New York Cork Report

TasteNY With 2 Hudson-Chatham Winery Baco Noirs

By Lenn Thompson, Executive Editor

Today I'm proud to announce that the next installment of our Twitter-based virtual wine tasting, TasteNY, will take place on Monday, April 11 at 8 p.m. ET

This time around, we'll be featuring two baco noirs from Hudson-Chatham Winery in Ghent, NY.:

• 2009 Baco Noir Old Vines
• 2009 Baco Noir Reserve Casscles Vineyard

I know that it's late notice, but if you're interested in joining us, the fine folks at H-C are offering these wines as a TasteNY pack for $38, including shipping.   

Call the winery at 518.392 wine to get your TasteNY pack.

If you're not familiar with baco noir, this is a great opportunity to taste what I consider to be some of the best baco in New York.

I'm excited that we've got regional wine bloggers from around the United States taking part, including Andrew Hall, Jason Rzutkiewicz, Brian Kirby, Sean Sullivan, Clive Pursehouse and our very own Bryan Calandrelli. Each will be hosting a tasting for other wine lovers and writers in their respective neighborhoods.

Join us next Monday at 8 -- or keep an eye on the tasting via the #TasteNY hashtag.

TasteNY with Shinn Estate Vineyards is Tomorrow

By Lenn Thompson

One last reminder that TasteNY featuring the wines of Shinn Estate Vineyards is tomorrow night at 8 p.m.

I know that quite a few of you have purchased our TasteNY 3-Pack, which includes:

• Shinn Estate Vineyards 2009 "First Fruit" Sauvignon Blanc
• Shinn Estate Vineyards NV Red
• Shinn Estate Vineyards 2007 Nine Barrels Reserve Merlot

We will kick off right at 8 p.m. using the hashtag #TasteNY. I recommend either using TweetDeck or TweetChat.com for these sorts of tastings -- they seem to be the best options.

Make sure that you're following me @LENNDEVOURS and @ShinnVineyard as well!

TasteNY: Shinn Estate is Next Week

There is still time to join us next Wednesday, September 15 for TasteNY featuring the wines of Shinn Estate Vineyards.

For just $65 (that's 20% off), the TasteNY pack gets you three Shinn Estate Vineyards wines:

• Shinn Estate Vineyards 2009 "First Fruit" Sauvignon Blanc
• Shinn Estate Vineyards NV Red
• Shinn Estate Vineyards 2007 Nine Barrels Reserve Merlot

We'll be tasting these wines on Wednesday, September 15 at 8 p.m. ET and for a limited time, the folks at Shinn are offering participants 20% off the wines. That's $64.80 for all three!

Buy your TasteNY pack today, get a group of friends together -- preferably over a meal -- and join us. 

There is still time to join us next Wednesday, September 15 for TasteNY featuring the wines of Shinn Estate Vineyards.

For just $65 (that's 20% off), the TasteNY pack gets you three Shinn Estate Vineyards wines:

• Shinn Estate Vineyards 2009 "First Fruit" Sauvignon Blanc
• Shinn Estate Vineyards NV Red
• Shinn Estate Vineyards 2007 Nine Barrels Reserve Merlot

We'll be tasting these wines on Wednesday, September 15 at 8 p.m. ET and for a limited time, the folks at Shinn are offering participants 20% off the wines. That's $64.80 for all three!

Buy your TasteNY pack today, get a group of friends together -- preferably over a meal -- and join us. 

It's Back: TasteNY Returns with Wines From Shinn Estate Vineyards

TasteNY is back... but it's a little bit different this time around. When we launched the project over a year ago, it was simply about getting the great beers, wines and spirits made in New York into the hands of bloggers and writers. That's still part of the idea, but we want to get the wines into even more hands and mouths. 

With that in mind, we've decided to transform TasteNY into a Twitter-based tasting event, not unlike the ones I've been hosting for Finger Lakes Wine Country this year. But, it's not just about sending samples out to bloggers and getting them to take part in the online tasting. And it's not going to be about tasting 12 or more wines at a time.

