Posted by Neil Brody Miller on June 18, 2010
A lot has been written recently about the health benefits of local, naturally grown and raised foods: the increased nutritional benefits of fresh fruits and vegetables; the higher percentage of good versus bad cholesterol in grass-fed meat, etc. These claims, I believe, are probably correct, as are the environmental benefits of sustainable farming, and the social utility of supporting small producers over factory farms.
All good reasons to buy local, but not the best reason, at least not for me. Something about them is too abstract; they make sense in the head rather than the heart, like following doctor’s orders, and appeal to my intellect rather than my passion. And increasingly, as I learn to live better and more comfortably with middle age, I am most interested in following my passion.
Right now, my passion leads me to want to meet, and get to know, the people who grow and prepare the food I eat, and who make the wine I drink.
I noticed this growing interest last winter, when I realized that I looked forward to visiting winter farmers markets like the Poolville Community Farmers Market more for the opportunity to touch base with new friends, than for the food itself. If home is where the heart is, then my home in part is knowing where my food grows, and who grows my food.
I was very excited, accordingly, when I was invited to Cobblestone Creek Farm’s “Harvest Share” open house this past Tuesday. I already knew Diane Eggert, co-owner of Cobblestone Creek Farm with her husband Steve, through a mutual friend, Lindsay Ott, author of the terrific blog A Trailing Thought, and had become a fan of Cobblestone Creeks’s produce from recent visits to the Hamilton Farmers Market.
Diane Eggert of Cobblestone Creek Farm, alongside this week's Harvest Share produce.
Even better, the invitation included an offer to take home a half share of their weekly “Harvest Share” – their name for the weekly CSA shares of freshly harvested produce.
I already knew that I loved Cobblestone Creek’s fresh basil from previous purchases at the Hamilton Farmers Market, but the bell peppers, hothouse tomatoes, and zucchinis were also outstanding. Their radishes and cucumbers had more “snap” than any other local produce I’ve enjoyed this spring.
The flat leaf parsley, that underappreciated stepchild of the American herb garden, was a revelation, and found its way into nearly every meal I prepared this week, including a flavorful Middle Eastern-style salad – made entirely from Cobblestone Creek’s produce – of diced cucumber, bell pepper, and tomato dressed with some good Extra Virgin olive oil and freshly squeezed lemon juice. The parsley was the star of the dish, adding an astringent grassiness that nicely complimented the sweetness of the vegetables and the fruitiness of the olive oil.
Steve Eggert’s guided tour of the farm, however, was the highpoint of my visit. Throughout our walk, he kept up a running commentary on a broad range of farming-related topics: the cost and effort involved in organic certification (too high); the safety of organic fungicides (a more complex issue than consumers appreciate); the prospects for the early broccoli planting, which had begun to flower (not too good), etc. More than anything else, I was most impressed with Steve’s profound knowledge of the soil, the crops, and the rhythms of the growing season. Without saying as much, it was clear that farming for Steve Eggert is as much an art as a science, and that he relies as much on intuition and accumulated wisdom as he does on expert knowledge.
I came away from the open house not only with a boxful of delicious, fresh produce but with a greater respect for farming and a fuller appreciation of the innumerable critical decisions that go into deciding which crops to plant, when to get the seeds going, when to transfer the seedlings from the hothouse to the field, and so on, that determine whether or not there will be a successful growing season and harvest.
2010 is the first year that Cobblestone Creek Farm has offered “Harvest Shares” for sale, and a number of shares are still available. Their CSA/Harvest Share season runs 26 weeks, from early June until Thanksgiving. A full share costs $650.00 and a half share costs $325, and rates will be prorated for anyone who joins after the beginning of the season.
According to Diane, upcoming products include eggplant, hot peppers, sweet bell peppers – red, orange, yellow, chocolate – broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower – white and orange – sweet onions and cooking onions, leeks, various herbs, brussel sprouts, winter squash – butternut, buttercup, acorn, spaghetti – sweet potato, potatoes, rutabaga, turnip, kohlrabi, corn, cantalope, watermelon, and carrots.
Harvest shares are picked up Tuesday afternoons at the farm, which is located on Collamer Road in East Syracuse. For additional information, contact Diane Eggert at diane.eggert@verizon.net, or visit Cobblestone Creek Farm’s Facebook page.
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on May 10, 2010
TasteCamp East 2010 participants enjoying Keuka Lake and Canandaigua Lake wines at Heron Hill Winery.
Here are some photos I took this past weekend at TasteCamp East 2010. I’m still reflecting on the experience, and will post an essay on this memorable event in the next day or two. In the mean time, please enjoy the photos!
