Posted by Neil Brody Miller on August 20, 2010
Author’s Note: This article was published concurrently on the Farmshed Nation blog.
Megan Schader of Wake Robin Farm, with her herd of pasture-raised Jersey cows.
I travel a lot to local farms, farmers markets and related businesses, and I do my best when visiting these locations to arrive with as few preconceptions as possible. Ideally, I want to view each farm or business on its own terms, rather than in terms of my expectations. Philosophers call these expectations presuppositions, and on some level they are inescapable; the process of interpreting and making an experience meaningful begins well before the experience itself. Still, armed with this insight, I try to keep my expectations in check.
I was reminded of how difficult putting ideals into practice can be on a recent visit to Wake Robin Farm, a dairy farm and cheesemaker in Jordan, NY. Wake Robin Farm enjoys an enviable position among Syracuse-area farms. Their premium, natural cow’s milk products, especially their yogurts, are highly regarded by consumers and widely available at local grocery stores, including eleven Wegmans locations, Green Hills Market, the Syracuse Real Food Coop and Natur-Tyme. This widespread appreciation and distribution, along with Wake Robin’s distinctive branding, led me to assume that they were a relatively large-scale operation, if not on par with commercial dairy farms than at least recognizably similar to them.
The first sign that something was wrong was when I drove past the farm looking for an operation that matched my expectations. I failed, however, to heed this warning. When I finally pulled onto the property what I saw made little sense: there was an old barn edging slowly towards ruin; and a newer, smaller building that turned out to be the farm store and production facility. But no mountains of silage, no heavy machinery, no modern milking facility – the milk is transported in 10 gallon jugs from the barn to the creamery – and no sight or smell of the big herd I presumed I would find.
The farm store at Wake Robin Farm.
While I was sorting this out, I was greeted by Megan Schader, who along with her husband Bruce owns and operates the farm. Wake Robin Farm, that is, is a two-person, family-run operation (three persons if you count the Schader’s son, Hugh). While much of the land has been in Bruce’s family for generations, Megan and Bruce first began farming in 1999 and only converted to dairy production in 2006. At present, they tend a herd of 25 Jersey cows, a smaller breed than the ubiquitous Holsteins, that produce milk with a high butterfat content and more milk solids, which makes them ideal for crafting rich, delicious whole milk products.
The Schader’s cows are pasture raised and grass fed, with grain from Lakeview Organic Grain in Penn Yan supplementing their winter diet of locally grown organic hay. During grazing season, the herd rotates twice daily onto fresh pasture, is milked twice a day, and produces about 450-500 gallons of milk per week. Dairy production and cheese making occur four days a week, with the milk pasteurized but not homogenized. While the farm’s milk and yogurts are distributed regionally, their cheeses and Cheddar cheese curds are sold exclusively at the farm store and the Central NY Regional Market.
Bruce Schader in the creamery at Wake Robin Farm.
I don’t mean to give these facts short shrift. I was fascinated by the creamery, with its stainless steel tanks and arcane technology, and barely able to follow Bruce’s explanation of the cheese-making process; how different cultures and bacteria produce different cheeses and dairy products, how the various hard cheeses – the Schaders produce four varieties of hard cheese – require specific handling, humidity, aging, etc. But I am still hung up on the modest size of the Schader’s operation relative to the success Wake Robin Farm enjoys in the marketplace, and what this says about small-scale farming – or, more specifically, about successful small-scale farming – in the 21st century.
Bruce and his artisanal cheeses, in Wake Robin Farm's aging room.
Here, in no particular order, are a couple of thoughts:
1. Wake Robin Farm does one thing, and only one thing, exceptionally well, which is produce natural, whole milk dairy products. Megan and Bruce initially grew vegetables and even experimented with a CSA. But when they decided in 2006 to shift to dairy farming, they gave up growing vegetables and concentrated exclusively on dairy production. This single-mindedness goes against a certain contemporary school of thought, which says that small, independent farmers can and should try their hand at everything, raising livestock and poultry, planting fruits and vegetables, producing honey and maple syrup, baking breads and making jams and jellies, etc.
