On Friday, December 19 at 6:30 p.m., Bedell Cellars and founding winemaker Kip Bedell will library tasting featuring reds from the mid-1990s. The tasting will include nine red wines from the 1993, 1994 and 1995 vintages, including cabernet sauvignon, reserve merlot and Cupola (red blends) bottlings. The evening will open with sparkling wine, feature commentary by Kip Bedell, and continue for approximately 90 minutes. Tickets are by reservation only, and will be limited to 30 seats. Wine club members (and their spouses) are admitted free of charge. The public is welcome for $25 each. The wines tasted will be available…
Posts Tagged“kip bedell”
WTN: Bedell Cellars 2003 Merlot (North Fork)
Red wines from the 2003 vintage — even those made with the region’s signature variety, merlot — have proved inconsistent in my tastings. Some wines, from some vineyards are delicious — elegant and classic Long Island. Others tend to be light on flavor and even a little ‘green’ in their under-ripeness. Some wineries didn’t even bother making first label or reserve wines in 2003, declassifying the vintage. So what caused this inconsistent vintage? Poorly timed rain and October frosts — two of them actually. Rain, obviously, can dilute flavors and frost kills the canopy. Without the engine to drive the…
Les Howard: Building on Success at Jamesport Vineyards
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…
From the Vine: The Making of Mr. Merlot
I’ve been lucky enough over the past several years to attend some noteworthy wine tasting events at various venues on our beautiful North Fork. They are always deliciously wonderful experiences and I’m always on the lookout for bigger and better events. So when I was invited to Bedell Cellars in Cutchogue for its “17 Years of Merlot” tasting, I knew this would be a benchmark experience for this still-young region. After navigating the Riverhead traffic to get to this 50-acre former potato farm, my fiancée Nena and I were a little hungry and beyond eager to begin tasting. A…
From the Vine: 17 Years of Bedell Cellars’ Merlot
A few weeks ago, when my wine editor at Dan’s Papers asked me if I wanted to to go Bedell Cellars to attend a special event celebrating 17 years of Merlot, I jumped at the chance. Kip Bedell, founder and winemaker, is known throughout L.I. wine country as “Mr. Merlot” and in tasting 17 vintages, he has certainly earned the title. Even the early vintages, made when he admits he knew “only a fraction of what he does now” about grape growing and winemaking, were delicious. I’ll not give away too much information here, I do have to write an…