February 20, 2009
I got to accompany winemaker John Levenberg in the One Woman winery as he tested, tasted and planned his blends for the 2008 pinot noir grown by Russ McCall in Cutchogue.
We started with five samples from different clones and different barrels/tanks, tasted each separately, evaluated their strengths and weaknesses and then decided which would bring the best to a blend.
John, ever the modern winemaker, basically makes wine with his laptop filled with spreadsheets of tiny numbers and an indecipherable short hand — easily explained if you have a patience for numbers. Keep reading →
February 19, 2009
One of my first introductions to wine was when I work at An American Place restaurant, a good 20 years ago. (Yee god.) The place was one of the first to focus on local food, in a macro sense. It only served ingredients and wine from American. The only exception was the fancy sugar cubes imported from France.
The wine list contained all the usual suspects of American brands, including one staff favorite, Lolonis, distinguished by the lady bug on the label advertising the winery’s organic bona fides.
I think it’s been that long since I tasted their wine, and this week I had the opportunity to drink the 1999 Private Reserve Merlot from Redwood Valley. Initially I was dismayed because the cork crumbled when I tried to open it and had to settle for pushing the remainder down into the bottle. But the wine was bright ruby, the color of a much younger wine and it was packed with fruit, gentle tannins, good acidity and a long beautiful finish. None of the green merlot flavors that I’m afraid are typical on Long Island merlot. I might not have picked this out blind as merlot, as it wasn’t typical, but rich. It was also very clean and evident that it has many years ahead of it. Keep reading →
February 14, 2009
Last Monday I had the chance to taste some wine at the offices of David Bowler Wine with Southern Rhone great Phillipe Cambie, importer Peter Weygandt and Vincent Maurel of Clos St. Jean of Chateauneuf-du-Pape.
We tasted 10 wines and it was pretty great because there were only a few of us sitting around a table. I had just come from a Vias tasting, which also presented a select group of wine — in this case all red. I find this a much better environment than the football-field sized tasting like those held at the Marriot Marquis. Mostly because I’m a lightweight and get drunk. I don’t know how others do it.
The wines were all rich and delicious. Keep reading →
February 13, 2009
Last week I attended a seminar at the International Wine Center that focused on the wine of southern France.
Make that the South of France, the new marketing push from Sopexa, the biggest food/wine marketer in France. The seminar was more than a commercial and contained information valuable to anyone studying wine, as well as a tasting with some impressive sommeliers. There was André Compeyre, who worked for Alain Ducasse and is now a consultant for the Les Halles restaurant group (where I had a realy good steak frites on Monday, but that’s another story) and the ubitiqutous Jean-Luc le Dû, former sommelier for Daniel and now the owner of his own shop in Manhattan.
First the info: the trade groups for the wine of the Langeudoc, Vin de Pays d’Oc and the wine from Roussillon joined forces in June 2006 to create one umbrella brand South of France in order to promote their wines. Keep reading →
February 12, 2009
I went to the dentist today for a check up and the dental hygenist told me that wine tasting can be bad for your teeth, and not just in the turn-them-black way. The acid in the wine, or the acid in anything, eats away tooth enamel especially at the gum line. She suggested carrying a little bottle of floride rinse to use after tasting wine.
Good idea! This is one of the advantages of going to a dentist in a wine region.
February 6, 2009
The question of kosher. At the Israeli wine tasting on Tuesday Mark Squires addressed the the stigma of kosher wine and most Americans’ feeling that it isn’t very good. As he pointed out, there are 200 wineries in Israel and 150 of them are not kosher. But most of the output is. The non-kosher wineries are mostly boutique wineries with low production. He added that Hebrew National and Coca-Cola are kosher, but no one is bother by that.
The confusion, he believes, stems from mevushal wine, which has been flashed pasteurized — not boiled — in accordance with Jewish law. I’m no expert in Jewish law. Here’s the wiki link.
Here’s the take home message. All Israeli wine is not kosher. Not all kosher wine has been boiled, only mevushal. Coke is kosher.
February 5, 2009
The wine hiatus is over and tasting season in New York City is in full swing. The 2004 Brunellos are in and Michael Skurnik had a tasting two weeks ago heralding their arrival. It was mobbed.
But on Tuesday I went to something much more interesting: the first wine tasting of exclusively Israeli wines in the U.S. Held at the Prince George Ballroom in 27th Street. The tasting featured 20 producers who brought with them two to seven wines.
The event was kicked off by a talk from Mark Squires, above, of The Wine Advocate, who discussed the state of selling Israeli wine, as quality has been improving. He did a very good job, and kept it interesting while one of the Capsuto Freres kept interrupting him. Keep reading →
January 2, 2009
Christian Wolffer, owner of Wolffer Estate Vineyards in Sagaponack, was killed New Year’s Eve while swimming on vacation in South America. He was 70 years old.
The accident was reported in the New York Post.
The fate of the winery is unknown. Employees are meeting today to learn of any plans already in place.
December 24, 2008
Made a quick visit to Roanoke Vineyards Monday, and for sale in the tasting room were wreaths made from the discarded canes from different varieties. You could get a cab franc/merlot blend wreath for $5, or go for the straight cab franc. The woman in the tasting room said they were selling briskly, and the running joke was it was the most money they’ve yet made off their vines. Cute.
December 19, 2008
Gov. David Paterson’s budget for the 2009 fiscal year not only calls for selling wine in grocery stores, it is also proposes to cut all state funding — $2.8 million worth — for the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, as reported by Rochester’s The Democrat and Chronicle. In addition, his budget calls for upping the state excise tax on wine from 18.9 cents to 51 cents.
This would shut the NYWGF down, as president Jim Trezise states in the article.
[Image via state.ny.us] Keep reading →