Instead, we're going to focus on one producer per event, keep it to three or fewer bottles, and only partner with wineries willing to offer a great discount on a TasteNY pack -- which will help the program expand beyond bloggers getting samples.

Enter Shinn Estate Vineyards, one of the Long Island wineries most adept and enthusiastic about social media and Twitter. They will be our first partner winery as we re-launch TasteNY with three of their wines:

• Shinn Estate Vineyards 2009 "First Fruit" Sauvignon Blanc
• Shinn Estate Vineyards NV Red
• Shinn Estate Vineyards 2007 Nine Barrels Reserve Merlot

We'll be tasting these wines on Wednesday, September 15 at 8 p.m. ET and for a limited time, the folks at Shinn are offering participants 20% off the wines. That's $64.80 for all three!

Buy your TasteNY pack today, get a group of friends together -- preferably over a meal -- and join us. 

We plan to move this program from region to region every month or two, so if you're a New York producer interested in being a part of TasteNY in the future, please let us know.

TasteNY: Finger Lakes Riesling Results

The first TasteNY tasting at Peconic Bay Winery

By Lenn Thompson, Long Island Editor and Editor-in-Chief

As previously mentioned, I co-hosted a blind tasting of 24 rieslings (including 12 from the Finger Lakes) at Peconic Bay Winery last week as a part of the TasteNY project. It was a lot of fun and very interesting to taste these wines with 8 winemakers and some other members of the Long Island wine community.

The 24 wines were broken into three flights of eight wines each and were scored using the American Wine Society 20-point system and sheets. 

Flight #1: Phillips Eckstein 2006 Riesling Kabinett, Billsboro Winery 2008 Riesling, Fox Run Vineyards 2008 Riesling, Grapes of Roth 2008 Riesling, Red New 2006 Dry Riesling Reserve, Paumanok Vineyards 2008 Semi-Dry Riesling, Sheldrake Point 2006 Reserve Riesling, Hermann J. Wiemer 2007 Dry Riesling.

Flight #2: Heron Hill Winery 2005 Old Vines Riesling, Peconic Bay Winery 2003 Riesling, Chateaux Ste. Michelle 2007 Eroica, Peconic Bay Winery 2007 Riesling, Domaine Schlumberger 2005 Riesling, Dr. Konstantin Frank 2007 Dry Riesling, Weingut Max Richter 2007 Riesling Kabinett, Osprey's Dominion 2008 Riesling.

Flight #3: Martha Clara Vineyards 2008 Riesling, Ravines Wine Cellars 2007 Riesling, Lamoreaux Landing 2008 Red Oak Riesling, Anthony Road Wine Company 2008 Semi-Dry Riesling, Palmer Vineyards 2008 White Riesling, Paumanok Vineyards 2008 Dry Riesling, Hazlitt 1852 Homestead Reserve Riesling, Atwater Estate 2007 Dry Riesling.

At the end of the evening, I collected all the scoring sheets and used my rudimentary Microsoft Excel skills to crunch the numbers a bit, dropping the high and low scores for each to arrive at adjusted averages for the wines. Here are the top 10 scoring wines and their score out of 20 possible points:

Phillipps Eckstein 2006 Kabinett	14.9
Lamoreaux Landing 2008 Red Oak	14.85
Weingut Max Richter 2007 Kabinett	14.722
Anthony Road 2008 Semi-Dry	14.67
Billsboro 2008	14.3
Atwater Estate 2007	14.05
Paumanok 2008 Semi-Dry	14
Red Newt 2006 Dry Reserve (tie)	13.6
Sheldrake 2006 Reserve (tie)	13.6
Eroica 2007	13.4

Just out of the top 10 was a cluster of Long Island wines amongst the next five highest scores (with two well-known Finger Lakes producers):

Palmer Vineyards 2008	13.05
Martha Clara Vineyards 2008	12.95
Peconic Bay Winery 2007	12.83
Osprey's Dominion 2008	12.8
Paumanok 2008 Dry (tie)	12.75
Dr. Frank 2007 Dry (tie)	12.75
Fox Run 2008 (tie)	12.75

So what did we learn? I think a few things:

1. Long Island riesling can more than hold its own. I'll admit it, I was surprised at how well the Long Island wines fared. Pleasantly so.
   
