Nectar and a Magic Hat Big 100 IBU IPA, and we also drank several great value wines from New Zealand, Argentina and Spain.  But by far the most interesting wine I drank was a 2004 Albemarle 'Simply Red' from Virginia's Kluge Estate. Yes, Virginia.  I just learned a couple of…

Shinn Estate Vineyards 2007 Cabernet Franc

By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief We still have plenty of NYCR Wines of the Year tasting coverage to come, but that won't stop our regular coverage of New York wines, including reviews. Plus, this was a finalist from Long Island and it showed extremely well in our blind flight or Long Island reds. As you'll no doubt see as more are released, these 2007 reds are big, mouth-filling and — in some cases — like nothing Long Island has seen before. This wine is one such wine. Shinn Estate Vineyards 2007 Cabernet Franc ($39) may well be a new benchmark for…

New York State White Wine of the Year: Arrested Development and Achieving Balance

By Evan Dawson, Finger Lakes EditorPhotos by Morgan Dawson Photography We were getting nowhere. Our initial evaluations of the Finger Lakes white wine flight had produced no clear choice for Wine of the Year. We had summoned only one conclusion: These were excellent wines and choosing one seemed nearly impossible. Slowly we began to pare down the six wines (everything was done blind), and our conversation focused on the search for balance. Which wines showcased the regional strengths most profoundly? We never did reach a unanimous conclusion, which I found healthy. But we were pleased with the selection of Billsboro…

Announcing the New York Cork Report 2009 Wines of the Year

The white wine winners, including our 2009 New York State White Wine of the Year By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief Photos by Morgan Dawson Photography As I mentioned earlier today, we tasted 54 wines (a shipping snafu meant that one didn't arrive in time) in 19 flights. For the most part, the wines really showed extremely well  We blind tasted through each regional flight within a category (sparkling, white, red and dessert), voting on a winner in each. The winners, sorted by region are: Chautauqua-Lake Erie White Wine: Vetter Vineyards NV Riesling Finger Lakes Sparkling Wine: Dr. Konstantin Frank Vinifera Wine…