Long Island Wineries Trip – Great Weather, Great Wines
Talk about being lucky. Last year in October we had a great trip to Long Island wine country, enjoying great weather, 2 hours long lunch with good food, wine, and company. We started planning second annual Long Island Wine Country getaway about 3 months ago – we set the weekend, but who can know about the weather? This is why I’m talking about being lucky. Beautiful weather – just look at the picture of the grapes (accidental leftover after the harvest), against the beautiful blue sky… Immaculate.
And there we went. The plan was simple – visit 3 wineries, taste the wines and have lunch with the wines we like. We started with the Lenz Winery, as it was far-most in our plan. Two things were interesting about Lenz Winery – they are well known for their Sparkling wines, and Lenz Merlot was compared with Petrus, one of the best regarded and equally expensive wines in the world (here is the link if you want to read more about Chateau Petrus, Bordeaux wine from Pomerol). The 2004 Sparkling Cuvee, made from 100% Pinot Noir, was nice, yeasty and balanced. Does it worth $30/bottle? Comparing to actual Champagne – may be, comparing with good California Sparkling wines like Chandon or Mumm, or Gruet from New Mexico – probably not. As for 2002 Old Vines Merlot, the one which should be compared with Petrus – I never had Petrus, so I’m not qualified to make any comparisons. I can only state that I didn’t like that Merlot at all.
The next stop was Jamesport winery. One of the driving forces behind our choice of wineries was a post in Wall Street Journal wine blog by Jay McInerney, where he was talking about tasting great Petit Verdot and other good wines at Jamesport and Paumanok wineries. Since we were planning to have lunch at Paumanok anyway, and Jamesport was around the corner, it was easy to decide that we want to taste the same wines.
I’m glad we stopped at the Jamesport. I chose Estate Series tasting flight out of many others available, and I can tell you that it was one of the very few experiences where I liked each and every wine in the flight. Reserve Chardonnay 2007, Reserve Sauvignon Blanc 2007, Riesling 2009, Pinot Noir “Sarah’s Hill” 2007, Estate Merlot Block “E” 2005, Syrah MTK 2007 and Melange de Trois 2005 – all were very good wines. One minor disappointment was the fact that Sauvignon Blanc 2009, highly regarded in James McInerney’s article, was sold out. As we were explained, 2009 was a difficult vintage, and only 350 cases of 2009 Jamesport Sauvignon Blanc were produced, so it is not surprising that it was sold out. But then I have to mention an absolute highlight of the trip. We decided to try Petit Verdot Reserve 2007 – at $100/bottle, the tasting of this wine costs $10 for 3 oz pour, but still, looking for the experience we decided to go ahead and try it. This was one of the best $10 spent on the wine ever – luscious, multi-layered fruit, amazing balance of tannins and acidity and great mid-palate density! Considering my rating system, this was definitely a 9 – and I wish I would have a budget to put a few bottles in my cellar – this wine will evolve amazingly over the next 10-15 years.
The next stop was Paumanok winery, where we finally had our lunch.
We didn’t do tasting flight there, as everybody was already quite hungry, instead, we got a bottle of Rose, and a bottle of Riesling, and 
Paumanok Cabernet Franc 2007. Unfortunately, we couldn’t escape our dose of disappointment here as well, as Paumanok Petit Verdot 2007 ($60), lauded the most in Jay McInerney’s article, was sold out! At least the Cabernet Franc 2007, also highly mentioned in the article, was available ( good value at $24.50). The Cab Franc was very nice, with a refreshing tartness, layers of restrained fruits and medium body – it was simple and pleasant to drink.
The grapes are already harvested on Long Island so the new vintage will be on the way.
The weather is still warm so you can enjoy yourself in the Long Island Wine Country. This year, or the next year, and many years after – the wines are only getting better. Get your friends together and go out and play…
Daily Glass: Claraval, Another Dangerous Wine
In one of the previous posts, I came up with the term “dangerous wine” – the wine which is so smooth and so good, once you start drinking it, you pretty much can’t put the glass down until the wine is all gone. Here comes the second wine from Spain which I also have to declare “dangerous”.
