October 12, 2013

             Top wineries and wines, "Harvest House" happenings, recent Riesling reviews, the British are coming,  a new New York wine export company, Taste NY brunch, new farm breweries, Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse, and much more happening in New York wine country this Columbus Day weekend.

             Cheers!          

             Jim Trezise

                 Hermann J. Wiemer was named one of the Top 100 Wineries of the Year by Wine & Spirits magazine, which among major consumer magazines has been in the forefront of discovering premium New York wines, especially Rieslings from the Finger Lakes.

                 This winery, located on the west side of Seneca Lake, is famous for Riesling, and three of its wines received 92 or 93 in the magazine.  Founder Hermann Wiemer, who remains involved, sold the iconic winery in 2007 to winemaker Fred Merwarth and Oskar Bynke.  HJW wines were among the first New York wines to penetrate the New York City market (over 20 years ago) and still have a significant presence (I shared a bottle with friends at The National restaurant in Manhattan earlier this week). 

                  Wine & Spirits also picked several New York wineries as "Best Buys of the Year": Anthony Road 2011 Finger Lakes Dry Riesling, Wagner Vineyards 2011 Finger Lakes Semi-Dry Riesling, Sheldrake Point 2012 Finger Lakes Pinot Gris, and Lamoreaux Landing 2010 Finger Lakes T23 Unoaked Cabernet Franc.

          Tomorrow I'll greet about 10 people from New York City--wine writers, restaurateurs, wine store managers--for an exciting hands-on week of adventure and learning: Harvest House. 

           It's part of our "NY Drinks NY" promotion program designed to get more presence for New York wines in New York City--an "exchange program" where New York City folks come to the regions, and then winery representatives go into New York City months later.  Harvest House is the first activity, but there will be many more extending into next summer.

            Led by our colleagues Michael Gitter and Kayt Mathers of First Press Public Relations, these people will be staying in three adjacent houses on Seneca lake, having breakfast and dinner together (a great chef is coming!), but during the day they fan out to different wineries to work the harvest and get their hands dirty--picking grapes, emptying bins, hosing down the wine cellar floor, and doing any and many of the things that have to be done during harvest.

             Then, in the evening, they're all back home comparing notes and getting ready for dinner with some of the winery folks they worked with earlier.  It's like old home week.

              After a week of hard labor, they become lifelong ambassadors, having bonded with a region, an industry, the people who comprise it, and the products they make.  And then several months later, the winery folks will come to them and visit their places in the Big Apple.

             It's truly an awesome program--and tons of fun.

              It's been a great week for Finger Lakes Riesling, starting with the Wine & Spirits coverage supplemented by a great New York Times article and a major award in Australia.

               Times wine writer Eric Asimov and three other Riesling-focused wine experts recently blind-tasted 20 different Finger Lakes Rieslings, naming their top 10, and came away very impressed with the overall quality.  In fact, the article headline was, "In the Finger Lakes, Devotion to Riesling Shows."  Among notable quotes: "...no American wine-growing region excites me about riesling as much as the Finger Lakes of New York."

                Their top 10, in order, were Dr. Frank 2012 Dry Riesling (also the Best Value); Anthony Road 2012 Dry Riesling; Anthony Road 2010 Art Series Dry Riesling; Bloomer Creek 2010 Tanzen Dame First Harvest Auten Vineyard; Ravines 2012 Dry Riesling; Red Tail Ridge 2011 Dry Riesling RTR Vineyard; Hermann J. Wiemer 2012 Dry Riesling; Boundary Breaks 2011 Dr Riesling No. 239; Glenora 2012 Dry Riesling; and Lamoreaux Landing 2010 Dry Riesling.

                  Meanwhile, Down Under at the Canberra International Riesling Challenge competition, Sheldrake Point 2012 Late Harvest Riesling won "Best American Riesling--USA Embassy Perpetual Trophy".  This is by no means the first time, as Sheldrake has won the prestigious title at least two times before, again with late harvest or ice wines.

                  In addition to all this, later this week a group of British travel writers sponsored by the I Love NY program will be visiting "Riesling country" to get a taste for themselves; and wine book author John Haeger will be here the last week of the month to research a major book on single-vineyard dry Rieslings from around the world, including the Finger Lakes.

                  The word is out...and spreading.

                    Harvest continues moving along, and the "smile index" (if growers and winemakers are smiling rather than frowning) seems to indicate that people are happy and the harvest is good.  Some regions have essentially finished, Long Island still has a ways to go, but most will wrap up within a week or two.  As always, we follow Cornell Cooperative Extension's Veraison to Harvest e-newsletter to get the latest information.

                    This three-day holiday weekend, combining Columbus Day and Canadian Thanksgiving, is always one of the biggest of the year in terms of wine country visitors eager to witness the harvest, sample the wines, and see the leaves turning vibrant colors.  One very small winery here on Keuka Lake will host over 1,000 visitors over the three days, and the larger wineries far more.  It helps that it is a perfect, cloudless, blue-sky day, with more to come.  It's all great for the economy.

                  "Taste NY" is in Manhattan next Saturday for a specal Brunch that is part of the New York City Wine & Food Festival. Several New York wineries will be pouring, and Chefs Brud Holland and Orlando Rodriguez will be among some other very prominent chefs offering great New York foods.  Tickets are still available, as is more information at www.tasteny.gov.

                   New York Wines SaRL is officially launching its exporting efforts to Belgium and Luxemburg later this week at the large Megavino international wine exposition in Brussels.  The new Luxemburg-based importing company, led by European partner Christian Claessens, includes Anthony Road Winery, Fox Run Vineyards, and Villa Bellangelo as the three Finger Lakes winery partners in the venture.

                   We know from long experience that foreigners LOVE New York wines, but having access to them is clearly the major barrier.  This new company is designed to solve that problem by having "feet on the street" after the wine show is over to follow up with people who expressed interest, and to have a supply of wines on hand to deliver when they're ordered.

                    Bugaboo Creek Steakhouse is a national restaurant chain, but with a local champion in the Rochester area who was able to convince his colleagues to let him create a monthly local winery program. 

                    Finger Lakes native Kurt Reynolds has launched the concept in conjunction with several area wineries--Casa Larga, Swedish Hill, Fox Run, Eagle Crest, and Penguin Bay--to show the restaurant's consumers just how good "local" can be.  The restaurant is in on 935 Jefferson Road in Henrietta near Marketview Liquor, which also does a fine job for New York wines.  Many thanks to Empire North's New York Wine Manager Sandy Waters for the tip.

                     Have a meal there, and thank them for featuring New York wines.

                    14 New Farm Breweries were welcomed this week by Governo Andrew Cuomo, who signed legislation that went into effect in January to encourage breweries that use New York-grown raw products.  Since he took office in January 2011, the number of microbreweries has nearly doubled from 51 to 93, and we welcome our colleagues in the brewing business.

                    Meanwhile, because of the federal government shutdown forced by the House Majority, those and other breweries throughout the country can't get approvals for new beer formulas because the federal Tax and Trade Bureau is closed.  That also affects wine label approvals, and WineAmerica's planned "Wine Policy Day" of meeting with legislators in their home districts has essentially been scuttled--since they have to stay in Washington to deal with crises that they themselves created.  These are minor inconveniences compared with the far more serious issues of food safety lapses, lack of certain medical treatments, and the widespread economic hardship affecting hundreds of thousands of people

                    While New York is "Open for Business", the federal government is closed. It is shameful.