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 February 19, 2010
A week rarely goes by without my discovering a wonderful new restaurant, unusual shop, or noteworthy food producer in the greater Syracuse area. Such discoveries always come as a welcome surprise, despite the fact that I moved to Central New York knowing that it offered a wealth of local resources and attractions. Yet, even as each new experience deepens my appreciation of how good we have it up here, it also reminds me of what really is at the heart of the region’s high quality of life: the dedicated individuals whose family farms produce the great local produce, and whose independently-owned eateries, cafes and businesses bake the breads, roast the coffee beans, create the eclectic menus, and source the wonderful array of goods we all enjoy.
Occasionally, however, all these feelings come together in a single, memorable experience that really brings home to me the meaning and value of community. That may sound corny or contrived, but by my best calculations, I have since I left home at age 17 lived in 7 states, moved 20 times, held down 14 different jobs and taught at 10 different colleges or unversities, and made, lost, and renewed more close friendships than I care to remember. So, while community has always been important to me as an ideal, it is only in the last year or so that it has begun to have any real, tangible meaning.
The Poolville Community Center, Poolville, NY
Which brings me to the Second Saturday Farmer’s Market, which I visited last weekend, and to the remarkable community of dedicated, artisanal farmers and food producers and socially conscious consumers who made the experience so memorable. As the name suggests, the farmer’s market meets the second Saturday of each month at the Poolville Community Center, in Poolville, NY.
The story of my visit began a week earlier, when I chanced to meet Debby Zahn, a member of Things From Here, a group of Poolville-area community activists who organized the Second Saturday Farmer’s Market, while dining at Circa. Circa is the dining spot of choice for many of western Madison County’s progressive farmers and food producers, whose seasonally available foodstuffs regularly show up on Circa’s menu. Before meeting Debby, I had already met Renata Nollen, the owner of Dutch Girl Cheese, and her husband at Circa, and enjoyed several soups and dishes that featured the extraordinary mushrooms grown by Owen Tallman of Hantana Mushroom Farm, both of whom have booths at the Second Saturday market. Debby’s good nature and enthusiasm for local farm products were immediately apparent, and I quickly made plans to drive out to Poolville that weekend.
Debby Zahn of Things From Here, organizers of the Second Saturday Farmer's Market
Even by rural, Central New York standards, Poolville is an out-of-the-way spot on the map. After printing out directions from New Woodstock to Poolville, which I regrettably left at home, and referring repeatedly to Google Maps on my iPhone, I still managed to get thoroughly lost, and had to stop several times to ask for directions. For anyone interested in making the drive, especially during the winter, staying on a major road like Route 20 or programming your GPS navigator are worth the added distance or effort, as I spent close to 45 minutes wandering around between Georgetown and Lebanon before finally finding my way to Hamilton, and from there on to Poolville.
My cursing and exasperation notwithstanding, the trip was worth the effort. By the time I arrived, the market was already in full swing, with a healthy crowd of 30-40 shoppers chatting with the vendors, sampling and purchasing the available products, and enjoying cake and Chenango Coffee Roasters coffee at the Dump Run Cafe.
Owen Tallman of Hantana Mushroom Farm, displaying his fabulous elm oyster mushrooms.
Here’s the list of participating farmers and food producers, and the products they offered:
Drover Hill Farm, Earlville, NY: pasture raised Scottish Highland and Angus beef.
Dutch Girl Cheese, Leonardsville, NY: aged raw milk cheeses.
Evans’ Farmhouse Creamery, Norwich, NY: milk, butter, yogurt, creme fraiche and cheese
Full Quiver Farm, McDonough, NY: home baked breads.
G and M Farms, Morrisville, NY: salsas, dried beans, and organic winter vegetables
Jewett’s Cheese House, Earlville, NY: aged New York State Cheddar and Krugerrand Farm’s aged goats’ milk cheese.
Johnson’s Honey Bees, Eaton, NY: honey
Maple Avenue Farm, Earlville, NY: Black Angus, “sun fed beef.”