2. Winemakers are fun to taste with -- but hyper-critical. Taking the winemakers out of the data didn't significantly impact the wines appearing within the top 10, but it did impact the average scores. With winemakers, the top adjusted average was 14.9. Without them, the lowest score in the top ten was 15.5 and the highest was 18.5.
3. The winemakers did not like the Peconic Bay 2003. The biggest change in the wines between the groups was for the Peconic Bay Winery 2003 Riesling, which received an average adjusted score of 18 from the non-winemakers. It received a 10.83 adjusted average from the winemakers.

I also know from talking to several of the winemakers at the table that they thought that the Lamoreaux Landing was something other than riesling (sauvignon blanc was the most mentioned). That is also reflected in the scores. It was the non-winemakers' favorite wine overall but was in the middle of the pack for the winemakers.

By the way, there were 8 winemakers tasting and 4 non-winemakers.

Ignoring the numbers themselves for a minute and just looking at the order to choose "favorites" we have:

Overall Favorites:

• Finger Lakes: Lamoreaux Landing 2008 Red Oak Riesling
• Long Island: Paumanok Vineyards 2008 Semi-Dry Riesling
  
• Other: Phillipps Eckstein 2006 Kabinett*

Winemakers' Favorites:

• Finger Lakes: Anthony Road Wine Company 2008 Semi-Dry Riesling
• Long Island: Martha Clara Vineyards 2008 Riesling
• Other: Phillipps Eckstein 2006 Kabinett*

Non-Winemakers' Favorites:

• Finger Lakes: Lamoreaux Landing 2008 Red Oak Riesling*
• Long Island: Peconic Bay Winery 2003 Riesling
• Other: Chateau Ste. Michelle 2007 EROICA Riesling

* Overall favorite within the grouping

I know that I've only offered a little analysis here, but hey, I'm a blogger, not a statistician. It's been a long time since that bio-metrics/statistics course in undergrad.

Once again, I'd like to thank Peconic Bay Winery for hosting us, the winemakers and other industry folk who joined us and to all the Finger Lakes wineries that participated in the TasteNY project.

Next up? What do you think about Long Island merlot?

TasteNY: Finger Lakes Riesling Tasting a Success

(Pictured left to right: Eric Fry (Lenz), Kelly Urbanik (Bedell), Adam Suprenant (Osprey's Dominion), Miguel Martin (Palmer), Rich Olsen-Harbich (Raphael), Pascal Zugmeyer (Peconic Bay), Greg Gove (Peconic Bay) and Jim Silver (Peconic Bay).

By Lenn Thompson, Long Island Editor and Editor-in-Chief

I just got home from a riesling-filled evening with some of Long Island's best winemakers, tasting a total of 24 rieslings from a variety of regions -- the Finger Lakes, Long Island, Alsace, Washington, Mosel.

Tasting with a group of winemakers is always a fun exercise. Opinions were all over the map about the various wines, and I'll be compiling all of the scores and doing a little number crunching over the next couple of days.

In the meantime, I want to thank Jim, Pascal and the whole staff at Peconic Bay Winery for hosting the event, which went off without a hitch. Also, thanks to La Bonne Quiche for a delicious buffet dinner following the tasting. 

And finally, to the winemakers who took time out of their pre-harvest preparations to taste through these wines (and for bringing their own).

