Posts Written OnJuly 2010

Peconic Bay Winery 10-Vintage Riesling Vertical: Quality New York Riesling Outside of the Finger Lakes

By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor "I'm not ready to give up riesling to our friends up north." That's how Jim Silver, general manager at Peconic Bay Winery, kicked off a recent vertical tasting of ten Peconic Bay Rieslings for a group of 30 or so wine club members and a few press folks. By "friends up north" Silver was, of course, referring to wineries in the Finger Lakes, where this country's best rieslings are born. Vineyard-wise, the Finger Lakes are still dominated by hybrids, and even natives like Concord, but most of the best wines there are made with riesling.…

Ravines Wine Cellars 2008 Dry Riesling

By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor Morten Hallgren, winemaker at Ravines Wine Cellars, makes dry wines and dry riesling… and that's it. That's unique in a region where just about every winery has at least two rieslings — "Dry" and "Semi-Dry" — and often more. Having a portfolio without at least one sweeter wine — 1% residual sugar is as high as it gets at Ravines — is somewhat risky in a region visited by throngs of sweet wine lovers. Most wineries stock at least one or two wines "for the masses" but Morten and his wife Lisa seem to be…

Mystery Solved! Belhurst’s Owner Clarifies Recent Experience

By Evan Dawson, Finger Lakes Editor Many of you tried to help me make sense of a recent wine experience – click here to read the post if you missed it.  Well, wonder no more. The owner and general manager, Kevin Reeder, sent me the following email. I am sorry for your experience at Stonecutters on Saturday evening.  I have had the opportunity to speak with the young lady that waited on you Saturday evening.  The after 10PM bottle wine "policy" as outlined to you by her does not exist.  The wines from the list are available during all the…

Jamesport Vineyards 2009 Sauvignon Blanc

By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor There is more chardonnay planted on Long Island than any other white grape, but those aren't the wines that excite me most — not by a long shot. If I had the money to buy and plant a vineyard right now, my white wine program would be heavy on sauvignon blanc. It's the white grape that shows the most consistent promise here, is one that winemakers are doing great things with today, and a grape that I expect even better things from in the future. For many years and through winemaking changes, I've enjoyed the…

Grand Cru Beer & Cheese Market: Great Beers. Good Start for Cheese.

By Aaron Estes, Cheese Editor Having lived in the Hudson Valley, I can attest that it is somewhat difficult to find shops that offer a quality cheese selection. The places that do have carry cheese beyond your normal supermarket variety do not necessarily specialize in promoting local, artisanal cheese. But, a friend sent me an email that mentioned about a New York-focused beer and cheese shop that had just opened up in Rhinebeck, NY. Rhinebeck, for those of you not familiar, is a beautiful historic area on the banks of the Hudson River in Northern Dutchess County that serves as…

What Niagara Brings to the Finger Lakes Wine Festival

Yours truly with the staff of Schulze Vineyards & Winery at last year's Finger Lakes Wine Festival By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Region Editor Niagara region wineries don’t often get the chance to pour for large audiences and even if they did, most don’t have the volume of wine that they can just pour away as samples. Luckily the annual Finger Lakes Wine Festival is open to any New York State winery that wants to brave the crowds and take advantage of the opportunity to hand sell their wines to thousands of eager drinkers in Watkins Glen, NY. This year there…

What We Drank (July 13, 2010)

It's been a few weeks since our editors and contributors submitted anything for WWD, but we're back this week with a vengeance. This is what we've been drinking: Tom Mansell: Movia 2006 "Lunar" Ribolla Gialla "Wine is sunlight held together by water," said Galileo, famously. This wine, however, is marketed as being made by the moon.  Movia Lunar is made with minimal human intervention (aside from the manual harvesting and destemming). Ribolla Gialla grapes from vineyards straddling the Italian-Slovenian border are put into specially-designed Slovenian oak casks and allowed to undergo whole-berry fermentation. After several months of fermentation with native…

New Auxiliary Tasting Room Rises Over the Ashes at Dr. Frank’s

  by Evan Dawson, Finger Lakes Editor Top photograph provided by Dr. Konstantin Frank Wine Cellars Fifteen months after an electrical fire destroyed a 2,000-square foot auxiliary tasting room, Dr. Konstantin Frank Vinifera Wine Cellars will host a triumphant re-opening.  The top photograph, taken this month, shows the new facility, which owner Frederick Frank calls "bigger and even better" than the facility that burned in April of 2009. The bottom photograph shows the immediate aftermath of that fire. To celebrate, Dr. Frank's will host a public party on Sunday, July 25th from 1pm to 5pm. Single tickets cost $15; couples…

Summer Ales and the Drinkin’ is Easy: Separating the “Drinkable” from the Boring

By Julia Burke, Beer Editor It's with mixed feelings and no small measure of trepidation that I approach a beer labeled with the word "summer." Sure, they're a great way to draw macro beer drinkers into the craft world — a Hop Sun is a whole lot less scary than a Local No. 1 — due to their light body, relatively low carbonation and hop levels, and "drinkability." But that last word sometimes gets tangled up in the world of macro beer, and unfortunately so do some of the summer ales I've tasted. To sort the best from the rest…

Early Bud Break, Hot Early Season: Why It Matters

  By Evan Dawson, Managing Editor Photo courtesy of Sheldrake Point Vineyard If you're a wine lover but not a wine grower, let's start by accepting a few things: You and I don't know what the heck evapotranspiration is. We can't calculate growing-degree days offhand. We can't lecture on the impact of Mount Pinatubo's volatility. We know this, though: Debt sucks, and having a pile of cash on hand is good.  And that, essentially, is what separates 2009 in mid-July and 2010 in mid-July. "Last year we were in debt from the start with regards to ripening," says Morten Hallgren,…