Maple Hill Farm, Hamilton, NY: farm raised, spring lamb.
Mizrahi Manor Farm, Norwich, NY: sprouts, eggs and homemade jams and jellies.
Quarry Brook Farm, Sherburne, NY: grass fed and finished pork, beef and chicken and eggs.
Slickepott, Delhi, NY: all natural chocolate fudge sauce.
Of these producers, several for me really stood out and are worth describing in more detail. First, the meat providers – Drover Hill, Maple Ave., Maple Hill, and Quarry Brook farms – are already quite well known for their high quality meats and sustainable farming practices, and all I can add is that their reputations are well deserved. As anyone who has watched the documentary film Food, Inc., or read Michael Pollan’s The Omnivore’s Dilemma can attest, raising livestock is among the most energy-intensive, commercialized areas of the U.S. industrial food chain, and we are especially lucky to have as many farmers as we do who are committed to providing us with pasture-raised, grass-fed, humanely-slaughtered, and locally-butchered meat.
Terri Jewett Larkin of Jewett's Cheese House, with her killer aged, New York State Cheddars
Because I am prone to moments of profound stupidity, I drove out to Poolville with no cash, and only one personal check. So I passed on these producers, with whom I was already familiar, as well as on Dutch Girl Cheese and Hantana Mushroom Farm, and spent my time speaking with and sampling the products of new vendors. Of these, Jewett’s Cheese House in Earlville really stood out, with 10- and 12-year old aged New York State Cheddars that were spectacularly good. Terri Jewett Larkin, one of the proprietors, told me that their business had been around since the 1970s, that the NYS Cheddars were made specifically for them by upstate NY farmers using locally sourced milk, and that they have even older cheeses at their shop. I found the 10-year old Cheddar to be particularly outstanding, with a rich, full flavor, a nice balance of sharpness and creaminess, and a firm yet crumbly texture. At $21.99/pound, it blew away many of the tasteless European imports featured at Wegman’s, and I couldn’t help but purchase a 1/2 pound chunk.
A happy family raises happy cows: Evans' Farmhouse Creamery
Evans’ Farmhouse Creamery are highly regarded for their terrific dairy products, including their Evans’ Farmhouse and Siggi’s brand Icelandic-style Skyr yogurts, and rightly so, as everthing I sampled was delicious and well worth seeking out. My favorite new vendors, however, were undoubtedly Robin and Nathan Mizrahi of Mizrahi Manor Farm in Norwich, NY. Although they only had samples of their sprouts left by the time I made it to their table – which were delicious – I was extremely taken with this young couple’s enthusiasm and commitment to organic, sustainable farming. A visit to their website reveals that they grow a broad selection of fruits and vegetables, produce honey and maple syrup, and raise cattle, turkeys, chickens, hens, and eggs. A full share of their 2010 CSA, which provides 16 weeks of farm fresh produce, is only $200.00, which may be the best CSA value in Central New York.
Robin and Nathan Mizrahi of Mizrahi Manor Farm
The Second Saturday Farmer’s Market meets next on Saturday, March 13th, from 10:00 AM to 12:00 Noon. The Poolville Community Center is located in the center of Poolville, which is about 6 miles south of Hamilton, NY. I’d provide directions if I didn’t think I would get readers lost, so you are better off using MapQuest, Google Maps, or GPS navigation to find your way to the Community Center. It will be well worth the trip.
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on August 5, 2009
The wines were great, the participants were friendly, and everyone appeared to have a good time. So what is there to criticize? Not much, actually. The tasting was conceived as an opportunity for winemakers, writers and bloggers, and retailers to assess the quality of the 2007 vintage Finger Lakes Cabernet Francs, compare these wines with Cab Francs from other wine-producing regions, and discuss the potential of the varietal for the Finger Lakes region. While the discussion never got around to this last question, the tasting established that Finger Lakes winemakers produce some very good, even excellent Cabernet Francs, and that their Cab Francs are regionally identifiable in comparison to French, and even to Long Island, Cab Francs. These are fundamentally important issues for anyone interested in the success of Finger Lakes wineries. From the perspective of what we intended to achieve, then, the tasting was largely a success.