I’m not saying this approach can’t succeed; there are any number of paths to success and every farmer or food producer needs to figure out what works for him- or herself. But there is a certain undeniable wisdom in the adage that a jack of all trades is master of none. Those artisan farmers who by popular consensus set the standard of excellence in Central New York for a specific crop or product: Alambria Springs Farm for their salad greens; The Piggery for their pork products; Lively Run Goat Farm for their goat’s milk cheeses; Wake Robin Farm for their cow’s milk yogurts – the list goes on – dedicate themselves to, and excel at producing one product, or group of products, and are content to leave the rest of the food universe to other producers and their respective passions.
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Wake Robin Farm's "Alpine" cheeses - Floradell & Mona Lisa - in the aging room.
Wake Robin Farm's Cheddar cheeses, aging gracefully.
2. Wake Robin Farm, however, is much more than a small, specialized farm. It also is a successful brand in a crowded, competitive marketplace, with an enviable reputation and readily identifiable packaging that consumers can spot well before they reach the dairy case. Which is to say, the Schaders also are savvy businesspeople who understand the importance of brand management, marketing, and value-added food production for the long term viability of their farm.
In the 21st century, business acuity seems essential to the survival of independent farming, and by extension to the continued well being of local food cultures and economies. Thanks largely to the popularity of CSAs and farmers markets, many Central New York farmers have already become successful direct-market vendors. Given the relative ease of starting up an Internet business, the ready availability of local resources like Nelson Farms and the Syracuse Community Test Kitchen, run by my friend Marty Butts, and the growth of direct-market distributors like CNY Bounty, Garden Gate, the Foodshed Buying Club, and Nom Nom, many more farmers, I suspect, will also become value-added producers.
Neither I nor anyone else should be surprised, accordingly, when we come across a small family farm that has successfully developed, branded, and marketed an exceptional product. Success stories like Wake Robin Farm, in fact, may soon become commonplace. The cream is once again rising to the top in Central New York, and nowhere, literally, is this more evident than at Wake Robin Farm.
Wake Robin Farm is located at 177 Brutus Road in Jordan, NY. Their farm store is open everyday from 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM, April 1 to December 31. They also can be found Saturdays at the Central NY Regional Market, in “C’ shed from May through October, and “A” shed from November through April. Although their yogurts are available for sale in Syracuse-area Wegmans, the Green Hills Market, the Syracuse Real Food Coop, and Natur-Tyme, their artisanal cheeses and Cheddar cheese curds can only be purchased at the farm store and the Regional Market. For more information, visit the Wake Robin Farm website.
Posted by Neil Brody Miller on August 5, 2010
It seems quintessentially American to believe that too much of a good thing is never enough. As a result, our cars, houses, debts, meals and waistlines have gotten ever larger, though the Great Recession has momentarily curbed our excesses. The obscene genius of KFC’s Double Down, however, and the popularity of television programs like Man v. Food, which glorifies gluttony as conspicuous consumption, suggest that many Americans still see More is Better as a constitutional right.
From this perspective, the banh mi sandwich at Syracuse’s Ky Duyen Cafe seems downright un-American. I don’t say this because it is a culinary import of Syracuse’s Vietnamese immigrant community, although I suspect that members of this nation’s resurgent nativist movement would see it as such (their ideological great-grandaddies weren’t called the Know Nothings for nothing). What I mean is that something so small and deceptively simple, so meticulously crafted from fresh, flavorful ingredients into a complex, subtle, and stunningly delicious meal, cuts deeply against the grain of American eating habits.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I need to thank Don Cazentre, The Post-Standard’s food and wine columnist, for bringing the Ky Duyen Cafe to my attention. I thought I already knew all of Syracuse’s Vietnamese restaurants, but somehow I missed the Ky Duyen despite having driven past the cafe on numerous occasions. It won’t take me long to make up for my mistake, however, because hands down this is one of the tastiest sandwiches in Syracuse. It is a symphony of delicately layered, alternately harmonious and contrasting flavors.
I refer readers to Don Cazentre’s April 21, 2010 review for details about the Ky Duyen Cafe, its owner Dung Vu, and its remarkable banh mi sandwich. Very briefly, the sandwich consists of tiny portions of pork liver paté, barbequed pork, sliced roast pork, cucumber, cilantro, chilis and pickled daikon and carrots, layered into a crusty Italian hard roll baked for the cafe by Nino’s Italian Bakery on Lodi Street.
