By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief The first time I tasted this wine was at TasteCamp EAST 2009 and it was poured into my empty glass by our Niagara Escarpment editor, Bryan at some point during the wine-soaked weekend. I came away impressed with the effort and enjoyed a bottle that he gave me a few days later with some friends. Again, I liked it, enough to make this the first Niagara Escarpment wine to be a the New York Cork Club selection. Bryan reminded me a few weeks ago that I still hadn't given it a formal review, so I pulled…
Posts Tagged“niagara escarpment”
Niagara Escarpment: Harvest 2009 is Underway
The harvest moon over Freedom Run Winery By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Escarpment Editor Harvest came early for me this year as my lovely wife gave birth to our son Wyatt Calandrelli on September 29, 2009, a full 12 days before he was due. Both he and mom are happy and healthy. As for myself I am exhausted from a long night and day of labor, a long night of celebrating, a seasonal cold and several sleepless nights of diaper harvesting. So when I got invited to harvest grapes on Monday, I couldn’t resist dusting off my nippers and running my…
Freedom Run Winery 2005 Chardonnay
Freedom Run Winery is a winery in Lockport, NY that you have no-doubt heard of if you're a long-time reader of this blog. Our man on the ground in the Niagara Escarpment has written about them a few times and has even helped out at harvest, in the winery and in the tasting room there. I, on the other hand, know much less about them. But, as we expand our reach to encompass all of the wines being made in New York, it's important that we include a region that shows such great promise. Maybe we'll even be able to…
Looking Back at 2008 in the Niagara Region
By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Escarpment Correspondent When Lenn asked me to write about the five most exciting wines of 2008 from the Niagara region, I assumed that I could rattle them off in a heartbeat. But when I really sat down to put my list together, I realized something; it takes a lot these days to really get me going – at least when it comes to wine. In established wine regions, I usually reserve my excitement for estate-grown wines or hard-to-find varietals. In Niagara wine country, however, things are a bit different. For one, we’re still in the pioneer…
Arrowhead Spring Vineyards Joins the Trail
By Niagara Escarpment Correspondent Bryan Calandrelli The Niagara Escarpment AVA added another winery this weekend as Arrowhead Spring Vineyards opened it doors to hundreds of chocolate-eating, wine-drinking visitors during the "Be Mine with Wine" trail event. The Niagara Escarpment itself provides a spectacular backdrop for vineyards in this area which is quickly making Cambria, NY a wine destination thanks to the six wineries located within a few miles of one another. Temperatures in the single digits and wind chills flirting with minus twenty below didn’t stop the hordes of tasters, myself included, from checking out the view from the newest…
The Sweet Hereafter
By Bryan Calandrelli, Niagara Escarpment Correspondent One of the coolest parts about living in an area with a burgeoning wine region has to be the fact that you get to literally watch history unfold. Of course, some history takes place outside in the kind of cold that burns your lungs and freezes your eyeballs, but when I regain feeling in my fingers I’ll be able to look back on January 3 of this still-new year as the date that marks the first local harvest of ice wine grapes at not one but two local wineries. When temperatures dropped into the…
The Politics of New York Wine
By Finger Lakes Correspondent Jason Feulner My educational background is in public policy, which does occasionally mix with talk of wine, although not often. Last month my interest was aroused by a news release from the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets, the contents of which were shared on several websites and in print. Through the Agriculture Department a task force has been formed to address the regulations, research and promotion of New York State’s wine industry. To preemptively analyze this task force’s mission before it even produces a word is perhaps foolish for observer and reader alike,…
Now We’ve Got the Niagara Escarpment Covered Too
The LENNDEVOURS team just keeps growing of late. I’m happy to report that Bryan Calandrelli has joined the squad as our Niagara Escarpment correspondent. Of course, Bryan isn’t a newcomer to blogs by any means. Many of you will recognize him from his two wine blogs Water Into Wino and Niagara Escarpment.net, Bryan moved to the Niagara Escarpment earlier this year from New York City, where he and his fiancee spent an almost unreasonable amount of time driving back and forth from the East End of Long Island on wine-tasting jaunts. When he doesn’t have his nose deep in a…
Duncan Ross Interview at AppellationAmerica.com
So what have you heard about the wines coming out of the Niagara Escarpment? Isn’t it way too cold up there to grow grapes? Actually no and I didn’t know much about the region either until I really started to research the region as I prepared for my interview with Duncan Ross, founder of and winemaker for Arrowhead Spring Vineyard. It turns out that the Escarpment itself-the geological feature, not the region-is the very reason why they can ripen grapes fully so close to the Canadian border. In fact, it’s the second warmest region in New York state. Long Island…
New NY Wine Blog: NiagaraEscarpment.net
Have you heard about the Niagara Escarpment wine region in Western New York? I have, but I’ll admit to not knowing a whole lot about it or its wines. Very few of the wines make it to Long Island and, so far, very few wineries that I’ve dealt with have much interest in publicizing their wines in this part of the state. But, that might be changing. Duncan Ross, of not-yet-opened Arrowhead Springs Winery, and I just did an interview together that will be published over at Appellation America soon-and I learned a ton about the region. It’s really an…