That being said, by failing to consider the broader issue of Cabernet Franc’s potential, I think we missed an opportunity to bridge the gap between winemaking and marketing, and to forge a stronger sense of community and common purpose among regional winemakers and retailers. The discussions of balance and overcropping were interesting and important, and indicated, at least for the participating winemakers, that Cabernet Franc’s viticultural and enological potential are settled issues. From this perspective, the key concerns are not whether Cab Franc grows well in their vineyards, or ripens fully by fall crush, but whether individual winemakers are willing to restrict yields, forgoing quantity for quality, and to make the other hard decisions necessary to produce balanced, world-class wines. Retailers are keenly interested in these issues even if they lack a winemaker’s technical knowledge, because in today’s highly competitive market, where wines from well established regions compete for shelf space with up-and-coming regions and varietals, one or two poorly made wines are enough to forever turn off a customer to a particular varietal.
For retailers, accordingly, and perhaps for the writers and bloggers as well, Cabernet Franc’s potential remains an open question. As I noted at the tasting, wine shops are where the aromas meet the road, and where a wine succeeds or fails not simply because of its inherent quality, but also because of pricing, availability, public awareness, and successful marketing – had a good Carménère recently? How about a nice Torrontés? This is why I wish a winemaker had turned to a retailer during the discussion and asked, “So, what do you think? Can you sell this wine?” and why I am disappointed that we failed to consider market-oriented issues. Are Finger Lakes Cab Francs competitively good wines, and are they competitively priced? Is there sufficient public awareness of or interest in Finger Lakes Cabernet Francs for them to compete successfully in the marketplace? These are critically important issues, at least as important as whether winemakers can get away with four or more tons of Cabernet Franc per acre, and it is the retailers and writers who know the answers to these particular questions, not the winemakers.
I am not blaming the winemakers for this missed opportunity. Indeed, there were several moments when retailers could have jumped into the discussion, as when one winemaker denied that overcropping was an issue and asserted that retailers needed simply to sell more wine. This overly simplistic statement, along with the fact that the retailers remained silent even when directly challenged, is an indication that there is at present little sense of community or common purpose among Finger Lakes winemakers and regional retailers. And yet we are bound together not merely by economic interest, but to a degree that we fail to appreciate, by a shared history. This is nowhere more evident than in the controversial subject of sweet table wines, which are both an existential scourge and a financial godsend. The account books of more than a few Finger Lakes wineries end up in the black, I suspect, because of sweet wines, as do the ledgers of many regional wine shops. Even boutique wine shops like The Savvy Wine Cellar, where I work, blow through more cases of Red Cat than we care to admit. More is going on here than economic necessity. Historically, culturally, put it however you want, this region – its consumers, wineries, and retailers – grew up on sweet wines, and we can no more easily escape our past than we can evade death or taxes. We can and should, however, push back harder against this history.
