Wine Blogging Wednesday - Boy am I late

Wow am I late. Perhaps I was too enamoured with my posting of the Twitteleh video, but I have been dropping the ball on blogging. Last Wednesday was the sixty first edition of Wine Blogging Wednesday, founded and hosted by Lenn at LENNDEVOURS.

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...

Absolutely and totally GEEKED OUT

This past weekend Leah and I went out to Long Island to participate in TasteCamp East 2009, organized by Lenn Thompson of LENNDEVOURS. It was a weekend specifically for bloggers to have a place for us east coasters to meet up as well as learn more about Long Island wines.

You know those kids that played D&D, that turned into teenagers that played magic cards, that then went back to playing D&D in college because it felt retro, who have now found D&D clubs in the towns where they now live?

Yeah, it was kinda like that. But… not as creepy.

Everyone was great, really friendly with a passion for wine. From the moment I arrived I knew that it was going to be a great weekend. Everyone wanted to learn about each other, what everyone does in real life. Some (like me) were part of the gears that keep the wine industry moving. There were a few retailers, a few PR people, and an importer who all let their professional lives spill over onto the Internet. The rest had strong tech backgrounds, from insurance through database management and on to information technology.

And by God, did everyone love to drink.

The knowledge level of everyone there was very good. It was obvious that everyone had a palate that they were comfortable with and were willing to express their own opinions and insights on the wines without making anyone who was not as knowledgeable (like Leah) feel like they were not up to the group’s standards. There was also a great camaraderie. I am not sure if some of that stemmed from the recent hoopla at DrVino, but there was an immediate comfortable atmosphere the moment we walked into the first winery for dinner. Perhaps it was the Sauvignon Blanc that awaited us. More on that to come.

One thing that was a little over the top was all the twitter that happened. People twittered (Twit? Tweeted? Twat?) all the time, during meals, during tastings, during the car ride between one winery and the next, tweeting, twittering, twating, twhatever. Too much twitter where there were other things going on. I certainly cannot blame people for writing blog posts during the weekend, but I have no idea when people had the time.

This was a marathon tasting weekend and I am very much looking forward to finding out who thought what about each winery we visited. There certainly were not as many wines as some of the tastings I have held for critics, for which I am very thankful, but there was more than enough wines for us all to geek out about.

Throughout the next two weeks I am going to be posting reviews of the weekend. I have so many tasting notes that there is no way I will be able to get them all together for another day or two. Stay tuned for more.

A huge thank you for Lenn Thompson who helped organize the weekend, Melissa Dobson who helped organize a taxi service for the even portions of the trip, and all of the wineries and winemakers that hosted us throughout the weekend.

If you would like to check out all of the bloggers that I hung out with, here is the list:

Becky - http://smellslikegrape.blogspot.com/
Bryan - http://www.niagaraescarpment.net/
Dale - http://drinksareonme.net/
Debbie - http://hvwinegoddess.blogspot.com/
Diane - http://www.loveswine.blogspot.com/
Erika - http://www.strumerika.com/
Joe - http://www.1winedude.com/
John - http://anythingwine.wordpress.com/
Lenn - http://lennthompson.typepad.com/
Lyle - http://rockssandfruit.blogspot.com/
Melissa - http://familylovewine.wordpress.com/
Michelle - http://www.wine-girl.net/
Nick - http://homewineschool.com/
Remy - http://winecase.wordpress.com/
Rich - http://passionatefoodie.blogspot.com/
Robbin - http://www.vineyardadventures.com/
Tom - http://ithacork.wordpress.com/

And Leah put up a post too! http://leahhamburg.blogspot.com/

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.

It’s all Greek to me

When I started this blog I wanted to focus on wine regions that I had not tasted as extensively as I have the wines of my clients. Recently, I have been exploring connections I have made through ProfNet, kind of a help line for journalists to connect to the PR people that make the story happen (ok, I am biased).

The good people at LENNDEVOURS have been preaching drink local for a while now, joined by other journalists one of which is Dave McIntyre, now the columnist at the Washington Post. I have been talking to some of the people representing Ohio State wines, North Carolina wineries, Texas Wineries, and a note about Arizona’s wine country. That might not be drinking local, but its closer than I’ve gotten so far (besides a few Long Island wines).

But back to the topic at hand: Greek wine. Greece was in the group of places that I really never thought would have wine, but could not think of a good reason why it wouldn’t. You have some hills, cool breezes, maybe some hot summers, but sure, let’s see what the wine’s like.

I received a bottle of Boutari Moschofilero (mo-sko-FEEL-ero) 2007 from the people at Terlato Wines International. Yiannis Boutari founded the Boutari Winery in 1879. The original winery, outside of Naoussa, has a 124-acre vineyard. There are also five other wineries located throughout Greece in Goumenissa, Attica, Mantinia, Santorini, and Crete. This Moschofilero comes from the Mantinia region.

