lgsjr – Page 19 – Power Tasting – The Wine Tasting Experience

How to Make Wine Tasting Discoveries

Christopher Columbus wasn’t trying to discover America. He was looking for China and stopped in Hispaniola, which of course had already been “discovered” by the people living there. All the same it worked out pretty well (except for the natives). If you want to make discoveries on a wine tasting trip, you can’t set out to find them; you have to let them happen and recognize them when you do.

Moshin Vineyards’ tasting room.

Be adventurous – Take the side roads off the main drag, whether that be Sonoma County’s Route 101, Burgundy’s Route des Vins, or the D2 in Bordeaux. You don’t know what you’ll find there and in fact there may be no wineries at all. But sometimes there’s a little château with a small production and a limited distribution that blows your mouth away. As often as not, you’ll get to meet the owner, who doubles as the winemaker and whose daughter is the only one there who can speak English. And you’ll be served in their kitchen. You won’t forget an experience like that.
Be prepared to fail – Alas, some of those little unknown wineries are small and unfamiliar for a reason. This is especially true if you’re on a tasting trip through regions where the wines are just names to you. If you’re on your own, for the first time in the South Africa’s Stellenbosch, the Barossa in Australia or California’s Santa Clara Valley, you’ll have no idea what’s to be found in the next winery down the road. Maybe you’ll get lucky but there’s just as good a chance that what you’ll find is something you wouldn’t put on your table. You have to take your chances.
Recognize a discovery when you make one – Most American tasting rooms have a variety of wines available to taste. (So do many overseas, but in regions such as Burgundy or Tuscany, they may make only one kind of wine.) If you’ve never heard of the winery or the wines they make, your reactions may be summarized as “eh, meh, ugh, and wow”. It’s important not to let the first three color your perceptions so you can tell that a wow is a WOW.

Iron Horse Vineyards’ “tasting room”. Photo courtesy of Pinterest.

Make the most of what you find – The wines you try in an unknown winery may fall well below your standards but the overall experience may be a discovery in itself. There may be a beautiful landscape or a fine art collection or architecture that thrills you. Contrarily, you may find superb wine being served in what is little more than a shed. Iron Horse Vineyards fits into this latter category and is truly a discovery in itself. The entire premise of Power Tasting is that the wine tasting experience is more important even than the wines by themselves.

The overall point is that you can’t and won’t make discoveries unless you are open to them. Throw away your preconceptions. Be ready to try something you’re unfamiliar with. Trust your eyes and your taste buds. You’ll reap rewards.

Discovering in Wine Country

When we first started going wine tasting as a recreational outing, everyplace we went, everything we tried was a discovery. We will never forget the wonderment we felt as we drove along Route 29 in Napa Valley. All those wineries! Such famous wines and they come out of those buildings! And they let you try what they make (for free in those days)!

We have recreated that feeling often in our travels and it’s always the same. Aha, so this is really Bordeaux or Burgundy or Paso Robles or Montalcino! In a way, it has been the same rush as we once felt on Christmas morning. But over the years, as we have returned to our favorite corners of Wine Country, that initial thrill has given way to pleasures of familiarity, of knowing what we were going to taste and knowing that it would be good.

There is still plenty of opportunity for discovery as we make our way through Wine Country. They never happen where you expect them to be; they always come as a surprise.

Discovering wine making where we didn’t expect it – There have been occasions when we were travelling for business or even on vacations where we didn’t expect to find vineyards – and suddenly we found wine making going on. Perhaps the best example of that was finding Testarossa Winery in Los Gatos, the heart of California’s Silicon Valley. Another would be our first trip to Temecula, just north of San Diego, in a desert setting.
Discovering new wineries in familiar locations – This kind of discovery is the exact opposite of the one above. How many times had we been to Sonoma County’s Russian River AVA? More than we can remember, but although we had driven past Baciagalupi Vineyards and Moshin Winery many times, we had never stopped there. These small, out of the way wineries, and others like them, sometimes produce wonderful wines (Chardonnay and Pinot Noir in these cases) and reward a little adventurousness.

William Hill Winery.