Morgen McLaughlin and Lenn Thompson with George DiTomasso of Dr. Konstantin Frank Vinifera Wine Cellars at TasteCamp East 2010
Morten Hallgren of Ravines Wine Cellars, preaching the gospel of dry, vinifera table wines.
Seneca Lake Wine Mafia, from Left to Right: Tricia Renshaw of Fox Run, Peter Becraft of Anthony Road, Brandon Seager of Red Newt, Johannes Reinhardt of Anthony Road, and Peter Bell of Fox Run, at Red Newt Cellars.
A first taste of the 2007 Tierce before dinner at Red Newt Cellars.
Anthony Road winemaker Johannes Reinhardt, who clearly is more comfortable making great wines than talking about them.
Peter Bell, winemaker at Fox Run Vineyards, leads a tasting of Fox Run's library Rieslings.
Fred Merwarth, winemaker at Herman J. Wiemer Vineyard, leads a tasting of Wiemer's Reserve and vineyard-designated Rieslings.
The BYOB wines start flowing at the Stone Cat Cafe. The wines were great, the camaraderie was terrific, but the dinner menu was uninspired and overpriced.
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on April 30, 2010
A locapour is someone committed to drinking locally produced wine, just as a locavore’s commitment is to consume locally grown foods. I’ve apparently been a locapour for some time now, according to the definition, but first came across the term a couple of days ago in a friend’s Facebook post, and again today in The Washington Post.
The word locapour seems to have been recently minted, a Google search turned up a bunch of pieces from this past January that use or discuss the term. The earliest usage I found dates to 2008 or 2009, in a wine review titled “The virtues and pleasures of being a ‘locapour,’” by Beppi Crosariol, a wine writer for the Ontario, Canada newspaper The Globe and Mail.
The reason I’m writing, however, is not to advocate adding yet another trendy buzzword to our crowded cultural lexicon, but to publicize a very interesting opinion piece on “DrinkLocalWine.com 2010 and locavore hypocrisy,” in today’s Washington Post. Written by Dave MacIntrye, author of the blog Dave McIntyre’s WineLine and wine columnist for the Post, the article takes Washington DC restaurateurs to task for thoughtlessly pouring non-local wines alongside their heavily promoted locavore menus. It’s a good piece, as applicable to Central New York as the Mid-Atlantic States – maybe more applicable, given the comparative development of Finger Lakes and MD/VA winemaking – and worth a read.
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on April 26, 2010
Some ingredients are so good you know that whatever dish you prepare with them will probably turn out great. On such occasions, the only real concern is not to screw up the preparation, and to let the quality of the key ingredient speak for itself. Tonight’s dinner was one of those occasions, and featured one of those ingredients, the Flour City Pasta Sweet Potato Pappardelle I purchased last Saturday at the Central NY Regional Market. Thankfully, the recipe for a brown butter sauce with toasted, chopped walnuts and grated Pecorino Romano cheese, which is adapted from a classic ravioli recipe, is about as simple is it gets, and the dish turned out every bit as good as I hoped.
First, it should be said that the pasta was a thing of beauty all by itself, the product exudes the love, skill and experience of dedicated artisans, along with an accompanying commitment to use only the finest organic ingredients. I feel foolish for not taking a photo of the dry pasta before putting it in the pot, but let’s just chalk up the lapse to unrestrained enthusiasm.
The pasta took about 10 minutes to cook al dente. In the meantime I browned a couple of tablespoons of unsalted farmhouse butter from Meadow Creek Farm of Interlaken, NY and about a 1/4 cup of chopped walnuts in a large sauce pan, until the kitchen was filled with rich, nutty aromas from the sauce, and sweet spice aromas of cinnamon from the pasta. When the pasta was ready, I added about a cup of the salted pasta water to the sauce, then drained and added the pasta to the sauce pan, along with a good pinch of dried sage and some ground black pepper, and let everything come together over moderate heat until almost all the liquid was absorbed. Off the heat, in quick succession I added the grated Pecorino, poured a glass of wine (the 2007 Salmon Run Meritage), and sat down to enjoy.
Stupid grin in a bowl good. Happy feet good. What could be better than perfectly matched ingredients, and a quick, simple preparation? The pasta had a wonderful, firm texture, with subtle, sweet potato flavors and the sweet spice aromas of cinnamon and nutmeg, which were perfectly complimented by the nutty, smoky, salty flavors of the browned butter, toasted walnuts and grated Pecorino, and the savory note and slight bite of the sage and black pepper. The wine, the 2007 Salmon Run Meritage (Salmon Run is the second label of the Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery), which didn’t impress me the night before on its own, was a great match, the moderately high acidity cut through the richness of the brown butter sauce, while the pasta brought out and deepened the wine’s dark red and black fruit flavors.