This is why fostering a closer sense of community is so important: everyone has something at stake in the debate over the historically- and culturally-rooted production of sweet wines. One of the biggest surprises of moving to Central New York and getting involved in wine sales was seeing the strength of local demand for sweet wines, and how unapologetic consumers are about their preference for treacle despite the decades-long international trend towards dry table wines. I can’t tell you how many customers have come into the wine shop who tell me they grew up drinking Lake Niagara, switched in early adulthood to Red Cat, and have never moved beyond semi-sweet Rieslings, not even to semi-dry wines. No one at the tasting was shocked, accordingly, when Peter Bell of Fox Run Vineyards acknowledged that his best selling Cab Franc is a back-sweetened red wine blend called Sable. Nor did anyone need to point out the obvious: sweet wines sell well in tasting rooms and at local wine shops, which is why winemakers continue to produce and retailers continue stock these wines
In addition to Peter Bell, a handful of other winemakers who participated in the tasting also produce off-dry red wines. To be fair, these off-dry reds are not the real villains, but are rather reasonably well made, fruit-driven summer wines that compare well with the lower priced dry red blends produced by nearly all Finger Lakes wineries. I myself have enjoyed a chilled glass of Tony’s Red on a hot afternoon, and I neither burst into flames nor have I as yet been tormented by the offended spirits of wine critics past. But we need to be honest and admit a few simple truths. First, despite the progress made over the past 20 years, the Finger Lakes are still awash in sweet wines. More than a few local owners and winemakers suffer from what I call “Red Cat envy,” as evidenced when Dick Reno, the owner of Chateau Lafayette Reneau, told me earlier this summer, and in all seriousness, that Red Cat is the best red wine produced in New York State. Not the most successful red wine, the best red wine. Alternately, one need only visit a warehouse-style discount retailer like Liquor City in Syracuse to see how few fine wines from the Finger Lakes are inventoried in comparison to locally produced plonk.
Second, and of greater import, I believe the region as a whole faces a not-too-distant day of reckoning for this short-sighted pandering to local demand. Here again, we need to be honest. Continued production of so much second-class wine undermines the efforts of forward-thinking winemakers to move the Finger Lakes region beyond its provincial adolescence, to full maturity as a world-class appellation. It may even, eventually damage the reputation of Finger Lakes winemaking beyond repair. All the more reason, then, for the region’s winemakers, retailers, and writers to recognize their interdependence and common purpose, and to find more opportunities to discuss the full range of issues that surround Finger Lakes winemaking, including those market-oriented issues we failed to consider at the tasting, but which profoundly effect us all.
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on July 31, 2009
[Author’s note: Given that this essay is part report and part editorial, I've decided to publish it in two installments. Part Two will be posted in a day or two.]
Winemaking in the Finger Lakes region is at an interesting, if awkward, crossroads, akin to an adolescent caught momentarily between the innocence and exhilaration of a first kiss, and the difficult decisions and delayed gratifications of adulthood. Due largely to the critical and commercial success of Riesling, professional wine writers and local enthusiasts have proclaimed the Finger Lakes a world-class winemaking region capable of competing successfully in the international marketplace, and look expectantly to the production of other fine wines, reds as well as whites, by local wineries. Although I count myself among the region’s most enthusiastic supporters, however, I came away from the Cabernet Franc tasting that took place earlier this week at the New York Wine and Culinary Center, which I helped organize, with mixed feelings, and with a sense that the owners and winemakers of Finger Lake’s wineries face some difficult decisions as the industry continues to mature.
In addition to Riesling, nearly all Finger Lakes wineries produce a range of wines from vinifera varietals. There is a lot of excitement and uncertainty about these varietals: excitement that one of them could emerge as the “next big thing” for Finger Lakes winemakers, comparable to what Pinot Noir has meant for Oregon vintners, Malbec for Argentinian winemakers, or Shiraz (Syrah) for the Australians; and uncertainty about which varietal – specifically which red wine varietal, if any – is best adapted to the Finger Lakes’ soils and microclimates. Some winemakers are zealously devoted to a single varietal, such as Tom Higgins of Heart and Hands Winery, who produces only Pinot Noir (see Jason Feulner’s blog entry on Lenndevours.com for more information about this winery). Other wineries are less willing to bet the farm on a single grape, and produce several dry red table wines, including Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, Cabernet Franc, Bordeaux-style blends or Meritages, Pinot Noir, Lemberger (also known as Blaufrankisch, see Evan Dawson’s video entry on Lenndevours.com for what I see as a meaningless debate about a commercially marginal varietal), as well as a variety of dry and off-dry wines from French-American hybrids.
