Posts Written OnSeptember 21, 2015

New York’s Next Wave: A New Generation is Earning Attention With Quality and Experimentation

Editor’s Note: This is my latest New York-focused piece for Beverage Media Though they haven’t saturated the metropolitan New York market by any means, New York wines aren’t the new kids on the block anymore. Rather than look to distant lands for “the next big thing,” enough intrepid buyers have looked in their own backyard to raise the profile of New York State wine to at least a known quantity. Many of the top — the classic ones, really — are known quantities. Wines from stalwarts like Hermann J. Wiemer, Paumanok Vineyards, Dr. Konstantin Frank and Channing Daughters Winery hold…

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Uncork the Forks: At Harbes, Come for the Corn, Stay for the Wine

Editor’s Note: This is the lastest ediction of my biweekly column for The Suffolk Times and Riverhead News-Review. When I hit the North Fork in search of farm-fresh produce, I don’t go to just one farm stand. I have my favorites for certain things. If I’m buying tomatoes, I usually go to Sang Lee. We get fresh goat cheese at Catapano. When it comes to sweet corn that you can eat raw, right off the cob, even without the typical butter and salt, I head to Harbes Family Farm in Mattituck. Picked in the morning and on my plate that evening,…

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Kemmeter Wines 2014 Sonero

“Balance” is a term that gets bandied about in the wine world. Collectively, “balance” has a meaning that most agree on — a wine is balanced when all the different components (fruit, residual sugar, acidity, tannin, etc.) come together in a harmonious way. A balanced wine doesn’t have protrusions or awkward components. But even if we can agree conceptually on this definition, there is a lot of room for interpretation. A wine that you find perfectly balanced, I may find too oaky. Similarly, what I consider balanced might have too much acidity for you. Context matters too — and that gets us…

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