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Posts Tagged“jamesport vineyards”

From the Archives: Op-Ed: Towns, Don’t Crush the Grape Growers

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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’s pick is a piece written by Steve Bate, executive director of the Long Island Wine Council and then-president of the council, Ron Goerler Jr. of Jamesport Vineyards back in the summer of 2010. “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times…” The famous opening line from Charles Dickens’ classic “A Tale of Two Cities,” set in 18th-century Europe, would appear to be an appropriate description of the opportunities…

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5 Questions with… Conor Harrigan, Jamesport Vineyards

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If you’ve been to the North Fork recently and stopped in at Jamesport Vineyards chances are you likely saw Conor Harrigan behind the counter. Harrigan, who works in the tasting room at Jamesport, has been serving thirsty winery goers and educating them on the exclusively estate grown portfolio for the past year. Harrigan has been working in the industry since 2009 and has held varying roles in retail and at a few prominent North Fork wineries. This week, the New York Cork Report sits down with Harrigan in our “5 Questions With…” series. What was the first bottle of wine…

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New York State Wine Outlet to Open in Shanghai, China

The first pallet of New York wine being prepped for shipment to Shanghai, China

Over the last 12-18 months the United Kingdom has emerged a potentially important market for New York — and other East Coast — wines. In fact, delegations from the Finger Lakes and Long Island are there right now for the 2012 London International Wine Fair. Now, more New York wineries than ever are looking even further east for new markets — all the way to China. A handful of wineries, including Channing Daughters Winery, Lieb Family Cellars and Pindar Vineyards, already sell or have sold wine in China. But, later today, Empire State Cellars, the New York-only tasting room and shop in Riverhead,…

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2009 Harvest Update: Jamesport Vineyards

By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief Photos courtesy of Jamesport Vineyards  Getting in touch with winery owners and grape growers is always a challenge this time a year. They've got more pressing (pun intended) things to do than respond to the enthusiastic (okay, incessant) requests from me for harvest data. But, little by little, the the reports are coming in, including a few emails from Jake Perdie, tasting room manager at Jamesport Vineyards, owned by veteran grower Ron Goerler. They picked all of their chardonnay last week, at 22.5 brix, and 5 tons were sold to Red Hook Winery in Brooklyn. Before…

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Jamesport Vineyards 2007 Sauvignon Blanc Reserve

When I tasted this wine last week, I started a discussion on Twitter amongst the wine Twitterati about "varietal correctness." Feelings were mixed and a wide range of related topics were brought up, but most agreed that if a wine tastes good, that's the most important thing. But, a few wise individuals brought up the idea that when one is pairing wine with a particular food, you should be able to predict, in a general sense, what a wine is going to taste like. If you're eating fresh Long Island shellfish and open a Sancerre, you're not looking for an…

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WTNs: Jamesport Vineyards New Releases (North Fork of Long Island)

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"Our wines are made in the vineyard." It’s a wine industry cliché that you’ll hear at molst any winery these days. It’s so overused and appears on so many boilerplates that much of its meaning has been watered down and lost. Like many clichés however, it is firmly rooted in fact. Even the world’s greatest winemaker won’t be able to make outstanding wine from un-ripe, low-quality fruit. Winemakers may be the celebrities of the wine world — even here on Long Island — but the good ones know how important a top vineyard manager is. It’s a symbiotic relationship unlike…

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WTN: Jamesport Vineyards 2006 Sauvignon Blanc (North Fork)

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Most Long Island wineries focus on the red wine grapes of Bordeaux—particularly merlot—and the white wine grape of Burgundy—chardonnay. They are, by far, the two most planted varieties on the East End. Jamesport Vineyards is a little different. They make merlot and chardonnay of course—the market demands them. But, they also have a well established pinot noir program and consider the white wine of Bordeaux, sauvignon blanc, a speciality as well. Most local sauvignon is reared entirely in stainless steel tanks, which highlights the fruit character and results in fresh, lip-smacking wines that tend to be straight forward no matter…

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WTN: Jamesport Vineyards 2004 Late Harvest Riesling (North Fork of Long Island)

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Long Island, and the entire state of New York really, offers a surprising number of succulent, delicious dessert wines. In upstate New York, there is an endless array of ice and ice-style wines-some of which are frozen commercially while others freeze right on the vine in the more traditional way. But, on Long Island, late harvest temperatures rarely dip down to the point where the grapes freeze naturally, locking in water so that only the richest, most flavorful liquid oozes from each berry when pressed. Instead, many of the top dessert wines are made using grapes picked at peak ripeness…

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Les Howard: Building on Success at Jamesport Vineyards

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Winemaker Les Howard’s 18-plus months at Jamesport Vineyards have been some of the craziest of his winemaking career. There was the stressful-but-successful 2005 harvest season that may prove to be one of Long Island’s finest. There’s how he’s developing his own style as head winemaker while maintaing the quality Jamesport is known for. And recently, he’s been able to enjoy impressive scores from Robert Parker’s Wine Advocate. "Things cannot be much better here at Jamesport," he wrote recently in an email. Howard, a Long Island native, "never thought of being a winemaker" when he first started at Pindar Vineyards over…

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