Discovering new wines at familiar wineries – Of course, many American wineries are producing new offerings all the time, but we don’t consider a new wine at Robert Mondavi or Etude to be true discoveries. But there have been cases in which we have given a winery that we know produced widely sold commercial wines and were well surprised to discover some excellent offerings in a surprisingly pleasant location that we’d never seen before. William Hill Winery and Clos du Val fall into this category.
Discovering that winery you hadn’t appreciated in the past had returned to form – Often when there is a change of ownership or winemaker, a winery that we had liked had disappointed us. It’s a good idea to give these a second or even a third chance. Perhaps the new owners took over in a particularly bad growing year, as happened at Limerick Lane Cellars. Or it may take several seasons for a winemaker to align his or her techniques with what the terroir has to offer.

And these sorts of discoveries don’t even include the pleasing response to a winery where the wine may not be to your taste, but the overall experience makes a visit worthwhile.

Long Island’s North Fork Wineries…Today

For New York City residents and Long Islanders, a wine tasting trip to Long Island’s North Fork was and is the primary destination that didn’t require an extensive journey. The roads on the North Fork are a bit of well-groomed Americana; the vineyards are beautiful; and the people in the wineries are eager to demonstrate that Long Island belongs on the viticultural map. However, in the past the wines, to our taste, with few exceptions did not rise to the quality that the winemakers wished to credit them with.

We are pleased to report that a lot has changed in recent years, much for the better. There are more wineries, with more interest in improving the wine tasting experience and, again to our opinion, there are more wines worth a two-hour drive on the Long Island Expressway.

How have things changed, or not?

Tasting near the vines at McCall Wines.

Many of the experiences of wine tasting on Long Island have not changed. Once you get past Riverhead, there is village after village with wineries, either on Route 48 to the north or Route 25 to the south, with more on the latter road. The homes are gracious, huge trees overhang the roads (again more so to the south) and the wineries are well marked so that finding your way is simple.

But certain changes are more evident. Visitors don’t belly up to the bar and taste a broad selection of a winery’s offerings. In most cases, wines are available in preselected flights, or by the glass or bottle. Thus the atmosphere is a little more like being in a bar than a winery.

And even where there is a bar – some wineries don’t even have one! – most people take their tastes outdoors, on a patio, on a lawn or even right up next to the vines. This works spectacularly well on beautiful summer days (which we have been fortunate to experience) but might not be so enjoyable on a grey, muggy or rainy one.

The tasting room at Sparkling Pointe.

Another noticeable difference is that the food trucks are gone, at least on weekdays. Many of the wineries now offer food to pair with their wines. Mostly it’s cheese and charcuterie that are available, with some making more memorable repasts than others.

The pioneering wineries are still there and, based on some sampling, we can say that they are much as they were: not terrible but nothing to write home about either. But people with money have begun to open or take over wineries. They have invested in more architecturally pleasing tasting rooms and better winemaking equipment. With money, they can afford to invest in crafting better wines: dropping more fruit, hiring more workers to prune and care for the vines, and letting the grapes reach the fullest maturity.

The result has been a distinct heightening of the quality of the wines of the North Fork. To our tastes, Paumanok, McCall’s, Mattebella and Sparking Pointe lead the way. (Mattebella is reviewed in this issue. The others will be in focus in later editions.) We’re sure that others are coming to the fore as well.

In a few words, the North Fork has gone from being a pleasant diversion to a wine lover’s destination.

How to Go Wine Tasting on Long Island

The headline might seem a bit facetious. You taste wine on Long Island just like anywhere else: lift glass, swirl, sniff and sip. Sure, but there are wrinkles to wine tasting on the North Fork that are somewhat unique. Before heading out, give some consideration to these issues.

Workers tending the vines at Paumanok Vineyards, where visitors will soon sip wine.

