Quick Taste: Back Track to Hop Kiln

by Rob Bralow, Wine Post Editor


I recently tasted and wrote about a few samples from Hop Kiln Winery, and the nice people at the winery wanted to make sure I had tasted the most recent vintage of their Generations Pinot Noir. The 2008 vintage received a gold at the San Francisco Wine Competition. There is plenty of good commentary on the interwebs about the advantages of wine competitions (Wine Competitions: It Won A Medal - It Must Be Good!, Another Wine Blog 9/1/2009).


Whether you put faith in wine competitions or not (or specifically the San Francisco Wine Competition, which I hope to see someday so I can form my own opinion), the laws of statistics dictate that these competitions have to get it right some of the time. The 2008 HK Generations Pinot Noir is a good wine. The nose is smooth and round with lots of black pepper and and smoky vanilla. There is some very fleshy smooth cherry on the taste and the wine is very pleasant to sip.

TasteCamp East

Yesterday, TasteCamp East was announced on LENNDEVOURS and I am honored to be one of the participants. Living in New York City, I have wanted to get out to Long Island more often and this is the perfect excuse to take a mini vacation to do so.

I have tasted a few New York wines and I have worked with Bruce Schneider, the winemaker of Schneider Vineyards and consulting winemaker at Onabay (or at least I think that is what he is doing there), both of which hail from Long Island. They have been pleasant and interesting and a few Cabernet Francs have definitely made me pay attention.

TasteCamp was created by Lenn at LENNDEVOURS (I seem to mention him a lot lately) as well as fellow bloggers, including Melissa at Family, Love, Wine Blog; Erika at StrumErika; John at Anything Wine and Becky at Smells Like Grape. The idea behind TasteCamp is to have an event where bloggers can come together and meet other bloggers and taste wine with each other.

According to Lenn (and he should know) TasteCamp will happen as follows:

The festivities will start Friday, May 1 with a reception and dinner at Raphael, co-sponsored by Raphael and the Long Island Merlot Alliance. The plans are still forming, but it looks like we'll be the first to taste a couple single-vineyard Sauvignon Blancs from Raphael and also get a preview of LIMA's 2006 Merliance as part of a three-year vertical of that co-produced wine.

The plans for Saturday, May 2 are still coming together, but it looks like we'll be making visits to five different wineries, including lunch at Shinn Estate Vineyard, which will featured the wines of and be co-hosted by Shinn Estate Vineyards, Jamesport Vineyards and Macari Vineyards. After lunch, hopefully, in conjuntion with the Long Island Wine Council, we'll be able to taste the wines from wineries that we won't have time to visit.

Sunday May 3 we'll be shooting down to the South Fork of Long Island, aka the Hamptons, to visit Wolffer Estate and Channing Daughters Winery as well. For the beer lovers in the group, we may even stop off at Southampton Publick House on our way back west.

I am also excited about this because my girl Leah will be coming with me to taste through the wines. A big shout out to her for being on the cusp of finishing Med School and getting into New York Presbyterian for her residency!



Logo Credit: PJ Sedgwick created the TasteCamp EAST logo.