The wine was a pale gold when it came out of the bottle. On the nose there was a strong presence of petrol, almost like a dry Riesling. As it opened more I found pear and sugared yellow apple. I even left it in the glass for a while and as it opened up more there were more sweet white fruits, guava, a little perfume. At the end of the evening the wine started giving a bready aroma.

When I stuck it in my mouth there was weighty and rich characteristic to it with spicy acidity. In fact, after the wine had left my mouth there was a HUGE continuation of the acidity zipping along my tongue, almost ripping any other tastes from my mouth. As I continued to taste the wine there was more green-apple, a little bit of saltiness, and white pepper. The last few times I tasted the wine there was a Welch’s grapiness to it.

After review, the petrol notes of this wine turned me away from it. There were some good qualities to it, and I would love to have drunk it on a sailboat in the middle of the Greek islands, but for now I’ll go back to grapes I can pronounce.

New York Wine Expo Recap

Friday night I went to the New York Wine Expo with a few friends of mine. It is a fun event that takes place at the Javits Center each year, where you can buy tickets for $85. The people at the NYWE were nice enough to give me a press pass so that I could come and talk to the different producers and winery representatives.

One of my favorite wine educators was there, Kevin Zraly. Kevin is the founder and teacher of Windows on the World Wine School and is a great speaker. If you have the chance to listen to him, I would suggest you do so. I have met Kevin on a variety of occasions, even being invited to speak to his class about Chile a few times. He makes wine so much fun and helps people understand that the world of wine is not meant to be scary and overwhelming but that it is meant to be explored the same way food is and meant to be drunk the same way bud light is. Well, ok not quite the same as Bud Light, but my point is that no one should feel that they cannot walk into a wine story and pick something up for dinner. Also, once he has taught you to say “Sangiovese” you will never mispronounce it again.

I am always really impressed when a winemaker comes to one of these types of events. The New York Wine Expo is definitely a consumer event where avid wine enthusiasts can come in and taste to their hearts’ content. An export manager, brand sales representative, or public relations representative can handle most of the questions that everyday wine drinkers will have. However, when a winemaker is there you can get such a great view of what goes into the bottle and it gives the wine life and a history, not just a taste.

One such winemaker was Rainer Karl Lingenfelder of Wiengut Lingenfelder Estate, based in the Pfalz region of Germany. Rainer was excellent to talk to and was the perfect introduction to the NYWE for the friends I was with. When he handed his card to me, it made me smile to see his title as Grapegrower in the Age of PostChardonnism. We listened to him talk about his wines and you could really feel that this winery was in his family for the past 15 generations. When asked about his philosophy on winemaking he said that while some winemakers are craft masters and artists, he and his family are really simple grape growers. His wines are made using natural yeasts found in the vineyards, and their technique is to do as little as possible to change the natural expression of the grapes. He says, “True wine comes from the soil.” The efforts that he and his family put into the soil are readily evident in the wines, which have such character and enjoyment when tasted. The wines he was showing were a single vineyard Riesling and a single vineyard Pinot Gris. Both have great minerality and acidity. The Pinot Gris was nicely creamy and rich. Definitely wines to look out for.

I read a lot of coverage about the state of New York wines, thanks to the great people at LENNDEVOURS (I am sure they will put me on their blog roll one day…), and since I was at a New York wine event I figured it would be wrong to not taste through the local wines.

I started with the Brooklyn Oenology, since what could be closer to me than Brooklyn? It turns out that they source their wines from Long Island, but that is still closer than Germany. For each of their wines they hire a local Brooklyn artist to design the label. Each year every label is different, allowing for more artists to have their work put on the bottle. And even better, the labels peel off like a sticker, helping those of us who like to keep the labels from going through the length process of peeling it off ourselves. I was only able to taste one of the wines from BO (oy, that’s an unfortunate acronym), their current release Viognier. It had that classic, lovely perfumed nose that makes me just want to keep my nose in the glass all day long. The taste was a little disappointing, not quite living up to its aroma, but certainly good enough to make me want to explore their other wines.

I also had the opportunity to taste a few Finger Lakes wines, two from Lakewood Vineyards and one from Atwater Estate Vineyards. The Rieslings I tasted from each winery were quite good. Both had very nice minerality, with the Lakewood Riesling having a more floral nose and the Atwater presenting more petrol notes. I also tasted the Lakewood Chardonnay, which was very nice. Chad, representative from Lakewood, told me that 33% of the Chardonnay was fermented in New York oak. For me the wine had a very interesting orange citrus taste, very fresh with a hint of vanilla richness towards the end.

Those were my highlights of the evening. I did not even come close to my personal best of tasting 100 wines, but I had a great time doing selective tasting. I hope my friends enjoyed themselves as well, and everyone else who went to taste through the more than 100 producers represented.

