As the year progresses it is slowly becoming more and more obvious to me that my hobby of wine blogging is going to be hurting. The time commitment that blogging is will easily get in the way of work. I hate it when work gets in the way of life. So, I will definite keep blogging and tasting and writing. I just might not have the luxury of posting something on my blog as often as I would like.
That being said, lets dive into the topic: Drink Local. Lenn loves this topic, mostly because it allows him to write about the wines he covers anyway, and forces those of us in the New York area to taste and write about New York wines.
Not that I can blame the guy. Some of these wines are damn tasty!
The rub with this topic is that Lenn also wanted us to go out and visit the winery that we write about. Something I would have loved to have done, but there was just no way I was getting out to Long Island, the Hudson Valley, or the Finger Lakes. It just did not happen.So, I did the next best thing, tasted (tasted... who am I kidding... guzzled!) a wine from a winery I had visited and tasted a wine from a winemaker I know who makes his wine in Long Island.
The first was one of the tastiest Sauvignon Blancs I have had the pleasure of imbibing from the East Coast. Channing Daughters Sauvignon Blanc 2008 is fantastic. The taste was so fresh and so crisp, that even though the cooler weather is here, I felt like I could have been enjoying this wine on a hot beach. It was that refreshing. Lime, grapefruit, and jalapeno (a taste I have been identifying in more and more Sauvingon Blancs) with a little roundness that might have been pear. It was supposed to go well with the sushi I wanted to have, but instead went very well with Vietnamese.
The other wine I drank (definitely finished the bottle and went and purchased another at Crush) was Schneider Vineyards "le breton" Cabernet Franc 2007. I can hear all of my old coworkers who are reading this (its OK, you can leave a comment!) making sounds of amusement. Not because of the wine, but because they still work with the winemaker, Bruce Schneider. Back in May, when I participated in Lenn's TasteCamp East, I had some amazing Cabernet Francs that blew away the Merlot I had tasted. Lenn even wrote about Bruce's wine last year.So, for this blog post I asked Bruce if he had a bottle to spare. He humored be and let me have a sample. I should have asked for another bottle. This wine was very good, with tasty earthy cherry up front moving into a rich finish. You should go find it if you can, or you should become friendly with the winemaker...