The moral of this story is as simple as the preparation. Find Flour City Pasta, either at the Central NY Farmers Market or wherever else it is available. Buy Flour City Pasta. Eat Flour City Pasta. Then tell a friend. Or cook it for your mom on Mother’s Day, or to impress the hell out of a first date. New York City doesn’t have better pasta than this. Portland, Oregon doesn’t have better pasta than this. In fact, no one, anywhere, has better pasta than this. So find it, buy it, and enjoy it. We are very, very fortunate that Jon Stadt and his dedicated staff call Central New York their home.
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on April 24, 2010
It’s been eight months since I moved outside of Syracuse, and even longer since I last visited the Central NY Regional Market. So although I was looking forward to today’s visit, I have to be honest and admit that I had some mixed feelings. I love the fact that the Regional Market has been operating continuously since 1933, is open on Saturdays throughout the winter, and is supposedly New York State’s largest market. Nice local history, and very convenient, at least when I was living in the city. But I was also a bit uneasy about the stacks of bananas, oranges, and assorted out-of-season fruits and vegetables I knew I would find at the market, which are trucked in and/or flown across the continent from Florida and California and places beyond. That’s not regional in any meaningful sense of the word, especially since much of this produce is identical to and more expensive than the produce sold in area supermarkets.
Still, it was a gorgeous, sunny morning, I hadn’t visited the market in months, and the drive from New Woodstock in my gas-sucking 1995 Subaru wasn’t exactly eco-friendly, either. Besides, I was looking forward to seeing some bright Spring flowers, of which there were plenty, and was hoping to run into Marty Butts, the owner of Small Potatoes Sales & Marketing, or at least to check out some of the producers Marty works with, especially Flour City Pasta, about which I had heard great things.
I clearly wasn’t the only person who thought it would be a nice day to visit the market. In fact, the first thing I encountered was a bottleneck of people trying to get into the first building, as the floor space was literally packed with shoppers moving slowly from vendor to vendor, eyeing stalls stocked full of out-of-state citrus and last season’s aged apples, and the occasional table of Amish baked goods.
Thankfully, things thinned out a bit in Building B, which is where many of the truly local, or at least regional, farmers and producers were congregated, and where I met some wonderful folks and purchased some terrific products.
For starters, I sampled the latest Treleaven wines from Kings Ferry Winery, including their 2008 Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc, and their 2009 Gewurztraminer and Semi-Dry Riesling. Although it was difficult to get a good sense of the wines from the thimble-sized samples, the Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc exhibited varietally correct cherry, and smoky, berry fruit flavors, respectively, although I thought both wines were noticeably light-bodied. I wasn’t wowed by the 2009 Gewurztraminer, either, although this may have been due to the near impossibility of enjoying the aromas, which for Gewurztraminer are essential. But the 2009 Semi-Dry Riesling offered up a nice, round mouthful of lemon-lime and melon fruit backed up by crisp acidity and a stony minerality.
Across the way a vendor by the name of Finger Lakes Family Farms displayed a broad range of products from a number of farmers and producers. I picked up a nice head of hydroponically grown Finger Lakes Fresh Boston lettuce, a brand owned by Challenge Industries of Ithaca, which employs individuals with disabilities, as well as some freshly harvested, locally grown spinach and a very tasty Old Fashion Granola from Adas Pastries of Ovid. The real find, however, was a delicious, soft goat cheese called Olive Bianco produced by Hawthorne Valley Farm, a Hudson Valley dairy every bit as good as Lively Run Goat Dairy, which Finger Lakes Family Farms also had available for sale.
From there, things just kept getting better. Rock Hill Bakehouse of Glens Falls, NY – near Saratoga Springs – offered some of the best artisanal breads I have yet seen in Syracuse. I have nothing against Pastabilities’s stretch bread, or venerable local institutions like the Columbus and Di Lauros bakeries. But we could definitely use a world-class artisanal bakery in Syracuse of the quality of Rock Hill Bakehouse, or Geneva’s Normal Bakery, or Buffalo’s Five Points Bakery.
What else. Let’s see, a very, very good ash-ripened, Valencay-style pyramid goat cheese called Eclipse from R & G Cheese Makers of Cohoes, NY, near Albany; and some delicious, exotic sprouts and baby garlic mustard greens from Dancing Turtle Farms of Ithaca.