I hesitate to delcare any "winners" without looking at all the score sheets, but it seems as I glance through them that almost to a person, the Billsboro Winery 2008 Riesling scored well. Look for more on the scores and how they differed between the winemakers and non-winemakers as well. Fascinating sitting with men and women who seek out fault so intensely and accurately. It's a humbling experience, really.

And I always love how, the second the "wine work" is done, winemakers are looking for beer.

TasteNY on Long Island's North Fork Tomorrow Night

By Lenn Thompson, Publisher and Editor-in-Chief

Tomorrow night, I'll be co-hosting, with the folks at Peconic Bay Winery, a tasting of nearly 20 rieslings as a part of the TasteNY project I kicked off several months ago.

I'll be joined by several local winemakers, including Anthony Nappa (Shinn Estate), Juan Micieli-Martinez (Martha Clara Vineyards), Greg Gove (Peconic Bay Winery), Kareem Massoud (Paumanok Vineyards), Kelly Urbanik (Bedell Cellars), Miguel Martin (Palmer Vineyards) and Rich Olsen-Harbich (Raphael). 

Jim Silver from Peconic Bay has pulled together some 'ringer' wines -- well-rated wines from Washington State, Germany, France and Austria -- and several of the winemakers have added their own creations to the 12 Finger Lakes rieslings chosen for the project:

• Heron Hill Winery 2005 Old Vines Riesling
• Ravines Wine Cellars 2006 Riesling
• Red Newt Wine Cellars 2006 Reserve Riesling
• Sheldrake Point 2006 Reserve Riesling
• Atwater Vineyards 2007 Dry Riesling
• Wiemer Vineyards 2007 Dry Riesling
• Dr. Konstantin Frank 2007 Dry Riesling 
• Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards  2008 Homestead Reserve Riesling
• Anthony Road Wine Company  2008 Semi-Dry Riesling
• Billsboro Winery 2008 Riesling   
• Fox Run Vineyards 2008 Riesling 
• Lamoreaux Landing 2008 Red Oak Vineyard Riesling

We'll be asking the tasters to score the wines using the standard American Wine Society 20-point system.

Look for a post with results later in the week.

TasteNY Kicks Off in California and Georgia

The Top 5 Wines from the Dirty South Wine's TasteNY Tasting of 12 Finger Lakes Rieslings

By Lenn Thompson, Founder and Editor-in-Chief

I'm still digging out at work after a week in hot, often-sunny Orlando last week, but the New York wine world certainly doesn't stop for lil ole me!

You might remember that I announced TasteNY back at the end of May. In a nutshell, is that I hand-pick a set of New York-made wines, beers or spirits and get them into the hands of a small group (10-12) of bloggers. The first edition features a mixed case of Finger Lakes rieslings that was sent out to a dozen bloggers last month.

So far, two of the host bloggers have held their tastings -- one in San Francisco, California and another in Atlanta, Georgia.

First up was the Bay Area tasting, hosted by Thea Dwelle of Luscious Lushes. She was joined by Ward Kadel, Fred and Eva Swan, Marshall Sontag and Brittany Dean, Paige Granback
and Chuck Hayward, and two of The BrixChicks.

To read what the particpants thought of the wines, you can read Thea's blog post and read Ward's reviews:

• Heron Hill Winery 2005 Old Vines Riesling (3 stars)
  
• Ravines Wine Cellars 2006 Riesling (3 stars)
  
• Red Newt Wine Cellars 2006 Reserve Riesling (3.5 stars)
  
• Sheldrake Point 2006 Reserve Riesling (3 stars)
  
• Atwater Vineyards 2007 Dry Riesling (3.5 stars)
  
• Wiemer Vineyards 2007 Dry Riesling (3.5 stars)
  
• Dr. Konstantin Frank 2007 Dry Riesling (3.5 stars)
• Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards  2008 Homestead Reserve Riesling (3.5 stars)
  
• Anthony Road Wine Company  2008 Semi-Dry Riesling (3 stars)
  
• Billsboro Winery 2008 Dry Riesling   
• Fox Run Vineyards 2008 Riesling (3 stars) 
• Lamoreaux Landing 2008 Red Oak Vineyard Riesling (3.5 stars)
  

My friend Hardy Wallace, the talent behind Dirty South Wine hosted his TasteNY dinner at Dynamic Dish down it Atlanta, and was joined by Atlanta food and wine bloggers/writers/lovers Ed Thralls, Jim Sobeck, Bill Addison and Broderick Smylie.