This is where the idea for the 2007 Cabernet Franc tasting originated. Among winemakers and professional wine writers, there is an emerging consensus that Cabernet Franc may be the red wine varietal best suited to the Finger Lakes region. The 2007 growing season, moreover, was unusually long and hot, and provided growers with some of the best conditions for harvesting fully ripened grapes of the past 20 years. With the 2007 Cab Francs coming to market, it seemed an ideal moment to gather a group of trade professionals – winemakers, food and wine writers and bloggers, and regional wine retailers – to taste the 2007 Cabernet Francs, compare them to Cab Francs from other wine growing regions, and assess and discuss the potential of the varietal for the Finger Lakes region. Evan Dawson, Finger Lakes editor for the New York Cork Report (formerly Lenndevours.com), and Peter Becraft, assistant winemaker at the Anthony Road Wine Company signed on in mid June as co-organizers; Alexa Gifford, Executive Director of the New York Wine and Culinary Center in Canandaigua, generously offered to host the tasting at the NYWCC, and Shannon Brock and Stephanie Wadhams, also of the NYWCC, worked out the details and planned the logistics of the tasting and the follow-up luncheon. By mid-July, an impressive group of winemakers, writers, and retailers had committed to participating in the event.
Winemakers:
Vincent Aliperti, Billsboro
Paul and Shannon Brock, Lamoreaux Landing
Peter Bell, Fox Run
Amy Cheatle and Phil Davis, Damiani
Kim Engle and Debra Bermingham, Bloomer Creek
Morten Hallgren, Ravines
Tom Higgins, Heart and Hands
Bob Madill and Dave Breeden, Sheldrake Point
Fred Merwarth, Hermann J. Wiemer
Johannes Reinhardt and Peter Becraft, Anthony Road
Rob and Kate Thomas, Shalestone
Dave Whiting, Red Newt
Mark Wiltberger, Keuka Spring
Writers and Retailers:
Jennifer Baskerville-Barrows, Cookin’ in the ‘Cuse, Edible Finger Lakes
Andrew Bowman, Andrew’s Wine Cellar, Oswego
Don Cazentre, Syracuse Post-Standard
Matt Christen, The Wine House, Manlius
Evan Dawson, The New York Cork Report
Holly Howell, RIT, Mountain Home Magazine
Rob Lane, Finger Lakes Weekend Wino, Mountain Home Magazine
Tom Mansell, Ithacork
Morgen McLaughlin, Finger Lakes Wine Country
Neil Miller, Stressing the Vine
Thomas Pellechia, VinoFictions
Dale and Allison Record, The Savvy Wine Cellar, Camillus
Gavin Sacks, Cornell University
David Sparrow, Sparrow’s Wines, Ithaca
Tom Tucker, Balloon Juice
Paula Valeri, BDL Wines, Rochester
Jason Wentworth, Northside Wines, Ithaca
As impressive as is this list, it was clear from the beginning that not all winemakers or retailers could participate (the NYWCC Demonstration Room seats 44 people), and that not all of the 2007 Finger Lakes Cab Francs would be sampled and discussed. Several winemakers were suggested who could not be accommodated, and several wines were recommended that were not selected. Altogether, however, I believe that a credible representation was assembled of the region’s trade professionals and 2007 Cab Francs. Evan Dawson, who led the tasting, arranged the tasting in two flights of eight wines each, with an additional flight of six reserve Cab Francs served with lunch.
Flight One.
Red Newt
Lamoreaux Landing
Shalstone
Anthony Road (Cabernet Franc-Lemberger)
Charles Joguet Chinon Clos de la Dioterie (2005)
Sheldrake Point
Ravines
Billsboro
Flight Two.
Weimer
Fox Run
Bloomer Creek
Damiani
Shinn Estate (Long Island)
Dr. Frank
Domaine des Valettes Bourgueil (2005)
Keuka Spring
Luncheon Flight:
Lamoreaux Landing T23
Anthony Road Martini-Reinhardt Selection
Red Newt Glacier Ridge Vineyards
Red Newt Sawmill Creek Vineyards
Charles Joguet Chinon Les Varennes du Grand Clos Franc de Pied (2005)
Sheldrake Point Barrel Reserve
Of the 16 wines poured for the tasting, my personal favorites were, in the order tasted: the Red Newt, Shalestone, Billsboro, Damiani, and Keuka Spring. All of these wines exhibited rich ripe cherry, plum, and berry flavors, with additional aromas and/or flavors of herbs, tobacco and mocha or chocolate. They were all flavorful, well made wines with good balance, concentration, and varietal expression that I would recommend enthusiastically to anyone interested in checking out a good Finger Lakes Cab Franc.