The highpoint of the trip, however, was undoubtedly Flour City Pasta, a Rochester-area company that produces truly extraordinary, hand made dry pastas using organic ingredients, locally grown and milled flours (for the Whole-Wheat and Emmer flour pastas), imported Italian brass dies, and traditional Old World techniques. I waited nearly 20 minutes to be served, there were so many customers in line, but I felt like a kid in a candy store. Jon Stadt, the proprietor of Flour City Pasta, is clearly obsessed with pasta making, because he produces some of the most beautiful, artisanal dry pastas I have ever seen. I bought the Sweet Potato Pappardelle, which Jon says is his best-selling pasta, and can’t wait to try it out tomorrow night with browned butter, chopped walnuts, and Pecorino Romano, but I was equally tempted by the Wild Mushroom Fettuccini and the Lemon Pepper Fettucini, which seemed a clear favorite.
If there was any downside to the day, it was the realization of the distances many of these producers traveled to get to the Regional Market, and how difficult it would be to reconcile my purchases with a commitment to buy local. By my estimate, one producer I purchased from traveled 150 miles each way to set up his table, while the average distance traveled by these vendors was roughly 100 miles each way, which is hardly local and barely regional by any fair estimation. And then there was my own 45 minute drive into the city, and the 45 minute drive home. So no one was winning any awards for sustainability. Then again, I didn’t even look at the produce from Florida and California, and everything I purchased came either from a local farmer or a small, family-owned business. But perhaps I’m just rationalizing.
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on April 14, 2010
This is another in a series of wine reviews I began a few months ago, in which I taste value-priced wines produced by Finger Lakes wineries in order to compare these local, under-$12.00 wines with the flood of inexpensive red wines from Portugal, Spain, and Argentina that consumers have turned to in their search for a decent, affordable table wine. This week’s wine is the 2008 Red Newt Cellars Red Eft ($12.88 at Liquor City in DeWitt; $11.99 at the winery), a dry red blend made from 36% Cabernet Franc, 23% Syrah, 19% Cabernet Sauvignon, 12% Noiret, and 10% Merlot.
For a small Seneca Lake winery, Red Newt produces a wide range of wines, from their highly rated, vineyard designated red and white wines like the Glacier Ridge Vineyards Cabernet Franc and Sawmill Creek Vineyard and Curry Creek Vineyard Gewurztraminers, to inexpensive blends like the Red Eft and Salamander White. Some of these wines are off-dry, but none of them pander to the lamentable local taste for sweet wines. Although the Red Eft is technically off-dry, with 0.3% residual sugar, the wine tastes totally dry.
The Red Eft’s most noticeable characteristic is the aroma of Noiret, the hybrid varietal developed at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY, which a number of Finger Lakes winemakers have begun experimenting with. Noiret has a peppery, citrusy aroma which is immediately recognizable once you’ve experienced it. Although the aroma is not unpleasant, it is a bit unexpected. In the Red Eft, this citrusy aroma was quickly followed by the more familiar earthy, herbaceous aroma of Cabernet Franc, and the deeper red fruit bouquet of Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah, and Merlot.
The wine has a rich, soft texture, a medium body, moderate alcohol (13.2%) and acidity, and soft tannins. The flavors of cherry and red berries are pleasant and matched by notes of rosemary and other dried or grilled herbs. The flavors are definitely fruit forward and carry nicely through the mid-palate, but they drop off pretty quickly on the finish.
For a Tuesday or Wednesday evening dinner at home, a glass or two of the Red Eft would be perfectly satisfying, which is all it aspires to be. The problem with this and other value-priced Finger Lakes wines, however, is that they are competing against heavily promoted imports from hot, Mediterranean-type climates. American palates unfortunately have become accustomed to these overly ripe, highly extracted wines, and many, perhaps most consumers are not used to a wine like the Red Eft, which displays a more classical weight and structure, less fruit, lower alcohol, and a different spectrum of flavors.
What I noticed with the Red Eft, however, and what I’ve noticed in other value-priced Finger Lakes wines like the Lamoreaux Landing Estate Red, which I reviewed a few months ago, is that there is a distinct freshness – not ripeness, but freshness – to the wine that I rarely find in imports. I think this is a critical point, and something that rarely gets mentioned in wine reviews.
Out of economic necessity (i.e., to keep down the transportation cost), most of the lower priced imports from Europe and South America are shipped to the United States in non-air conditioned containers. While not all of these wines are “cooked” in transit (although many of them are), I am beginning to realize that something subtle but important nevertheless gets lost. The distinction should be familiar to anyone who seeks out and consumes fresh, locally grown produce: a freshly harvested, vine-ripe tomato purchased at a local farmers market tastes ineffably fresher than even the ripest hot-house tomato shipped from Maine or California and purchased at the local supermarket.
The growing number of Slow Food and Buy Local devotees, and anyone else interested in supporting their local food economy, should take note. Wines like Red Newt’s Red Eft may at first seem a bit unfamiliar in terms of their flavors and characteristics, but they nonetheless are well made, competitively priced wines that offer the same freshness you look for in locally grown fruits and vegetables.