I love this last fact, this meeting of disparate immigrant cultures, not only because it testifies to the humanitarianism of Syracuse’s Catholic Charities and North Side community, which has welcomed large numbers of Vietnamese and other Southeast Asian immigrants into their midst, but also because it bears witness to the cultural possibilities of a pluralistic, open society (yeah, I’m thinking of SB 1070, and the reactionary zealots who support it and so much else that is small-minded, ill-informed, ungenerous, and bigoted in our society).
All this, from a small, deceptively simple sandwich served in an unassuming neighborhood cafe. Unexpectedly deep thoughts, and a heightened awareness of how our most mundane decisions – what do I want for lunch? – connect to the biggest issues of the day.
The Ky Duyen Cafe is located at 488 N. Salina Street, at the intersection of N. Salina Street and Butternut Street. The banh mi sandwich and a can of tamarind soda came to $6.00, roughly the same as a McDonald’s combo meal. If you need any more incentive to check out the cafe, consider that banh mi is the only food they serve. I asked for a menu after I ordered my meal and was greeted with bemused stares, because there is no menu. And I’m not even sure of the cafe’s hours, when asked I was told simply that they closed when they ran out of food. How cool is that?
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 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 February 13, 2010
Over the past year, Lemberger, also known as Blaufrankisch, has received a surprising amount of attention from wine writers and bloggers, especially given the fact that the grape is virtually unknown to American consumers. New York Times wine columnist Eric Asimov recently blogged about a Blaufrankisch tasting organized by David Schildknecht of the Wine Advocate and eRobertParker.com, who has taken the lead in promoting Blaufrankisch and other Austrian wines. Readers of the New York Cork Report (formerly Lenndevours.com), moreover, may recall that the 2007 Keuka Spring Vineyards Lemberger was named one of the NYCR’s Wines of 2009, and that Evan Dawson and Lenn Thompson posted several pieces on whether Finger Lakes winemakers should continue to market the varietal as Lemberger or switch their labeling to Blaufrankisch.
When I first heard this buzz, I thought it was much ado about nothing, as I saw little interest among consumers in Lemberger or Blaufrankisch, and even less likelihood that the varietal would catch on and compete successfully against up-and-coming international superstars like Carmenere or Nero d’Avola. I’ve given the matter a bit more thought, however, and I’ve come to better appreciate why Finger Lakes winemakers are and should be interested in Lemberger and other lesser known varietals. What Lemberger offers winemakers is an opportunity to experiment, both in the vineyard and in the winery, to see how well the grape performs given the region’s difficult climate and short growing season, and what flavors, textures, and structure can be coaxed from the wine using different winemaking techniques – cold stabilization, stainless steel versus barrel fermentation, etc. And a winemaker interested in experimentation, I’ve concluded, is a winemaker interested in learning more about his or her craft, which is a good thing for anyone interested in Finger Lakes wines.
And yet, my initial point still stands, which is, virtually speaking, that far more ink has been spilt about Lemberger than the wine itself (this review ironically being a case in point). Wine writers understandably want to taste everything, and generally are as interested in winemaking, at least in terms of the fruit of the winemaker’s labors, as winemakers themselves. Correctly predicting the Next Big Thing, whether it be an obscure grape varietal or an emerging winegrowing region, also earns one bragging rights and pays other professional dividends. Hence, all the chatter in the past few years about Pinotage, Hungarian and Greek wines, German and Alsatian Pinot Noir, and other wines that few consumers seem to care much about.
Lemberger too, seems destined to fall into this category, despite its suitability to the Finger Lakes region,. And in terms of flavor profile and pricing (the wine lists for $18,99, and I paid $15.99 at a local wine shop), there are valid reasons for it doing so. What I liked most about the 2007 Keuka Spring Vineyards Lemberger was how unapologetically European it tasted out of the bottle. When I think of European-inspired wines from the Finger Lakes, I turn first to the Rieslings produced by Dr. Konstantin Frank, and then to the fiercely dry red and white wines produced by Morten Hallgren of Ravines Wine Cellars. Yet, the meaty, gamey aromas wafting from my glass of Keuka Spring Lemberger suggest that Mark Wiltberger, the winemaker at Keuka Spring, also looks to the Old World for inspiration. In fact, if I hadn’t known what I was drinking, I almost certainly would have pegged this wine as a Chinon or another Loire Valley red.