Try to visit on weekdays. Of course, wineries are busier on the weekends everywhere. But many of them on Long Island work on the presumption that they can make more money from partiers than serious wine drinkers. You can expect to find rock bands, food trucks and a lot of louder than usual people Friday through Sunday. Early in the week, even the most popular wineries are fairly empty, giving more time for individual attention.
Take off early. If like us you are starting from New York City, you can expect delays on the Long Island Expressway, mostly in leaving Manhattan and putting Queens behind you. Generally, but not always, it’s smoother sailing once you get into Nassau County. (The North Fork is at the extreme east of Suffolk County.)
Consider making appointments. They are certainly a necessity on weekends, and although we haven’t been turned away on weekdays, we’ve been told by some tasting room managers that they have done so if they find they can’t accommodate walk-ins. Of course, this means you need to know where you are going before you set off, which eliminates serendipity, the delightful discoveries that make wine tasting trips so rewarding.
Think about lunch. Almost no wineries allow picnicking any longer. Many sell food, but it’s more snacks than meals. There are places to stop for lunch, mostly along Route 25, but only a few where you can dine, rather than grab a quick bite.
Plan on staying over. We used to take day trips, but then we realized that we were spending four to six hours on the road for four or five hours of tasting. Plus there was the danger of driving back having consumed alcohol. There are many bed-and-breakfasts and some hotels, mostly in Riverhead and Greenport. They can run a bit expensive but an overnight stay really adds to the trip. And it gives you a chance to sample the local cuisine, which leans towards seafood.
Try places you don’t know. If you’ve never been to the North Fork or last were there many years ago, then everything will be new to you. Today, new owners are buying up familiar wineries and changing their names (and, to an extent, the quality of the wines.) For example, Shinn is now Rose Hill; Laurel Lake is now Ev&Em. Even more so, some people have invested serious money in new wineries. These are often the best places to stop.
Now, as before, the North Fork offers glimpses of small-town America. You’ll find that spirit in Greenport and Southold. You’ll notice the plethora of churches of every denomination. They are indicative of the roots of many of these towns going back centuries to America’s earliest European settlers. And the names of many of the the towns – Cutchogue, Mattituck, Peconic, Paumanok – evidence the influence of the First Nations.

Love Lane, Mattituck

Yeah, the name of this place to visit when you go wine tasting on the North Fork is just too, too cute. Evidently, back in the mists of time, it was a simple trail that came to be known as the local lovers’ lane and the name, with a little editing, has stuck. For the visitor to the North Fork, primarily interested in wine tasting, it offers several reasons to stop.

First, and perhaps foremost, it’s a place midway between Riverhead and Greenport where you can get something to eat. Of course, if you’re going to be sipping wine all day, it’s important to put some food in your stomach. So if you’ve visited one or two wineries already, you’d better stop and Love Lane is really the only place to go.

Photo courtesy of the New York Times.

There are two dining spots to choose from, Ammirati’s and Love Lane Kitchen. With no criticism of the former, we keep going back to Love Lane Kitchen. It’s the sort of eatery where everybody seems to know everybody, welcomes one another by first name and always has time for a cup of coffee. There always seem to be a few moms with youngsters trying hard not to be noisy. The menu is primarily sandwiches and salads, although breakfast can still be had through lunch time.

Oh, and the cakes are made by Mom.

Besides the food, there is an attraction to Love Lane that is more atmospheric than commercial. The street is three blocks long but everything you might want to see is on only one of those blocks. It hearkens back to a small-town America that may never have been quite so shined up for the tourists but that nevertheless was and still is real. Trees line the street. There are places to park. The shops have old-timey storefronts. And there’s a charming white clapboard church at one end of the street.

The shops on Love Lane do reflect the sensibilities of wine tasting tourists. Lombardi’s Love Lane Market is the sort of gourmet grocery that would be right at home in New York City. So are the cheese shop, the boutiques and the sweet shop(pe). But they don’t have the feel of bits of Manhattan that people have dragged with them out to the country. Locals patronize here as well, and they all stay open in the winter.

Sure, lots of countries have small towns. In Bordeaux or Burgundy there are also little villages, each with un café, une épicerie and une église. But those are French cafés, groceries and churches. This is unmistakably an American small town, with a vibe more New England than Big Apple.

The other end of Long Island is Brooklyn, definitely urban. The North Fork is rural and Love Lane is a corner of that lifestyle, only two hours away. It is a destination in the sense that you would come there to have lunch and then stroll around. If you don’t pop into every store or the wine tasting room that’s right there, you can see it all in ten minutes. But those are ten well-spent minutes.

Mattebella Vineyards

When we first arrived at Mattebella Vineyards (www.mattebella.com) we were a bit flummoxed. For one thing, we couldn’t see a winery from the parking lot. What we did see was a statue of a large red dog guarding the vineyards. Had we stumbled on at the home of Clifford the Big Red Dog by accident? But no, a few feet further along there was a statue of a large blue dog, and this one had an air tank in its back.