The more I investigate these value-priced Finger Lakes wines, the more of them I find, and the more impressed I am with them. Which doesn’t mean that I am going to forgo drinking top flight wines like Red Newt’s Viridescens or their extraordinary single-vineyard Gewurztraminers when I can afford to do so. But before I make that impulse purchase of this week’s over-hyped Portuguese wine bargain, I hope that I have the good sense to stop and remember that freshness is as desireable a quality in wine as it is in food, and that keeping my wine dollars circulating in the local economy is just as important as buying my food from local farmers.
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on March 21, 2010
The deeper I delve into the cultural politics of the buy local and slow food movements, the more I appreciate how transformative a real commitment to these movements will be. A number of developments this past week have driven my thinking on this topic. First, I filed the DBA for my new business, TheVillageSquared.com (more about this at a later date), which is still several months away from being launched but which personally and professionally marks an important turning point. In all likelihood it signals the end of my academic career as a college professor, or at least an end to the expectation of finding a full-time teaching position, and a return to an earlier status as a business owner and entrepreneur. My ambivalence about this realization, however, is offset by the hope that it will also mean stability and independence – financial and existential – after eight years as an itinerant educator, and a firmer foundation for my commitment to remain in Central New York and put down permanent roots in the region.
I’ve also been reading and thinking about a number of related issues. I started reading Michael H. Shuman’s book The Small-Mart Revolution: How Local Businesses are Beating the Global Competition which, despite indulging occasionally in utopianism and relying too heavily on best- and worst-case scenarios, is an important book for understanding the challenges, and the politics and philosophical underpinnings, of community-based economics. I’ve also been thinking about joining a CSA, which for a middle-aged bachelor long habituated to eating out rather than cooking at home, is not as simple a decision as it may sound. Will I really make and keep a commitment to consume all the fresh food delivered weekly? Will I be paying for produce I won’t eat, or worse yet, throwing away food I failed to consume? Will the moral good of supporting local farming be offset by the moral harm of wasting food?
Finally, I got a letter this week from my bank, HSBC, “the world’s local bank,” informing me that, beginning in April, there will be a monthly charge for my checking account, which until now had been free. I’ve already been thinking about which bank to open the business account for The Village Squared, and have been leaning towards a community bank or local credit union. The letter from HSBC, however, combined with the ideas in Shuman’s book and my thinking about community-based economics, demands that I rethink my personal banking as well.
All these issues came together this morning over breakfast at the Red & White Cafe in DeRuyter. As I reached to pay the bill, I grabbed automatically for my plastic debit card, which over the past few years has virtually replaced my use of cash. In fact, I often go for weeks nowadays without a dollar in my pocket. I stopped, however, and thought a bit about the socioeconomics of my actions. Beyond the questionable ethics of banking with HSBC, a multinational corporation who uses the money in my account for god only knows what purposes, and in god only knows what countries, paying for my meal with the debit card also meant that Mastercard was going to take somewhere around 3 percent of the total bill, or around 30 cents, in fees and charges, which would come out of Chris’s, the owner of the Red & White Cafe, pocket and profits.
A short conversation with Chris brought home the economics of this issue. We quickly calculated that she serves about 500 customers a week, which at roughly $10.00 per customer works out to $5,000 a week. Which means that Chis pays around $150.00 a week in credit card fees, or somewhere around $8,000 a year in lost income and profit. That may not be enough to make-or-break her business, but it is certainly enough to prevent her from purchasing a major new appliance, or making a commitment to source locally grown products, or taking a much-needed vacation. So in terms of its effect on the local economy, the use of a debit card to pay for my breakfast could, like the flapping of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil, metaphorically set off a tornado in Texas.
All this may seem like a lot of deep thinking for a Sunday morning breakfast, but supporting a community-based economy, I am begining to realize, is not simply a matter of purchasing locally grown farm products. At the very least, today’s meal got me thinking about the supposed convenience of carrying plastic, which, like the convenience of purchasing produce at the local supermarket without any thought of where it came from and how it got there, comes with significant hidden costs. Which is why I say that supporting the local economy will be transformative and require me to change entrenched habits. If you love a local business, pay in cash!
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on March 12, 2010
I’ve been thinking this week about two interrelated issues effecting Finger Lakes winemaking. First, I was excited to read James Molesworth’s article in this month’s issue of the Wine Spectator, in which he celebrates the quality of Finger Lakes wines and shines a spotlight on Sam Argetsinger, owner of the celebrated Argetsinger Vineyard on Seneca Lake, Lou Damiani of Damiani Wine Cellars, and Rob Thomas of Shalestone Vineyards. Molesworth rated several Finger Lakes Rieslings 90-91 points, including the Ravines Argetsinger Vineyards Riesling, the first Finger Lakes wine to receive two back-to-back 90+ point ratings. As significantly, Molesworth also rated several Finger Lakes red wines – the Ravines Meritage, Shalestone Cabernet Franc, and Damiani Cabernet Sauvignon, among others – between 88 and 89 points.
