Browsing CategoryFinger Lakes

Corks of the Forks: The Last Thanksgiving Wine Story You’ll Ever Need to Read

When considering your Thanksgiving wine choices, here’s the only advice you need: Drink good wine. Don’t complicate it any more than that. OK. You probably want to know why it’s that simple, and I’m happy to explain it. I’ve written Thanksgiving-related stories for at least a decade, just like every other wine writer — from local guys like me to national columnists in the big, glossy magazines. Some feel compelled to do so, but often we’re told to write these stories because they’re apparently popular, though I don’t actually understand why. None of my friends or family members stress about…

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From the Archives: Some Finger Lakes Wineries Favor Synthetic Corks for Their Best Wines. Should They?

Editor’s Note: Every Thursday — call it Throwback Thursday if you’d like — we’ll pull a story from the more than a decade of NYCR stories and republish it. This week, I pulled a story that managing editor Evan Dawson and science editor Tom Mansell teamed up for about synthetic closures in the Finger Lakes.    Serious wine consumers are not, generally speaking, fans of synthetic cork. Most recoil at the sight of a plastic cork being pulled from a bottle they had otherwise been excited to open. Is this bias unfair? Maybe. Companies are working to improve the quality of synthetic…

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Get the Best New York Wine Delivered to Your Door — The New York Cork Club

If you read this blog, you’re obviously interested in New York wine. But, depending on where you live, you may not have ready access to very much of it. If that’s you, we’ve got the solution. We’ve partnered with The Cellar d’Or — a great wine and cider shop in Ithaca, NY — for the New York Cork Club. Every month, I pick two great New York wines and they are delivered to your door. The wine itself never exceeds $50 for those two bottles (shipping costs vary) and by joining, you’ll get everything from classic wines from the top wineries in…

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Billsboro Winery 2012 Cabernet Franc

Billsboro Winery 2012 Cabernet Franc ($25) is ripe and fruit-forward on the nose with cherry and plum aromas that stay this side of jammy and accents of tobacco, baking spice and dried herbs. The first sip is a bit disjointed and almost comes across as hot (an indicator of higher alcohol that isn’t balanced) but with some air that fades and this medium-bodied, ripe-but-not-too-ripe red settles in with red and black fruit notes that are tinged by toasty vanilla oak-born spice and a bit of brown sugar. Structure is provided by juicy acidity rather than the tannins, which are soft and rounded. On…

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Tousey Winery 2013 Rebellion Rose

You don’t see very much Blaufränkisch rosé in New York. You see even less rosé that is barrel fermented. But, with Tousey Winery 2013 Rebellion Rosé ($16) co-owner and winemaker Ben Peacock has produced both. Fruity red cherry and strawberry flavors are gently accented by notes of spice and blanched almond — hinting at this wine’s time in oak, but not coming out and announcing it. The barrel reveals itself more on the palate — where there texture is creamy and simple red fruit flavors have a buttery edge to them. Mouth-filling and round, it shows enough acidity and a long finish. Producer: Tousey…

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Bellwether Wine Cellars 2013 Vin Gris of Pinot Noir

I don’t consider Kris Matthewson, winemaker at Bellwether Wine Cellars, to be a “natural winemaker” (what does that even mean?). True, he doesn’t like to make a lot of cellar additions and prefers a decidedly hands-off approach, but he’s not above making adjustments if a wine needs them. That said, his wines do lean toward the idiosyncratic. They invite the adventurous and open minded and aren’t for everyone. Some are truly unlike any other in the Finger Lakes region. I think he probably likes it that way. Of a lineup that also includes a handful of single-vineyard rieslings, a gamay noir-dominant rose and…

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5 Questions with… Julia Hoyle, Sheldrake Point Vineyards

Julia Hoyle may have found her way into the wine industry innocently enough, looking for a part-time job while attending college, but she quickly found herself surrounded by great people and a curiosity for the business she couldn’t contain. Hoyle started at the Fox Run Vineyards tasting room in 2009 and worked her way into the cellar where she took every opportunity to learn from veteran winemaker Peter Bell before she left in 2012. Julia moved on to Atwater Vineyards for the fall 2012 harvest season, which provided insight into operations at another prominent Finger Lakes winery. Once harvest finished Julia’s…

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Support Fossil & Till’s Indiegogo Campaign

If you’ve been reading this site for any length of time, you may or may not remember the name Mark Grimaldi. He’s served on tasting panels for us in the past (including our Wines of the Year tastings), he used to coordinate our “Drink Local Dinners” when we had them and he’s also a personal friend of mine. His wife Olivia owns a great little wine and cider shop in Ithaca, NY now, and he is a partner in the new Aurora Ales & Lagers Co. and with partners Eric Clemons (Coeur Wine Company) and Ian Barry (Barry Family Cellars) he’s working to…

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Barry Family Cellars 2013 Tuller Vineyard Pinot Noir

Barry Family Wines 2013 Tuller Vineyard Pinot Noir came and went — only 50 cases were made and they sold quickly — but it’s a wine that I’ll remember. We always remember the good ones, don’t we? Barry Family cellars co-owner and winemaker Ian Barry started working with John Tuller and his fruit during Barry’s first vintage in the Finger Lakes, when he was working at Heron Hill. At the time, Heron Hill bought all of Tuller’s fruit, including pinot noir, chardonnay, riesling and cabernet franc. “I always thought his fruit was unique, but particularly his pinot noir, which I would often keep…

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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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