My least favorite wines, to my surprise, turned out to be the Joguet Chinons and the Valettes Bourgueil, which exhibited what the French insist is the unique terroir of their vineyards, but which were simply funky aromas and flavors. And I don’t mean P-Funk, Bootsy Collins, “get down with your bad self” funky, I mean freshly manured farm field, dirty sweat sock funky. Several of the winemakers and the more enologically savvy participants – Gavin Sacks of Cornell University, and Tom Mansell of Ithacork – attributed these off-putting aromas and flavors to “Brett” or brettanomyces, a problematical yeast strain. For my purposes, however, “funky” sufficed. More than I realized, my continued criticism of Parkeresque “fruit bombs,” excessive alcohol levels, and overly ripe wines notwithstanding, my taste has turned decidedly towards clean, fruit-driven, New World winemaking. Here, at least, I found myself in good company, as four of my top rated wines also numbered among the winemakers’ personal favorites (see Evan Dawson’s blog entry on the tasting for a more detailed breakdown of the results).
This is the point with which I want to conclude Part I of my essay. It became clear by the end of the second flight that the Finger Lakes Cab Francs were recognizably distinct from the French wines and the Long Island Cab Franc from Shinn Estates, and possessed general characteristics indicative of an emerging regional identity. In addition to the clean, varietally correct flavors typical of New World winemaking, the Finger Lakes Cab Francs were less deeply extracted (but no less flavorful), a bit lighter in terms of color and weight, tending towards a brilliant ruby garnet and medium body, highly aromatic, and with higher levels of acidity. Several of the wines were overly tannic, but many exhibited surprisingly soft tannins for what are still very young wines, as well as good structure and aging potential. Several participants commented on a lack of balance or overly high acidity in some of the wines, but I didn’t note either of these issues in the better wines. The reserve wines, which I forgot to mention earlier, were also uniformly excellent. The Lamoreaux Landing T23, technically not a reserve bottling but a “Loire style” wine fermented in stainless steel, was deeply fruity, consumer friendly, and very affordable ($14.99). The Red Newt single-vineyard Cab Francs, especially the Sawmill Creek Vineyards bottling, although pricey and a bit hard to find outside of the winery, were world-class wines well worth the effort and expense of tracking them down.
The best Cab Francs from the tasting, accordingly, were outstanding wines, with a weight and texture closer to Pinot Noir than to Cabernet Sauvignon or Merlot. This may be good news for Finger Lakes winemakers if they can figure out how to educate consumers about Cab Franc’s many attractive qualities, and how better to position and promote their Cab Francs in the marketplace. Pinot Noir consumption has been rising steadily for years, and more and more customers come into the wine shop every week seeking classically structured red wines that pair better with food than over extracted fruit bombs. These are big “ifs,” however, and I found little evidence at the tasting that either issue was being adequately addressed. The idea that consumers need simply to “buy more wine,” which was one winemaker’s off-the-cuff response to the topic of over production, is hardly a plausible or practical business strategy.
Next: Part II: There’s the Rub
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on July 27, 2009
Tomorrow, after a month of planning, winemakers from the Finger Lakes, CNY food and wine writers and bloggers, and regional wine retailers will gather at the New York Wine and Culinary Center in Canandaigua, NY to taste, assess, and discuss 2007 Finger Lakes Cabernet Francs and Cab Francs from several other wine growing regions. The tasting will be led by Evan Dawson, Finger Lakes editor for the New York Cork Report (formerly Lenndevours.com), who along with Peter Becraft, assistant winemaker for the Anthony Road Wine Company, and myself, planned and organized the tasting.