All this is a well deserved affirmation of the efforts of Finger Lakes winemakers to produce world-class wines, especially the efforts of dedicated red wine pioneers like Morten Hallgren, Lou Damiani and Rob Thomas. And yet, I’ve also been wondering this week whether Finger Lakes winemakers aren’t being toyed with by a capricious god, or perhaps like Sisyphus, are ill-fated, rolling boulders up a hill for all eternity. Because just as Finger Lakes winemakers achieve the respect and recognition they deserve, American wine drinkers, driven by the bad economy and a flood of cheap imports, have thrown themselves headlong into the abyss of ever-cheaper wines.
Nearly all the wines reviewed in Molesworth’s article are priced between $17.00 and $25.00 per bottle, with the least expensive wine costing $15.00. Aficionados and locavores are certainly willing to pay these prices, and given their quality, top-flight Finger Lakes wines are still comparative bargains. Overall, however, the trend in wine consumption over the past two years has been unmistakeable. American wine drinkers are moving en masse away from wines priced around $15.00, which for years has been the key price point for wine retailers, to wines priced at $10.00 to $12.00 or lower.
My concern is that, with a handful of notable exceptions – Red Newt’s Circle Riesling, for example – Finger Lakes winemakers produce few table wines from vinfera varietals that meet this price point. Another such exception, I am glad to say, is the Lamoreaux Landing Estate Red, a non-vintage red blend made from Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc and Merlot.
In the glass, the wine certainly looks like Pinot Noir, with a bright garnet-orange color. The nose, however, is overwhelmingly Cabernet Franc, with dominant aromas of wet earth and grilled meat and herbs, which were followed by a creamy vanillin note from the oak barrel aging. In the mouth, the Pinot and Cabernet Franc flavors intermingled nicely, so that I got a mouthful of cherry and red and black berries, along with that characteristic herbaceousness often found in Cabernet Franc. I don’t like grassy flavors when they are too pronounced, as they often are with Cab Franc, but when they compliment rather than overwhelm a wine’s fruit, as they do in this wine, the result is added complexity and a more compelling match for grilled or roasted meats.
Overall, this wine was surprisingly good. It is totally dry, with a medium body, good depth of fruit, well balanced acidity, reasonably soft tannins, and persistent length. The wine ended on a salty, minerally note that reminds you this is a Finger Lakes wine.
I can’t recall having previously drank a wine made from Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc, but if this wine is any indication of the blend’s potential, the two grapes were made for each other. Given the choice, I would much rather enjoy a bottle of this wine than a Bourgogne Rouge from Burgundy, which is a crap shoot even in the best vintages, or a Bourgogne Passetoutgrain, an overlooked, often value priced blend of Pinot Noir and Gamay. Indeed, given its price ($10.99 at MacKinnon Liquor in Cazenovia), the Estate Red is one of the best red wine values I have yet found in the Finger Lakes.
I’ve enjoyed other wines from Lamoreaux Landing, especially the 2007 T23 Cabernet Franc (an unoaked, fruit driven wine priced around $15.00). The winery, headed by winemaker Paul Brock, also receives high marks for its Riesling and Chardonnay: the 2008 Riesling Reserve received an 89 point rating in Molesworth’s article But this humble, non-vintage red blend may be the real star of Lamoreaux Landing’s line-up. It’s well structured for serving with food and competitively priced for the current wine market, which makes it an ideal everyday table wine and a good choice for anyone looking to support Finger Lakes wineries and the local economy.
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on March 7, 2010
I don’t often cook fancy when I am home by myself. By the time I’ve prepped, cooked, eaten and cleaned up I figure it’s as economical to eat out as to prepare a meal. I recently picked up a bunch of foodstuffs at local farmers markets, however, and have been putting together a meal in my head that would feature these ingredients. I also know from experience that cooking, like any learned skill, is a use-it-or-lose-it proposition. So the time had come, I decided, to get out the pots and see if my cooking chops were still up to par.
Actually, I didn’t get all that ambitious, as this was a two pot dinner with only a handful of ingredients. But the ingredients were so good that I had to write about the meal, and post a short photoessay.