It is called Claraval and it is coming from the Calatayud region. This wine is a blend of four grapes – Garnacha (50%), Tempranillo (20%), Cabernet Sauvignon (20%) and Syrah (10%). The wine has sour cherries on the nose, and it opens up into a beautiful array of spices and fruit, with earthy notes coming through, all complemented by balancing acidity and tannins. If anything, this wine is reminiscent of good Southern Rhone wines (which is not surprising as it shares the same main grape, Grenache, known as Garnacha in Spain), but it definitely has its own character. Judging by the mid-palate weight and tannins, this wine will also do well in the cellar – and I was glad to see that Robert Parker think the same, giving this wine 91 rating and saying that wine will evolve all the way into 2020.
So, how much do you think such wine should cost? Nope, it is not $30, which would not be surprising at such a level of quality, it is only… $11.99, so it definitely has very high QPR. This is definitely the wine to buy by the case.
And now, it is time for the verdict (of course you already guessed it):
Drinkability: 8
What is next? The trip to Long Island wineries, which is almost a annual tradition by now – a trip to Long Island wineries in the Fall, when it is already not hot, and still very beautiful. Off we go (well, the team members have to wake up first). Report to follow…
American Wine Consumer Coalition
Whether you are a wine lover or not, if you use any of the social media tools (I’m assuming you are if you are reading this text), such as Facebook or Twitter, I’m sure that you came across the picture below, at least once:
Exactly as the name says, this is an undertaking by Tom Wark (here is the link to Tom’s blog, Fermentation), who is putting a lot of efforts in defending the rights of all the wine drinkers in United States.
Believe it or not, but despite tremendous increase in popularity of wine in United States, all the wine consumers still have to deal with the laws stemming from the Prohibition era when it comes to access to one of the most noble and oldest (after the water) beverages on Earth. A few years back, many states started to change their laws in favor of the consumers, allowing interstate wine shipments (in other words, allowing consumers to pay less and get the wine the want). As of recent, HR 5034 was introduced in Congress, greatly threatening to again limit consumer’s access to wine to protect big businesses with big pockets. Tom Wark put a lot of efforts to defeat HR 5034, and he created American Wine Consumer Coalition to help all the wine lovers to protect their rights to get the wine they want at the prices which make sense.
If you like wine – protect your rights, join the AWCC and make your voice heard!
Can Angry Chef Make Good Food?
This is the sign I came across yesterday while in Los Angeles, in the Westin hotel. Seeing that chef is angry beg the question – how should the food taste like when the chef is angry? Does it help to make it better or will it be worse? The place was closed, so I was trying to find an answer on internet. I found web site for Angry Chef Grill, but it only offers an option of downloading the menu (which looks Italian and decent enough). Further search on Internet yielded some reviews on Yelp (again, quite decent), but didn’t help to solve the mystery of the name. If you know where the name came from or had being to that restaurant – please share your story…
Cafe Pinot in Los Angeles – a Delightful Experience!
Don’t know about you, but when I visit restaurants at home or being on the family trip, I usually like to do my homework and know where I’m going and why (which is still no guarantee of a great experience, though). When traveling on business, I usually leave it up to luck. And sometimes that works quite well, as in the case of the Cafe Pinot in Los Angeles.
Let’s start with wine. I really liked wine list – very well organized, and while it had good number of wines, it was easy to navigate – and it had a lot of good wines in the sub $50 category, which is always great. I also was happy to learn later on that I’m not the only one who liked Cafe Pinot’s wine list – restaurant holds Wine Spectator’s Restaurant Award!
We chose Turley Old Vines Zinfandel 2008 ( $68), simply because Turley Zinfandels are typically 1. good wines and 2. rare and hard to find, on wine lists or in the stores. We were very happy with the choice – this was a beautifully structured wine with all the Zinfandel fruitiness and acidity being in full balance ( I would put my Drinkability rating at 8). Also 15.6% ABV was completely unnoticed, at least until later.