That’s the good news. After these impressive aromas, however, which were followed by the cherry, berry and black pepper flavors for which the varietal is known, the wine quickly lost my interest, and is likely destined to end its days in a stew pot alongside some mirepoix, stew meat, and Hungarian sweet paprika, which, not surprisingly given the wine’s popularity in Central and Eastern Europe, is the spice with which this varietal seems most compatible.
Heron Hill’s winemaker, Thomas Laszlo, got it exactly right, accordingly, when he described Lemberger/Blaufrankisch as tasting like “a Syrah with a Burgundian profile.” That might sound like an interesting combination, but I found the wine to be somewhat one dimensional, and lacking in fruit and weight from the mid-palate to its rather abrupt finish. Paired with the right dish, such as goulash or beef Stroganoff, or perhaps with roasted duck or goose, where the wine’s naturally high acidity and unusual salinity would cut against the fattiness and rich flavors, this wine might really shine. Lemberger might accordingly find its raison d’etre as a specialized, niche wine that pairs well with game and Central or Eastern European cuisine. But the Next Big Thing, as several wine writers and Finger Lakes winemakers have predicted? I think not.
The disconnect between the prognostications of wine professionals and the realities of the market highlight once again the difficulty many winemakers and wine writers have in seeing things from the consumer’s perspective. Undoubtedly, a handful of dedicated vinophiles sought out the top-rated examples of Austrian Blaufrankish after reading Asimov and Schildknecht’s reviews, and perhaps a determined fan or two of Finger Lakes wines ponied up $35.00 for a bottle of Heron Hill’s 2007 Reserve Blaufrankisch after reading Evan’s piece in the NYCR. In the mean time, however, Chilean winemakers sold millions of dollars of Carmenere to American consumers, not because of media hype, but because they produced stunningly good wines, including many Reservas, for under $15.00 a bottle. The same holds true for the dramatic uptick of interest in Portuguese wines. American wine drinkers are voting once again with their dollars, this time for world-class red wines with names they cannot pronounce, made from native Portuguese varietals few Americans have ever heard of or feel compelled to learn about, that cost around $10.00 a bottle.
So I say again, I think the discussion about whether these wines should be labeled Lemberger or Blaufrankisch, along with the complaint that Lemberger sounds too much like and is unfairly associated with Limburger, the smelly German cheese, are silly distractions that further alienate winemakers from the retail market. If Finger Lakes winemakers can produce a competitively priced, world-class table wine from the varietal, consumers will buy it regardless of what it is called. If not, they should continue to experiment with the varietal for their own purposes, follow Thomas Laszlo’s lead in producing small quantities of high priced Blaufrankisch for the cognoscenti, and look elsewhere for a red wine suited to the Finger Lakes region that can compete successfully for a fair share of the American market. To that end, my money and my best hopes remain pinned on Pinot Noir.
I intended this piece to be a relatively straightforward wine review, not a rant about Finger Lakes winemaking, so before concluding I want to say a few more positive things about the 2007 Keuka Spring Lemberger and about Keuka Spring Vineyards, because neither the wine nor the winery fairly deserve to bear the brunt of my criticism. For starters, anyone interested in tasting a Finger Lakes wine with a clear sense of terroir should check out this wine, which reveals a definite sense of the vineyards and the region where the grapes were grown. The same is true for Keuka Spring’s Gewurztraminer, which I first tasted not long after moving to upstate New York, and which remains one of my favorite examples of a Finger Lakes Gewurztraminer.
Second, there is a lot to like in this wine, from the low 12.5% alcohol level and high acidity, cold climate characteristics that make the wine ideal for pairing with rich dishes or creamy sauces, to the medium body and supple tannins, which are very reminiscent of Pinot Noir. Lemberger has been described as a cross between Pinot Noir and Gamay, and were it not for the wine’s Syrah-like black pepper note, the description would be apt. As noted earlier, I personally have problems with this wine’s flavor profile and with its price, and am likely to look elsewhere for wines better suited to my taste and budget. But I look forward nonetheless to seeing how the story of Lemberger/Blaufrankisch unfolds in the Finger Lakes (Evan Dawson says that Keuka Spring will begin labeling their wine Blaufrankisch, beginning presumably with the 2008 vintage), and to tasting more of these wines when the opportunity arises.
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