The menu consisted of braised, pasture-raised lamb shanks from Meadowood Farms in Cazenovia, which I purchased last Saturday at the “Fourth Saturday” farmers market at Circa Restaurant, served on a bed of French lentils that I purchased in bulk from Lombardi’s Fruit and Imports, a Syracuse institution and one of my favorite specialty food shops. Additional ingredients included organic dried sage from Fresh Herbs of Fabius; organic carrots, New York State onions, and anise purchased at P&C Market; locally grown garlic from Muriel Barrows of Morrisville and an inexpensive New York State red wine, the 2006 Motley Cru, a blend of Syrah, Petit Verdot, Malbec and Merlot from Brooklyn Oenology, a winery on the North Fork of Long Island.
The preparation was very simple, a fine dice and quick sauté of some carrot, onion, and anise bulb for the French lentils, then chicken stock, two bay leaves, salt and pepper, and a slow boil for about 45 minutes. In the mean time, I browned the lamb shanks, did a rough chop and quick sauté of the carrot, onion, anise and crushed garlic, and then put the shanks back in the pot, along with the sage, thyme, bay leaf, red wine and a bit of water, and braised them on low heat for about 90 minutes.
The lentils came out al dente, well seasoned and very flavorful. The lamb shanks, however, were clearly the stars of the meal. By the time I removed them from the pot they were falling of the bone, and had taken on a gorgeous shellacked mahogany color. The meat was moist and fork tender, with a mild gaminess that paired well with the natural sweetness of the carrots, anise and lentils, and the aromas of thyme and sage.
As good as everything looked and tasted, it wasn’t restaurant quality. Close, but it needed something to deepen the flavors and add a bit more complexity. I probably should have added tomato paste when sautéing the vegetables, and some beef or veal stock to the braising liquid to offset the acidity of the red wine. Still, it was very tasty, and I’m reasonably satisfied that my cooking skills are in good order. At the very least, I had no problem cleaning the plate, and I won’t have any problem polishing off the other shank for dinner tomorrow night.
All told, I spent around $30.00 on the meal, including the wine for the braising liquid and a glass of the 2006 Allegrini Palazzo della Torre, a very tasty, highly rated Italian red wine that is widely available in the Syracuse area. So the meal wasn’t cheap, but at $6.00/lb., or around $4.50 per shank, the lamb shanks, which were large and meaty, were very reasonably priced. We’re extremely fortunate to have so many dedicated local farmers like Marc Schappell and Bee Tolman of Meadowood Farms, who raise grass-fed livestock and are committed to sustainable agriculture, and we should take every opportunity to support them, and let them know how much we appreciate their efforts.
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on March 4, 2010
Things have been quiet of late across this great frozen wasteland, as beleaguered residents hunker down through the long shadows and cold nights, and decide which red wine to pair with Boeuf Bourguignon, or perhaps with a roasted free-range chicken and organic root vegetables. It’s a bitter struggle to survive winter’s ravages in style, but we look forward expectantly to the arrival of spring, which augurs warmer days of Finger Lakes wine and roses. In the meanwhile, we await the vernal equinox, give thanks to Bacchus for getting us through the winter, and keep our eyes fixed on the horizon, or the shelves of our local wine shop, for signs of a drinkable under-$20.00 Pinot Noir.
Nor has our vigil been in vain. Out of the western expanse comes a young contender, the 2008 Johnson Family Pinot Noir ($18.99 at Northside Wine in Ithaca), a strapping red wine in the full vigor of youth, already proclaimed a champion – and an excellent wine value – by clamoring critics. Hailing from the Russian River Valley in Sonoma, California, this wine-who-would-be-king nevertheless comes shrouded in mystery, as there is no Johnson Family winery in Sonoma County (the wine is produced by Hunter Wine Cellars of Sebastopol, CA for John Bowler Wines, a New York City importer and distributor). Whatever its pedigree, this wine’s reputation precedes it, and it seems determined to dethrone local pretensions that the Finger Lakes can produce world class, competitively priced Pinot Noir.
We are not without our own local champion, however, the 2007 Red Tail Ridge Pinot Noir, ($19.99 at Northside Wine in Ithaca), a brawny first-born hailing from the western shore of Seneca Lake, which has already been proclaimed by Vineyard and Winery Management Magazine “perhaps the most exciting pinot noir yet made in the Finger Lakes.”
So, we gather once again in the Vinodome, as did our fathers and mothers, and their’s before them, to bear witness to a timeless ritual of vino-a-vino combat, in which two wines do battle until one bottle is drained to its dregs. And the ancient cry goes up, “two wines enter, one wine leaves; Two Wines Enter, One Wine Leaves; TWO WINES ENTER, ONE WINE LEAVES!!!”