As we were explained by our friendly waitress, the menu is updated all the time with focus on fresh local ingredients. I believe today a lot of places advertise the same approach, but I’m not sure if all those places can execute on it as masterfully as Cafe Pinot. For starter I had a very interesting dish, called “Study of farmers’ market beets”:
The dish included red, white and yellow beets complemented by ruby grapefruit, pistachio, Humboldt Fog goat cheese and watercress – for someone who likes to experiment with food taste combinations – almost a heaven!
Then comes an entree – striped bass“en papillotte” with cioppino broth, accompanied by Dungeness crab, fennel, tomatoes, basil infused risotto:
This dish starts with the beautiful presentation, when the paper (“en papillotte”) is cut in front of you after plate is delivered to the table, so this way none of the enticing flavors can escape before the time. Again, great dish with great combination of flavors (risotto’s texture – ahh!).
To end this story (and, probably, you drooling over it), if you are a foodie – or even not, and you are heading to Los Angeles – make sure you will not miss great experience at Cafe Pinot.
Treble Journey: Caino Blanco and Sultanina, Grapes #267 and #268
Well, my “secret” post will not be happening – I was hoping to attend a big tasting event and try wines from Staglin, one of the “cult” producers from California, but that didn’t work out, hence it is only a quick update on a progress of a Treble Journey.
Two new grapes – one of them is called Caino Blanco, and it is an indigenous grape from Spain which is sometimes is blended with Spanish great white grape called Albariño. Albariño makes very nice white wines, with good acidity and fresh citrus notes on the palate, perfect for a summer day and a wide variety of food. This Do Zoe Albariño 2009 from Rias Baixas in Spain is a blend of 5 different grapes and it is no exception in the “nice wines” group.
Another wine is white wine coming from the CottonWood Creek Cellars in California. CottonWood Creek Cellars White Table Wine 2009 is 100% certified organic wine, made from the blend of 3 different organic grapes – Sultanina (59%), French Colombard (34%) and Muscat (7%). It was a very interesting wine, delivering different expressions at a different temperature, and it was even more interesting at room temperature, delivering fresh grapes aromas with good depth.
All in all, I’m advancing further towards the goal, and have a good chance to cross soon into “last 30”.
Until the next time – cheers!
Cakebread Cellars Tasting at Stew Leonard’s Wines
And again I have to thank Stew Leonard’s Wines folks for a free education session. This Friday and Saturday (October 1st and 2nd) you can try three different wines from the Cakebread Cellars. Cakebread cellars is a well regarded producer from Napa Valley in California, so I definitely was interested in experiencing their wines.
Two whites and one red were presented, all classical wines from Napa Valley – Sauvignon Blanc 2008, Chardonnay 2009 and Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, and I tasted them in this exact order. Just to share an overall expression – there are good wines, but I didn’t like them, especially taking into account QPR (Quality Price Ratio), a very popular metric used nowadays among wine aficionados. Sauvignon Blanc has a very nice nose, but on the palate it lacks the acidity, and while it finishes with the fresh cut grass (classic Sauvignon Blanc characteristic), the sensation is too warm and a bit burning. Considering this wine retails for $29.99, I would gladly take any time New Zealanad Sauvignon Blanc instead at $10 to $15 a bottle.
Chardonnay simply didn’t do anything for me. It is very young, somewhat of a Chablis style, but it was missing steely acidity of Chablis. I understand it is 2009, and it might need more time to evolve, but at $39.99 there are so many more better choices, I wouldn’t even go there.
And then the Cabernet Sauvignon, the king of Napa Valley wines – beautiful nose of classic cab, but no mid-palate weight and in general, not enough substance on the palate. At $74, it is really not a player – if not under $20, in the $30 – $40 category there are soooo many better choices…
To conclude, these Cakebread wines are definitely worth trying – and learning. I also have to tell you ( but it is a secret), that tomorrow I plan to try some very interesting wines – and I promise to report on that later on!
Food, Wine and Finger Lakes
It seems that I’m looking at good prospects of visiting Finger Lakes region of New York quite often over the next four years ( my daughter just started a college there), so I’m gladly taking the opportunity to talk about food and wine in that beautiful part of the country. Finger Lakes region is well known for its multiple wine trails. For a long time, the region was mostly known for it’s Riesling wines, and then white wines, such as Chardonnay and Gewurztraminer, now it is slowly changing with the grapes such as Cabernet Franc, Chambourcin, Baco Noir producing interesting wines.
