{"id":950,"date":"2018-05-28T19:46:05","date_gmt":"2018-05-28T19:46:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=950"},"modified":"2018-05-28T19:53:44","modified_gmt":"2018-05-28T19:53:44","slug":"think-globally-drink-locally","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/?p=950","title":{"rendered":"Think Globally, Drink Locally"},"content":{"rendered":"

Some years ago, Steve was visiting his friend Adrian at his vacation home in Southold, in the middle of Long Island\u2019s North Fork.\u00a0 One late afternoon, sitting on the veranda and sipping a local wine, the two fellows engaged in a hearty discussion about the value of Long Island\u2019s experiments with wine production, still novel at that time.<\/p>\n

Steve stated that the wines produced on the North Fork were nowhere near the quality of similarly priced wines from California, France or Australia.\u00a0 So what was the point of paying top dollar for poorer wines?<\/p>\n

Adrian\u2019s response was that it was worth supporting the local industry precisely so that the wine makers would have the opportunity to improve over time.\u00a0 At that point, many of the vineyards \u2013 and thus the vines \u2013 were ten years old or less.\u00a0 If no one bought their wines in their youth, the vineyards would never have the opportunity to reach maturity and potentially great wines would never be made.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Bedell Cellars<\/em><\/p>\n

As we say elsewhere<\/a> in this issue, we are finding that North Fork wines are beginning to meet the test of time, albeit more so at some wineries than at others.\u00a0 But the question at the heart of Adrian and Steve\u2019s conversation remains: if there are better wines at similar prices from the world\u2019s great wine growing appellations, is there any purpose for drinking wines from \u201clesser\u201d regions?\u00a0 What in fact makes one particular section of Wine Country better or worse?\u00a0 Is it not just a matter of what we\u2019re used to?<\/p>\n

The original subject was Long Island\u2019s wines but the same can be asked of, say, Santa Clara<\/a> vs. Napa, Puglia vs. Tuscany or Languedoc vs. Bordeaux.\u00a0 Why not limit yourself to the best?\u00a0 In particular, for those of us who enjoy traveling for the purpose of wine tasting, is there any reason to make a trip to any but the \u201cbest\u201d regions.\u00a0 We have come to the opinion that yes, it does make sense, with some reservations.<\/p>\n

As a general statement, these regions are lesser known, rather than simply of poorer quality.\u00a0 In any given year, there are some great wines made in vineyards that are unlikely to show up in the pages of Wine Spectator, or if they do they\u2019ll be in the voluminous lists in the back not the news articles up front.<\/p>\n

In our recent voyages, we have discovered wines from regions we had previously either not known of or had disliked, such as Minervois, eastern Sicily and California\u2019s Central Coast.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 In most cases, there will be a greater concentration of top-quality wines in better-known regions, so with a little homework in advance you can raise your odds of trying the better wines and skipping the underachievers. \u00a0But if you don\u2019t go, you won\u2019t know.<\/p>\n

Moreover, who\u2019s to say what\u2019s better and what\u2019s worse?\u00a0 Tastes, especially in wine, change over time.\u00a0 It\u2019s not that long ago that no one cared about Pinot Noirs from the Santa Rita Hills, Ripassos from Valpolicella or Shirazes from the Barossa.\u00a0 Now these are highly prized wines, attracting buyers and visitors from everywhere fine wine is appreciated.\u00a0 If nothing else, taking a wine tasting trip to a little known corner of Wine Country gives you bragging rights when and if that area gets recognition.<\/p>\n

\u201cAh, yes, I remember when the growers were virtually giving away the wine and it was just small producers serving wine in their barns\u201d.\u00a0 That\u2019s us, talking about Napa Valley a few decades ago.\u00a0 Who knew then what a big deal it would be today?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Some years ago, Steve was visiting his friend Adrian at his vacation home in Southold, in the middle of Long Island\u2019s North Fork.\u00a0 One late afternoon, sitting on the veranda and sipping a local wine, the two fellows engaged in a hearty discussion about the value of Long Island\u2019s experiments with wine production, still novel … Continue reading Think Globally, Drink Locally<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=950"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":957,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950\/revisions\/957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/powertasting.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}