Don't let their sweet dispositions fool you, these two will kill for a decent bottle of $20.00 Pinot Noir
Judging today’s competition are three experienced veterans of the Vindome: myself, a wizened misanthrope who vents his rage on unwary winemakers; Stephany “You wish I was Nurse Ratched” Hess, who strikes terror into the hearts of ill-mannered or incompetent resident MDs; and her hushand, Tim “Slow Cooker” Hess, whose magical touch with a Crockpot masks the roiling emotions within. We three have been there, wherever “there” is, and done that, whatever “that” is (and whatever the definition of “is” is), and it takes a damn fine wine to excite our tired, jaded palates.
So then, let the battle begin.
The 2007 Red Tail Ridge Pinot Noir opened with a bright garnet color, with a bit of pink/orange towards the rim. The nose was initially a bit volatile, but quickly settled down to reveal oaky, toasty notes and some smokiness, which the judges variously described as “earthy,” “tar” and “leather coat.” Overall, the aromas were interesting and complex but lacked a distinct fruitiness on the nose. In contrast, the 2008 Johnson Family Pinot Noir was noticeably darker in the glass, a dark ruby that could only come from a warm, sunny California climate. The aromas, however, were surprisingly unexciting, with some attractive cherry and plum aromas but nothing that leaped out of the glass. Even with time and swirling the aromas never matched the bravado of the wine’s deep ruby color.
In the glass, the two wine’s couldn’t have been more different, and really brought home the distinct differences that cool and warm climates have on Pinot Noir. The Red Tail Ridge was rich and ripe, with sweet plummy flavors, a nice full mouthfeel, and an unusual spiciness. At the time I knew I recognized the spices, but couldn’t put a name on them. It was only later, after the tasting that I realized I had tasted graphite – what some reviewers refer to as “pencil lead” – and sandalwood, which gave the wine a complex, interesting flavor profile.
In comparison, the Johnson Family was all West Coast machismo, with a fuller weight and mouthfeel, and rich, very ripe cherry and black plum flavors, but with noticeably less spice or complexity. Although both wines were clearly New World in style, in that neither wine offered up the mushroomy, barnyardy aromas or flavors associated with Burgundy, the cooler climate of the Finger Lakes produced a wine that was lighter colored, more aromatic and classically structured, and with higher acidity and more pronounced minerality, while the warmer Russian River Valley climate, as expected, produced a deeper, more fruit-driven wine.
The Johnson Family Pinot Noir, however, really fell apart in rounds 4 and 5, where we judged the mid palate and finish. While the Red Tail Ridge was persistent through the mid palate into the finish, with no drop off in the quality or weight of the fruit, the Johnson Family wine dropped off precipitiously, with the fruit declining in the mid palate and finishing quickly. Overall, the judges agreed that the Red Tail Ridge showed better structure and balance, with more persistent flavors and a longer, more compelling finish, while the Johnson Family showed its best up front, with a big, fruit-forward mouthful of ripe Pinot fruit.
In the end, the judges were unanimous that the Red Tail Ridge was the better wine, and clearly bested the Johnson Family Pinot Noir. We also agreed that, at $19.99, it represented an outstanding value that easily rivaled or surpassed wines from Oregon in the $30.00 to $35.00 price range. The tasting also dramatically reinforced our appreciation that Pinot Noir produces more aromatic wines and better overall balance and structure in a cool climate like the Finger Lakes, than in California, despite the fact that California can produce some fabulous, if expensive Pinot Noirs. We were very impressed with the 2007 Red Tail Ridge Pinot Noir, and were surprised to learn that the grapes, which were estate grown, were harvested from vines that were only planted in 2005. That is very young for any wine, but extraordinarily young for a wine of this quality and complexity.
The biggest issue, however, is what one gets for their money. In California, $20.00 buys you an entry-level Pinot Noir, typically sourced from grapes grown in several locations within one or more large AVAs, which yield a somewhat generic fruit-driven wine that lacks complexity or a sense of terroir. Hunter Wine Cellars produces a half dozen single-vineyard Pinot Noirs under its Chasseur label that regularly earn scores in the low-to-mid 90 point range from the Wine Advocate. They also cost between $40.00 and $60.00 a bottle.
It’s not difficult to do the math. For the same $20.00, one gets in the Finger Lakes a wine made from the best grapes grown in a winery’s own vineyards. I’m really excited about what the Red Tail Ridge vineyards will yield in 8-10 years, when the vines reach the level of maturity that winemaker’s say can produce truly noteworthy wines. Of course, by that time they may also be charging $40.00 to $60.00 for a bottle of wine. In the mean time, however, I and my fellow judges are already planning a trip out to Red Tail Ridge Winery to pick up more of their 2007 Pinot Noir while it is still available, and still priced under $20.00 a bottle.