I have to admit that visiting wineries was not the main purpose of this trip, so with this post, I would like to mostly share the experience around the food. Outside of Panera Bread which is consistently good no matter where you go ( I would personally go as far as declaring it the best implementation of “slow food” in the fast food setting), we visited two other places. First, we had dinner at the restaurant at the Inn called Rogue’s Harbor Inn (it is Bed and Breakfast place). Overall all the food was consistently good, with the focus on local ingredients. The only surprise ( in a bad way) was the smallest fried calamari appetizer I ever saw. All the entrees were done very well, so here are some pictures:
Wild Mushroom Ravioli (great mushroom flavors):
Chevon sausage with greens ( local sausage):
Three cheese Chicken Parmesan:
Scallops Solera:
Few notes about the wine: it was great to see a wine list fully composed of local wines – I think it is great when local 
food is complemented by the local wine. We chose Long Point Ciera Rose 2009, simple and pleasant wine, as it was working well with the variety of dishes we ordered.
Another place we stopped at was Castel Grisch winery. Located in a very picturesque place, the winery offers magnificent views of the lake and surroundings. As we made it to the winery, of course, I had to try the wines. I did try most of the wines, except the ice wines, and unfortunately, I didn’t find anything I like, except Gewurztraminer 2007, which was actually done in Alsace style – dry wine with very nice floral and spice expressions. In addition to the winery, Castel Grisch also operates a very nice restaurant, with a good selection of sandwiches and hearty soups, such as Hungarian goulash soup. I would definitely come back there for the food, but most likely not for the wine.
This would effectively conclude the post. As we had good success with the food, I will make an effort to find good wines – I’m sure I will, as I have plenty of time… And until later – Cheers!
Rogues’ Harbor Inn
2079 East Shore Drive
PO Box 97
Lansing NY 14882
607-533-3535
http://roguesharbor.com/
Stew Leonard’s Wines: Meeting Winemaker Chester Osborn
A few times lately I have come across blog posts talking about too many wines on the shelves of the stores and poor consumers being intimidated and having troubles to find what they want. Quite honestly, I find this annoying – I believe convincing consumers that they should be intimidated is the wrong thing to do. Why am I annoyed with this? Very simple. Today, you need a very few things to navigate the world of wine and feel comfortable. One is desire to learn (if someone doesn’t want to learn, it makes no sense to complain that one can not). Learning about wines simply means trying them and making an effort to remember what you like and what you don’t. Another helpful thing – finding a good wine store.
There are quite a few good wine stores where I live – I do plan to write a separate blog post (or may be a few) covering some of those in more detail. One of such good wine stores is Stew Leonard’s Wines in Norwalk, CT. What makes the wine store “good”? It is easy to navigate, it has helpful and knowledgeable personnel, and it is helping you to learn about wines. You got all of that at Stew Leonard’s Wines – easy to navigate, helpful staff and great education. What do I mean by education? When it comes to wines, education consist of learning about wines and tasting them. One of the ultimate forms of “education” then is when you can learn from the best and taste excellent wine – and did I mention that it is usually free? Yep, it is free and available, almost every Friday and Saturday, again, thanks to the folks at Stew Leonard’s Wines. Every Friday and and Saturday, you can come to the store for the wine tasting, and if you are lucky – you will also learn from the winemaker, as it was the case last Friday, September 24th , when Chester Osborn, winemaker of the famed Australian winery, d’Arenberg, was presenting his wines.
