Anyone living on Long Island knows how cool this spring has been. It’s warming up though and today I started to see bud break pictures from across Long Island wine country in my Twitter feed. As I see or receive more pictures, I’ll make sure to add them to this post. Petit Verdot at Macari Vineyards Pinot Blanc at Lieb Cellars Cabernet Franc at Shinn Estate Vineyards Cabernet Franc at Bedell Cellars Teroldego at Southold Farm + Cellar
I’m proud to share that my first piece for the Long Island Wine Press, which you can find in tasting rooms and elsewhere all over the East End, was also chosen as the cover story. The story, titled “What’s Old is New Again: Two Long Island winemakers are reviving the ancient method of making Petillant Naturel sparkling wines” focuses on the pet nat wines made by Regan Meador at Southold Farm + Cellar and Christopher Tracy at Channing Daughters Winery. If you can’t get you hands on a copy of the magazine, you can read about how the wines are…
For Episode 2, Lenn chats with Regan Meador from Southold Farm + Cellar. Through the course of their conversation, they cover everything from opening weekend in the SF+C tasting room, Rex Farr’s organic vineyard in Calverton, Kickstarter, why Regan hasn’t made a rose yet, and what it’s been like being the new kid on the block.
Over the years that I’ve been curating this this wine club, it has been my distinct pleasure to share a great many classic wines from classic New York wineries. We have a bit of that this month, but as I was finalizing the selections, it quickly became apparent that we had a lot of new and not-yet-classic wines and wineries represented. We have New York’s only Trebbiano. We have sparkling wines — one red, one white — that are the first releases of two new labels. And we have two Finger Lakes wineries — Kemmeter Wines and Forge Cellars —…
At their core, Kickstarter campaigns are about two things — garnering attention and getting funding for whatever project it is that you’re undertaking. By most any measure, Southold Farm + Cellar‘s campaign in early 2013 was a success on both counts, well exceeding its monetary goal and resulting in nearly a dozen articles in various publications — including the Wall Street Journal. The campaigns message, distilled down for and by today’s soundbite media culture became “We’re doing weird grapes because merlot and chardonnay are boring.” Regan Meador, who co-owns the winery with his wife Carey and makes the wines, is partly…
Getting past New York City with a trailer overloaded with 350 gallons of wine had been a major milestone. As the truck lurched and faded, lurched and faded, every bang of a pothole had me questioning my decision on this endeavor, but I still had four hours to go until the Finger Lakes. I was taking perfectly good still red wine to Bellwether Wine Cellars in Trumansburg so I could turn it into an ode to dry lambrusco (an endeavor that had given more than a few colleagues on Long Island a good laugh). I needed to use their pressurization…
The folks at Southold Farm + Cellar, they of the successful Kickstarter campaign, started planting their vineyard yesterday and co-owner Regan Meador sent me a few photos of the action. “We’re going to end up with about nine acres of teroldego, lagrein, syrah and goldmuskateller on different spacing. All planted in about three days,” he said in a quick email this morning. “This was the easy part. Next up is making it actually look like a vineyard and produce!” Regan also told me that they are planting some apples on the property.
Chardonnay. Merlot. Chardonnay. Merlot. Chardonnay. Merlot. As good as Long Island wine can be — yes, including merlot and chardonnay — it can sometimes feel like a lot of the same. Especially because chardonnay and merlot aren’t what anyone would call trendy or sexy grapes right now. There is cabernet franc here too of course, and sauvignon blanc has grown in popularity, which is great. There are also one-winery (or two) wonders like pinot blanc, chenin blanc and tocai too. Personally, varietal malbec is a category that I’m excited about as. Regan and Carey Meador, the couple behind Southold Farm…
When I first met Regan Meador, assistant winemaker at Osprey’s Dominion Vineyards, many months ago via Twitter he didn’t want to know who was making my favorite local merlot or chardonnay. Instead, he wanted to know who is making my favorite syrah, who is making interesting non-chardonnay whites and who is planting different grapes. Not that he doesn’t like merlot and chardonnay, mind you. He just isn’t a fan of ubiquity. “The stuff is over-planted, not just here but globally,” he says, adding “Nothing against the wine itself — well maybe against chardonnay — but I would rather have some other…