Posts Written OnSeptember 01, 2010

By Evan Dawson, Managing Editor Sheldrake Point Vineyard on Cayuga Lake has launched an event that winegrower Bob Madill hopes will become an annual tradition. Following the New York Wine & Food Classic, Sheldrake Point hosts the wineries that earned "Best Of" awards. The event has a limited public ticket release. "This is our chance to taste wines from our colleagues that we might not otherwise taste over the course of the year," Madill explained to the crowd on a hot but gorgeous late-summer evening. "We're proud of what you're doing and we appreciate your wines and your hard work."…

Martha Clara Vineyards winemaker Juan Micieli-Martinez reports that the vineyard crew picked 4 tons of pinot grigio today, saying has the "highest brix I have ever seen this early in pinot grigio." It came in at 22.5 brix with pH of 3.5 and TA of 6.68 g/L. "We averaged a little over 3 tons to the acre. Our pinot grigio is on 7×4 density plantings which means approximately 1,500 vines per acre. Therefore, the fruit load per vine is very low thus resulting in nice ripe fruit," told me in an email. This recent 90-plus-degree heat wave has had a…

Harvest is underway at Paumanok Vineyards on the North Fork where winemaker Kareem Massoud reports that they hand picked 2.67 tons of chardonnay for sparkling wine on August 28. "Brix came in right where we want it for bubbly: 18.5. pH was also nice at 3.07. Acid good for bubbly at 10.2 g/l," he reports via email. If you haven't tasted or seen a sparkler from Paumanok, there's a reason for that — 2010 will be just their second sparkling wine. "The 2009 will be released in time for the Holidays…of 2013," according to Massoud.

I can count on one hand the number of varietal Tocai Friulano's being produced in New York — and two of them come from Long Island's Channing Daughters Winery. Long a maker of as single Tocai, winemaker Christopher Tracy made two vineyard-desginated Tocai's in 2008 — one for a new Mudd West Vineyard planting on the North Fork and one for the Sylvanus Vineyard in Bridgehampton — two display the uniqueness of each spot. Channing Daughters 2008 "Sylvanus Vineyard" Tocai Friulano ($24) was aged in both stainless steel barrels (55%) and older French and Hungarian ones (45%) for 10 months,…