Wine Blogging Wednesday #55 – North vs. South

As one Wine Blogging Wednesday leaves, the next one is hot on its tail. For the next edition of WBW, our host is Remy of The Wine Case. His challenge, a comparison of the North vs. the South.

He’s not talking about the Civil War. He’s not talking about when Quebec City sent American troops packing in 1775 (of which all of us Americans DEFINITELY remember as much as the Canadians do… NOT).

No, the topic is much broader than that. The goal is to take two wines that are made from the same type of grape and compare one from a more northerly region with one from a more southerly region. That could mean a Cabernet made in Texas vs. one made in Washington, or a Pinot Noir made in Burgundy vs. one made in South America, or a Sauvignon Blanc made in New Zealand vs. one made in California. It might be interesting to try an Icewine from Canada with a sticky from Australia.

You get the idea. If you want to join the fun, just post you’re your review on March 18th. It’s coming up soon, so be quick in picking which wines you want to try together.

Also, a shout out to the founder of Wine Blogging Wednesday, Lenn Thompson founder and editor at LENNDEVOURS, who started all of this 55 months ago.

And now a word from our sponsors: If you are interested in using Chilean wine as your southern contender, let me know. I’d be happy to help support you in any way I can as a representative for Wines of Chile. You can find me on twitter or by leaving a comment below.

The Art of a Virtual Tasting

Last Friday night at 8 pm I joined a group of other wine geeks to taste wines and compare our notes. We all went through the proper motions: swirl, sniff, sip, swish and swallow (I don’t think anyone spits in this crowd). We were all meticulous in noting the different flavors and aromas that our senses perceived. I might be the only one to admit it, but some of us got a little tipsy. And we did it while we were all hundreds of miles from each other.

We were all participants of a tasting on Twitter Taste Live. On November 19th Lenn Thompson of LENNDEVOURS announced that he was hosting the tasting and that his choice was four wines from Humanitas Winery, a winery owned by Judd Wallenbrock who is also the winemaker. I read Lenn’s blog all the time so I decided to check it out. Judd blogs at Drink Charitably and the concept of his winery is a beautiful one, to make good wine and to give back to charities in local communities where the wines are sold. The profits from the winery go to three primary causes: hunger, affordable housing and illiteracy. They have chosen Feeding America (formerly America’s Second Harvest), Habitat for Humanity, and Reading is Fundamental as their targeting charities, but do not limit the donations to only those. Judd and company are just as likely to donate to local charities that best address these issues in individual communities. One of the best winery missions I have heard to date.

If you’ve never seen or heard of Twitter before, you are not the only one. It might be the latest online craze, but then again it might not. The format of using Twitter Taste Live (TTL) was an interesting one. The notion is that everyone buys the wines and meets at the same time and tweet about them. Yes, that’s the new verb, and no I did not coin it (thank goodness). TTL was created by Craig Drollett, John Hafferty, and Chris Gillis and was originally connected to their retail store Bin Ends. Today TTL has distanced itself from the store and is completely open to the world of the wine industry, especially the consumers. The userbase is currently nearing 500 with participation in 8 countries. Not bad for a site based on tweets.

“The real vision is that this platform is a direct line of communication between consumers and wine makers,” explains Craig. “So far it’s working out very well.”

The tasting itself was very interesting, but turned into a case of the hiccups that won’t go away. I loved being in an online space where there are so many people who love to talk about wine all expressing their opinions of the same wines. The way it works is that as long as your tweet has #ttl included then it will pop up on the live feed. The only problem was that every ten to fifteen minutes or so the live twitter feed (I almost said tweet feed, but that seemed wrong somehow) would cut out. The only thing that really kept everything together was Matt doing a live video feed from his house.

All said and done, it was a good experience. The wines we tasted were:

• Humanitas Sauvignon Blanc 2006, 13.8% ALC, Monterey County, California, USA


• Humanitas Oak Free Chardonnay 2007, 13.8% ALC, Monterey County, California, USA


• Humanitas Gap’s Crown Pinot Noir 2006, 14.6% ALC, Sonoma Coast, California, USA


• Humanitas Cabernet Sauvignon 2006, 14.2% ALC, Paso Robles, California, USA

My clear favorite and that of the two others I tasted with (ok, so it is also nice to taste wine with live people too) was the Chardonnay. It was that classic pear and apple that Chardonnay should produce and had a great balance on the taste. The Cabernet started coming through for me after it sat out a while; I had not expected to need to decant it. When I first tasted the Cab it had huge tannins and was extremely rough. It started to smooth out and find some fruit after about an hour or so. I’ll know better for next time.

You can buy the wines here, and be sure to check out Twitter if you have not done so yet and Twitter Taste Live.