d’Arenberg produces quite a few different wines in the McLaren Vale region in the South Australia, of course with Shiraz being a star grape. Five different wines were presented at the tasting. First, Lightly Oaked Chardonnay – it is actually very nice and simple, with clear fruit and light oak expression. Then comes The Stump Jump 2008, which is also should be known at GSM. GSM stands for Grenache, Shiraz and Mourvèdre, and it is a blend modeled after wines from Southern Rhone. It is also interesting to note that Friday, September 24th was the First International Grenache Day which was proudly stressed by Chester holding up the bottle of GSM. Stump Jump is a very nice and approachable wine with great and powerful fruit expression. The next wine was classic The Footbolt Shiraz 2007 (Footbolt actually was the name of the horse), nicely showing spicy bouquet of MacLaren Vale’s shiraz (need my rack of lamb wit that one). And then the flagship Dead Arm Shiraz 2006 – great wine which will need another 15-20 years to be enjoyed fully, very earthy and dense, drinkable now, but boy, will it evolve! In case anyone wonders, the Dead Arm has nothing to do with human body parts – the name is related to the grapevine disease, which can kill part of the plant, producing “dead arm”, or a “dead branch” – in this case the grapes on the surviving part have very high flavor concentration.
And last wine presented was Sticky Chardonnay – beautiful desert wine, made from Chardonnay grapes, exhibiting honey and white peaches notes, all with nice minerals, acidity and green apple bite. At $9.99, the wine of such quality is a pure steal. All in all, it was a pleasure meetings Chester d’Arenberg Osborn, learning from him and experiencing his wines.
To complete the story, I would like to include a picture of the great folks from Stew Leonard’s Wines, including Stew Leonard Jr. himself:
Going back to where we started – it is not difficult to learn about wines today – all you have to do is make an effort. As one of my teachers was saying, when the student is ready, the teacher will come…
Can Wine Tasting Be Double Blind?
Can wine tasting be double-blind? You think this is a misnomer, right? Let me explain myself. The basic premise of the “blind” wine tasting is that the taster has no idea what is he or she is dealing with, and by using swirling, sniffing, gargling and any other techniques should identify grape (or grapes), the place where the wine was made, and ideally the producer and the year. For the example of amazing blind tasting I have to refer you to the movie Bottle Shock (if you are into wines, definitely worth watching).
In general, tasting wines 100% blind is rare. What I mean is that even in the case of the blind tasting, there are some limiting factors which help you to identify the wine. For instance, when the wines are tasted blind for Wine Spectator ratings, usually the territory and a year and well known (and the goal of the tasting is simply to rate the wines as good and bad, not to identify grapes and producer). Even when I was tasting the wines for the Certified Sommelier exam (for more info – see About section), it was known that there will be no Pinot Grigio in the glass and grape choices would be really limited.
So what would I call a double-blind wine tasting? I was asked to taste home made wine and provide my opinion. I was asked a number of times and couldn’t refuse. I do call this double-blind – all I know is that the wine is made at home of someone leaving in Connecticut, and I don’t even know if it is made out of grapes or may be berries? Of course the whole purpose of this exercise was only to say whether I like the wine or not (no need to identify producer and the year 🙂 ), but who doesn’t want to play detective in such a case? Yes, I want to guess the grapes, and I want to guess it right!
While sharing my detailed tasting notes is really useless, as absolute majority of my readers will never taste this wine, I would like to still share a short summary. First and foremost, I did like it! I honestly don’t classify myself as a wine snob – I would gladly drink two buck chuck, as long as it tastes good. But I had a lot of home-made wines before – they are all sweet concoctions, mostly made out of fruit with addition of powerful alcohols – so they really have nothing to do with actual grape wines. This wine actually looked, smelled and tasted good, so here my notes, for what it worth:
Color: dark garnet.
Nose: wine opened with freshly squeezed berries, like raspberries and blueberries, complemented by lime zest.
Palate: very nice fruit (again raspberries, blueberries, ripe plums, some tropical fruit – very unusual for red wine), complemented with vibrant acidity and good tannins.
As you can see, it is a description of a very nice wine – and it was very nice indeed. So was it perfect? Well, it took me some time to realize what this wine was lacking. It was lacking place. There was no notion of terroir, no earth and no minerals. This wine can be from anywhere (and being made in Connecticut, it definitely is). Again, the wine was very drinkable, and a lot of commercially made wine have no notion of place whatsoever – but I think this is something to note when tasting the wine, so here it is.
What would you put as a grape(s) under such description? My top guess is Zinfandel, and if not, my next guess is Syrah. I don’t know the right answer, and I promise to share it – once I will find out.
And as I mentioned before – blind tasting is fun! Get your friends together and play the wine detectives game – I guarantee you a great time!
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