A statue of a large red dog stands in front of the vines.

A bit further on, there was a quite inviting garden, with tables, umbrellas, gazebos, sofas and people seemingly at an elegant party, sipping wine and snacking on charcuterie from large planks. Had we crashed a private party?

In a short while, someone led us to an empty table besides rose bushes and, in time, a woman came by offering us the tasting list. (We didn’t know at the time that the woman was the co-proprietor, Christine Tobin. Her husband Mark is the winemaker and the winery is named for their children, Matthew and Isabella.) This was not the usual offering of the latest releases of the winery’s production. There were red and white verticals available! A rosé described as Provencal. And the aforementioned platters of meats, cheeses, olives and baguettes.

But where was the tasting room?

A tasting at Mattebella is like being at an elegant garden party.

By this point we realized that visiting Mattebella is all about the wine tasting experience, exactly what Power Tasting stands for. When you go into Wine Country, it should not be for the purposes of drinking. You should be there for sipping, savoring, exploring wines. It’s for tasting them in an atmosphere that you would hope to be in when you open a bottle with friends and loved ones, surrounded by beauty. You should be encouraged to make the wine the center point but not the totality of a sensual encounter: yes, the taste but also the aroma, the visual pleasure of your surroundings, a whisper of a breeze in the trees. This is what Mattebella delivers.

Of course it would all be for naught if the wines weren’t worthwhile. Fortunately, Mattebella’s are quite good indeed. And the way in which they are presented, along with the little lecture introducing the wines to you, doubles the pleasure.

We were very impressed with a vertical of their Chardonnays ranging from 2013 through 2018. First of all, who serves verticals these days? And who serves what any other winery would call library wines? We were told that they use both oak and steel containers to age their wines, to provide balance and aging potential. It was eye-opening (well, more tastebuds than eyes) to see how in each preceding year the Chablis-like austereness of the wines gave way to a more rounded finish, with the oak more distinct.

There is a small building that they refer to as a tasting cottage, so you can visit Mattebella when the weather doesn’t cooperate. (Except, so they warn, when it snows.) But reservations are made for the gardens, and a rainstorm would definitely spoil the experience.

This was our first time visiting Mattebella. We are quite certain it won’t be our last. We walked in without a reservation and were lucky to be seated because it was towards the end of the day. Next time, we’ll reserve.

Corton-Charlemagne

Right in the middle of Burgundy’s fabled Côte d’Or, there’s a hill. It’s in the village of Aloxe-Corton, nestled next to Pernand-Vergelesses and Ladoix-Serrigny. For lovers of Burgundy wines, these are not just the place-names of some tiny villages. They’re the names of specific Chardonnays and Pinot Noirs. That hill is also the name of a wine appellation. It’s Corton-Charlemagne.

Charlemagne. Photo courtesy of history.com

No one encourages you to walk through the vineyards atop that hill, but no one stops you either. And when you do, you can tell yourself that you’re walking in the footsteps of Charlemagne. Yes, that Charlemagne, the fellow who was crowned as the first Holy Roman Emperor on New Year’s Day in the year 800. Back in the day – way back – he owned the vineyards atop that hill.

There’s no particular reason to believe that Charlemagne actually trod through the ancestors of these vines. But he could have. And that fact alone allows you to indulge yourself in the ancient history of wine. Today and for time immemorial, they’ve grown Chardonnay there and not just any Chardonnay. These grapes go into the grand cru white wines that bear the name, Corton-Charlemagne. Legend has it that Mrs. Charlemagne wanted him to drink white wine so his beard wouldn’t appear dirty when he drank. Who knows, it’s true.

Okay, you’ve climbed the hill. You’ve walked through the vines. You’ve bathed yourself in history. What do you do next?

For one thing, go back down the hill and visit the wineries in Aloxe-Corton. There’s no shortage of wineries in and around this village. The best known among them are Louis Latour, Corton-Grancey and Corton C. Some of them offer both grand cru whites and reds, which is unique to this little spot along the famous Route des Vins. (Most other Burgundian AOCs have one or the other, but not both.)