Stay tuned for a full report on the results of the tasting later this week, as well as articles and blog entries from other participating journalists and food and wine writers:
Jennifer Baskerville-Barrows, Cookin’ in the ‘Cuse, Edible Finger Lakes
Don Cazentre, Syracuse Post-Standard
Evan Dawson, New York Cork Report
Holly Howell, RIT, Mountain Home Magazine
Rob Lane, Finger Lakes Weekend Wino, Mountain Home Magazine
Tom Mansell, Ithacork
Thomas Pellechia, VinoFictions
Tom Tucker, Balloon Juice
Many of the 2007 Finger Lakes Cab Francs have been released and are becoming more widely available at wine shops. For the past several months, there also has been a fair amount of buzz about, and a number of good reviews of 2007 Finger Lakes Cab Francs. The 2007 Finger Lakes growing season was unusually long and hot, which allowed the red wine varietals extra hang time to fully ripen. Several winemakers have told me that they consider 2007 the best vintage of their red wine varietals in the past 20 years, or in some cases, since they started making wine.
With all this buzz, it has been hard not to get excited about the 2007 vintage, and especially about the Cabernet Franc, which is generally regarded as the vinifera grape varietal best suited to local growing conditions and most likely to produce world-class red wines. The proof, however, is or will be, in the tasting.
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on May 17, 2009
The New York Wine and Culinary Center hosted its third annual Rendezvous with Riesling celebration this past Friday evening, May 15, 2009, at its facility in Canandaigua, NY. About 40 New York State wineries were on hand to sample recent vintages of their Rieslings and other wines, including most Finger Lakes wineries and several winemakers from Long Island, Lake Erie, and the Hudson River region, along with a handful of New York State cheesemakers and food producers. Entertainment was provided by the Brad Batz Group, a jazz ensemble that performed on the second floor balcony.
Before arriving, I decided to forego tasting wines with which I was already familiar, or that we carry at The Savvy Wine Cellar, in order to conserve my palate for less familiar wineries and for the Finger Lakes Library Rieslings tasting. This strategy worked well overall, although I later sadly realized that I neglected to check out the 2006 Tierce at the Fox Run table, which was my only regret of the evening. Of the wines I sampled, I was most impressed with the dry and semi-dry Rieslings of Anthony Road Wine Co. The 2007 Martini-Reinhart Selection Riesling displayed classic Finger Lakes aromas and flavors of citrus and stone fruits, a big, satisfying mouthfeel, crisp minerality, and a long, clean finish. The Anthony Road 2007 Dry Riesling and 2008 Semi-Dry Riesling were also both outstanding, and confirmed for me the very good reviews these wines recently received from the Wine Spectator as well as their top honors at several international wine competitions. I also particularly enjoyed the 2007 and 2008 Rieslings from Standing Stone Vineyards, which were well made, nicely balanced wines that displayed rich, ripe aromas and fruit flavors. The biggest surprise, however, turned out to be the 2007 Keuka Spring Vineyards Gewürtraminer, which delivered a pungent Alsatian-style bouquet of lychee nut and rose petals, backed up with ripe mango and pineapple flavors.
Anthony Road Wine Co. poured my favorite wines of the evening.
The highpoint of the evening was the Finger Lakes Library Rieslings tasting, held in the NYWCC theater, which featured three flights of older Rieslings from Dr. Frank, Herman J. Wiemer, Glenora, Ravines, Fox Run, and Red Newt, along with a panel discussion moderated by Lorraine Hems, a certified Sommelier and full-time instructor in the Hospitality and Service Management Department at the Rochester Institute of Technology. Other panel participants included Evan Dawson, a Finger Lakes correspondent for LENNDEVOURS, the well known weblog on New York State wines; Morten Hallgren, winemaker at Ravines Wine Cellars; and Jason Wentworth of Northside Wine & Spirits in Ithaca.