As you can see in the picture at the top of this post, they were able to narrow down the field to pick five favorites:

• Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyards 2007 Dry Riesling
• Dr. Konstantin Frank 2007 Dry Riesling  
• Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards 2008 Homestead Reserve Riesling
• Sheldrake Point 2006 Reserve Riesling
• Red Newt Wine Cellars 2006 Reserve Riesling. 

Unfortunately, Hardy's bottle of the Ravines Wine Cellars 2006 Dry Riesling was corked.

You can also read a report from the tasting on Ed's blog.

These are just the first couple of tastings, but it looks like the wines are being very well received and impressing people. After tasting the 12 Finger Lakes rieslings, Hardy proclaimed on Twitter, "The best showing of domestic Riesling I've had."

For those of us tasting and drinking Finger Lakes riesling for a while now, that's no surprise.

Announcing TasteNY: A Virtual Exploration of New York Wine, Beer and Spirits

By Lenn Thompson, Publisher and Editor

Hot on the heels of the hugely successful TasteCamp project, I'm happy to announce yet another way for me to share the wines I write about with the greater blogging community -- TasteNY.

The concept, again, is simple. Quarterly (that's the plan anyway) I'll hand-pick a set of New York-made wines, beers or spirits and get them into the hands of a small group (10-12) bloggers. Participating bloggers needn't promise to write about them, and there certainly isn't a ticking clock -- the bloggers can taste the wines whenever they'd like.

The only thing that I've asked them to do is taste the wines, preferably with a group of friends. And, even better, over a meal together. As if any blogger (or wine lover for that matter) needs an excuse to get together with friends to drink wine and eat.

For this, the first edition, the focus is on Finger Lakes riesling. Nearly 20 wineries submitted nearly four cases of wine for possible inclusion in the project and I was able to pare that group down to 12 wines from 12 wineries, from 4 different vintages:

• Heron Hill Winery 2005 Old Vines Riesling
• Ravines Wine Cellars 2006 Riesling
• Red Newt Wine Cellars 2006 Reserve Riesling
• Sheldrake Point 2006 Reserve Riesling
• Atwater Vineyards 2007 Dry Riesling
• Wiemer Vineyards 2007 Dry Riesling
• Dr. Konstantin Frank 2007 Dry Riesling 
• Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards  2008 Homestead Reserve Riesling
• Anthony Road Wine Company  2008 Semi-Dry Riesling
• Billsboro Winery 2008 Dry Riesling   
• Fox Run Vineyards 2008 Riesling 
• Lamoreaux Landing 2008 Red Oak Vineyard Riesling

I'm really excited about this kick-off edition and I think it's going to be a lot of fun for everyone included, including Joe Roberts, John Witherspoon, Megan Witherspoon, Richard Auffrey, Becky and Steve Borichevsky, Tim Elliott, Hardy Wallace, Dale Cruse, Brian Simpson, Erika Strum, Rob Bralow, David Honig, Jeff Lefevere, Matt Horbund, Tom Mansell, Thea Dwelle and our own Evan Dawson.

Now that the program has been announced, the wheels are in motion to get the wines out. I'd like to thank Morgen McLaughlin from Finger Lakes Wine Country for helping with the coordination and logistics of this edition of TasteNY.

The calendar is wide open for the next edition. Maybe we'll do Long Island cabernet franc. Or maybe we'll do some beer. Stay tuned to find out.