Corton C, also known as Corton-André and Pierre André Estates. Photo courtesy of Le Bien Public.

Perhaps more so than any other locale in Wine Country, a major attraction of wine tasting in the Côte d’Or is the architecture. Oh, Bordeaux and the Loire Valley have magnificent châteaux, but they don’t have the roofs like they have in Burgundy. For centuries, the grandees of the region competed with one another in topping their homes with most elaborate tiling and the area around Aloxe-Corton has some of the most inspiring ones.

In particular, you should make a stop at Corton C (formerly Corton André as well as Pierre André and many names before that, over the centuries). It lays claim to the Corton-Charlemagne hill and keeps it in production after all these years. The château was built only in the 19^th century, replacing one from the 18^th century which sat on top of the 15^th century caves. Once again, history flows through everything here.

The elaborately interlaid tiles, polished and resplendent in the sun, make this winery among the most photographed in the world. And not just the roof. The towers and pinnacles give the whole building a fairy-tale quality. You expect to meet princes and dukes when you enter, but it’s only other wine lovers like yourself.

Robert Young Estate Winery

They say that in Sonoma County, the farmer is king. And in Alexander Valley, Robert Young (www.ryew.com) was the king of farmers. Born in 1919 and passing away 90 years later, Young was one of those wine pioneers who had the temerity to pull out fruit trees and plant Cabernet Sauvignon. Keeping in mind that the farm had been in his family since the mid-19^th century, that took a lot of guts.

He was a “winegrower” as he styled himself, not a winemaker. He raised premium crops and sold his grapes to such houses as Château St. Jean, Blackstone, Clos du Bois, Simi and others. Château St. Jean was the first Sonoma winery to identify a particular vineyard on its label and make a single-vineyard wine. That Chardonnay is still one of their biggest sellers.

Photo courtesy of the winery.

All this history is fine, but how does that translate into a reason to visit the winery? For one thing, there is a winery and a tasting room, but only since 2010. It seems that the younger Youngs, who operate the family farm for yet another generation, pressed Grandpa to press some of the best of his grapes himself.

Getting there is half the fun. You drive off the northern end of Alexander Valley Road onto Red Winery Road. (There is no red winery to be seen, but there must have been once.) If you’re there on a lazy summer afternoon, you’ll be all alone on a windy road surrounded by nothing but farmland – mostly vines – with some well-placed trees and open sky. You’ll know when you get to Robert Young, because there’s nothing else around.

Scion House. Photo courtesy of the winery.

In old Robert’s day, the tasting room was in a building that appeared to be the ancestral farmhouse. It wasn’t, but the effect was pleasing. Today, there’s an aptly named Scion House that serves as the tasting room. It isn’t a farmhouse and never will be, but it has that vibe.

We don’t review wines at Power Tasting; we write about the experience of wine tasting on travels through Wine Country. And as we have written before, when you consider that each winery has its fans, they’re all good. At Robert Young, they pour Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Chardonnay.

The best way to enjoy them is to take your glass to the patio and gaze out over the more than 300 acres that constitute Robert Young’s vineyards. It is truly impressive, vines – their vines – as far as the eye can see. You feel as though you’re looking back through time, to the era when Sonoma County and Napa Valley were just fertile farmland, but without tourists.

In a way, a visit to Robert Young hearkens back to the early days of Northern California wine tasting. A farmer had some grapes and made wine out of them. He wanted you to come and have a taste and maybe buy some. That bit of living history is worth the drive.

Know Your Vineyards

Wines come from and are known by certain regions. They are AVAs in the United States, AOCs in France, DOCGs in Italy, etc. In each one of those regions, there are many vineyards, some clearly better than others. Knowing which ones are the best can lead to greater pleasure when you go wine tasting. That sounds simple, but it gets more confusing depending on which sector of Wine Country you are visiting and how they allocate the land.

Bien Nacido Vineyards in Santa Maria, California. Photo courtesy of biennacidoestate.com.