The Library wines were arranged in three flights, with the oldest wines served first. The first flight consisted of the 1997 Dr. Frank Dry Johannisberg Riesling, and the 2000 and 2001 Glenora Dry Riesling. The 1997 Frank Dry Johannisberg Riesling started off with petrol, caramel, and guava on the nose, before displaying good citrus/tropical fruit flavors with a bit of creme brulee, an unctuous texture balanced nicely against a still bracing acidity, and a long, steely finish. Despite a decade of bottle age, the wine tasted surprisingly youthful. In contrast, the 2000 and 2001 Glenora Dry Rieslings were fast approaching the limits of their maturity. Both wines revealed complex floral bouquets, with the 2000 Dry Riesling offering a softer texture and flavors of apricots and orange pith, while the 2001 Dry Riesling displayed a bit better structure and acidity.
Lorraine Hems leads the panel discussion of Finger Lakes Library Rieslings.
Tasting consecutive vintages of the Glenora Dry Riesling back-to-back engendered a fascinating discussion between Evan Dawson and Morten Hallgren about seasonal variation, viticulture, and winemaking that continued into the second flight, which began with the 2002 and 2003 Red Newt Cellars Riesling Reserve. Although both wines offered floral notes and classic, if somewhat tart lemon-lime flavors, the discussion quickly turned to the noticeable differences between the warm 2002 and the cooler 2003 growing seasons. Even more so than comparison of the wines themselves, the panel discussion, which by now included Red Newt winemaker Dave Whiting, Tricia Renshaw and Peter Bell of Fox Run, and other members of the audience, reinforced my appreciation of Riesling’s unparalleled ability to manifest the circumstances of its production. With the possible exception of Pinot Noir, no other varietal so transparently reveals the complex interrelationship between climate, location, and winemaking style, or more fully rewards intellectual effort and understanding as a condition of its enjoyment.
After the two Red Newt Reserve Rieslings, the second flight concluded with the 2003 Herman J. Wiemer Reserve Dry Johannisberg Riesling. Not surprisingly, the wine was delicious, with a nice balance between its tropical fruit flavors, flinty minerality, and crisp acidity. The final flight consisted of two wines, the 2004 Ravines Dry Riesling, and the 2004 Fox Run Riesling. The 2004 Ravines Dry Riesling already was showing its age, with molasses/burnt sugar on the nose, tart citrus fruit, and some interesting white pepper, ginger, and yeasty notes on the finish (Morten Hallgren later revealed that the wine had been fermented sur lie, which explains the yeastiness). With an enticing bouquet of honeyed apple, lilac, and petrol, and a nice balance between its citrus flavors and stony minerality, the 2004 Fox Run Riesling turned out to be my favorite wine of the Library Rieslings tasting.
NYWCC Executive Chef Carlo Peretti dishes up one of several delicious risottos.
A final word about the evening’s food. Throughout the gala, NYWCC Executive Chef Carlo Peretti and another hardworking, talented young chef served up a series of delicious risottos, the best of which, at least of the dishes I sampled, was a risotto prepared with roasted cauliflower and zucchini. Their efforts, however, constituted the only real effort by the NYWCC to provide “delicious hors d’oeuvres” for the guests’ enjoyment, as per the promotional literature. The rest of the evening’s victuals, which were provided by local and New York State vendors, consisted primarily of pretzels and dips, quarter-sized slices of grilled sausage, and Cheddar cheese, lots and lots of Cheddar cheese. While McCadam, Yancey’s Fancy, and Muranda produce award-winning cheeses, their products may all be found at the local supermarket. Garlic flavored and Extra Sharp Cheddars, moreover, are not the first cheeses that come to mind when pairing cheese with Rieslings, which makes it all the more surprising that none of New York State’s artisanal producers like Old Chatham were present. I, presumably like most of the attendees, came for the Rieslings. The food, however, the excellent risottos notwithstanding, was a disappointment. Certainly, the New York Wine and Culinary Center can and should make a better effort than this for future celebrations of New York State’s outstanding wine and food culture.
Next: Review of the 2005 Heron Hill Ingle Vineyard Riesling