In Bordeaux, it’s easy. The rules there are that all the grapes in a wine identified with a specific chateau or domain must be grown on its property. If you see a wine simply called a Bordeaux on the label, it can be from anywhere in the region.
In Burgundy, it’s difficult. In many cases, growers don’t own vineyards, they own parcels or even individual rows of grapes, within identified vineyards. And those may be villages, premier cru or grand cru depending on the terroirs of each. So wines made from grapes grown in certain well-known vineyards such as Chambertin or Clos de Vougeot are the ones you should look for.
In California, things can get a little tricky, too. Many wineries boast of their “Estate” or “Estate Grown” wines. That means that the grapes for those wines came from the producer’s own property, were cultivated by its own staff and were vinified on the premises as well. It doesn’t mean that the grapes are necessarily the ones you can see out the tasting room window. They can come from anywhere in the AVA that’s indicated on the bottle.
But not all wines are “Estate”. Many wineries make wine but don’t do the farming themselves. (And many wineries that do have Estate wines also make wine from purchased grapes.) When you are sampling a wine that isn’t Estate, it’s fair to ask which vineyards the grapes come from. There are some so highly regarded that the name of the vineyard alone is enough to make a taste desirable.
For example, in Napa Valley, Beckstoffer is the acknowledged leader. And within Beckstoffer’s properties there’s the To Kalon, made justly famous by Robert Mondavi. Morisoli in the Rutherford Bench is also well reputed, as is Stagecoach high up on the mountains to Napa Valley’s east.
To confuse matters further, some growers sell most of their grapes and also make their own wines. So, for example, Truchard and Baciagalupi are major sources for many wineries. The former’s wide variety of grapes, especially Chardonnay, can be found in many wines around Napa. Baciagalupi in Russian River grows Pinot Noir and Chardonnay for many other wineries.
Further south, look for any wine made from grapes from the Bien Nacido vineyard. In the Central Coast, many wineries boast their wines from that vineyard, with Au Bon Climat claiming the largest share.
And in the Santa Barbara area, Sanford and Fiddlestix vineyards have great reputations. Sanford also makes wines under their own name, while Etude (among others) makes a Fiddlestix Pinot Noir.

Think About Farming

For most of us, wine tasting is focused on, well, wine. We visit different wineries in the same region and learn to detect the subtle differences between one Chardonnay and, say, three others made within a mile of one another. We give credit, if we think about it at all, to the winemaker who we see as a master artisan. In general that’s true, but wine is a combination of artistry, industrial processes and agriculture.

Even when we are at a winery surrounded by vines, how many of us even consider soil composition, trellising and drip irrigation? Visiting at harvest time, with grapes hanging heavy on the vines, we don’t believe that many people give a lot of thought to how much science, expertise and sheer hard work went into getting those grapes there. Now, we’re not advocating that everyone take a few courses at Davis before going wine tasting, but maybe a few thoughts on the matter and a bit of reading are appropriate.

Workers harvesting in the Beuajolais region.

You’ll enjoy the wine you taste at any time of the year, but we think that there’s also pleasure in knowing what has to happen to get the wine out of the ground and into your glass. For one thing, a visitor ought to be aware of what’s happening in the vineyards at any particular time of year that they are there. Of course, in the winter months the vines are bare, but there’s lots of work going on to prune the vines to increase later yields. In March, there’s some green on those vines; it’s called bud break. Sometime in May, itsy-bitsy grapes begin to form, which is called the fruit set.

Things get serious in July and August, the period of veraison, when those premature clusters become recognizable as grapes. The farmers now do the unthinkable – they cut away many of the grape bunches that were forming. This process, called dropping fruit, allocates nature’s resources from within the ground through the vines to the remaining clusters. Then in late August through October, the grapes are harvested and vinified.

The nature of the soil makes a difference. Calcareous soil contains limestone that retains water, making farming easier, and the limestone adds acidity to the wines. On the other hand, grapes grown in gravelly soils are enhanced by the retained heat in the rocks, making the resulting wines bolder and higher in alcohol. This type of soil is typical in Bordeaux’s Left Bank, which is why wines from the south of the city are called Graves. If the ground has a clay-like consistency, it favors grapes that ripen quickly, such as Merlot, which is common on the Right Bank of the Bordeaux region. This little bit of agricultural knowledge explains why wines from a few miles apart in the same region can be so different.

If your reason for going wine tasting is simply to sample, drink or party, none of these thoughts about farming will make any difference. But if you, like us, go to learn as well as sip, then having a basic understanding of the farmers’ contributions adds to the pleasure.