Barrel Tasting and Vertical at Standing Stone Vineyards

What a fantastic afternoon we spent at Standing Stone Vineyards on the east side of Seneca Lake! Our friends, Pam and Dave joined us for a delicious lunch at the Bistro at Thirsty Owl Vineyards on Cayuga Lake. Then we traveled west a bit and arrived at Standing Stone just in time for the barrel tasting. We joined Jenny and Gary in the big yellow barn that houses the barrels. We tasted several wines - 2 Chardonnays that differed in the yeast that was used in the fermentation process (and yes, they tasted very different), 2 Pinot Noirs, a Cab Franc, 2 Merlots, Petit Verdot and Saperavi. What a great experience to taste wines in process as well as to compare different vintages of the same varietal. Let me give you a heads-up - the 2010 wines are out of this world! Next we filled up our plates with breads, spreads and meats and headed back into the winery for our vertical tasting of Pinnacle. Pinnacle is Standing Stone's Bordeaux style blend, generally comprised of Cab Sav, Cab Franc and Merlot, although the 2007 Pinnacle (Wine Spectator score of 87) has Petit Verdot blended in also. We tasted the following years (vertical tastings compare different vintages of a given wine): 1997, 2002, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2010. Love, love, love the 2005 and 2007! Very interesting to see, smell, and taste the differences over the years, plus it gives you a nice experience in tasting the effects of age on the wine. We had time to chat with winery owner and winemaker Marti Macinski, who, while a wealth of information about each vintage, is clearly passionate about her vineyard. This event was a wine-club member special event, so here is my plug about joining a wine club. While getting shipments of wine is great itself, the special events such as this barrel tasting provide for wonderful learning opportunities that you wouldn't ordinarily have.
It was a great time with great friends at a unique event. I couldn't think of a better way to spend a Sunday afternoon in November!

J.R. Dill - New Winery on Seneca Lake

Columbus Day Weekend
While Jim and I were busy with our annual October trek to Niagara on the Lake, "Rover" Jon diligently scoured the East side of Seneca Lake to report on the latest happenings. He discovered a new winery, J.R. Dill's which he said has really great dry wines. It is located 6 miles north of Watkin's Glen. Young J.R. (26?) is making wines from vines his great grandfather worked over 100 years ago. I am looking forward to visiting this new winery as well as Damiani's new tasting room, which is now open.
Jim and I have been helping out at Standing Stone this fall. They have a wonderful Saperavi, the 2007 Pinot Noir is out of this world as is the 2007 Pinnacle (Cab Sav, Merlot and Cab Franc blend with the addition of the Petit Verdot grape). The 2006 Pinnacle is also really good. It is fun to ask tasters their opinion when sampling the two, because it is pretty much 50/50 as to their preferences between the 07 and 06. I can't say enough about the ice wines from Standing Stone either. There are 4 to taste: Chardonnay, Riesling, Gewurztraminer and Vidal. Each is unique and de-lish (with 91+ Wine Spectator ratings)!
We are looking forward to Standing Stone's First Ever Loyalty Club Event: Barrel tastings and Verticals.... Nov. 21st. Check out the Standing Stone website for more details.
In the mean time, pour yourself a glass of a Finger Lakes Wine and enjoy the beauty of the fall!

California? PUH!

So here again is a plug for joining wine clubs at your favorite Finger Lakes Winery. Why? Because...

• You get wine DELIVERED TO YOUR HOME 4-6 times a year.


• Often the wine is exclusive to wine club members: limited productions, library wines, or a new release.


• You can be invited to special events such as pig roasts, dinners, vertical tastings, barrel tastings, etc.


• There is a discount on wines purchased in the retail shop.


• Newsletters, food pairings, recipes...


• No tasting room fees.

Our Finger Lakes region is so beautiful and the wines are emerging as world-class (don't believe me, check out the Wine Spectator). Who needs California?

Joe Beans Coffee Roasters

Did you ever notice that the Wine Spectator writes articles about coffee? Why? Because coffee and wine have a lot in common : both compliment a meal, both enjoy complexity in flavors, and both leave lasting impressions. Did you ever have a wonderful dinner, then get served a poor to mediocre cup of coffee at the end? It literally leaves a bad taste in your mouth and usually your whole impression of the evening suffers as a result. Here in Webster, NY, we have the answer to your poor coffee dilemma: Joe Beans Coffee Roasters! Owner Kathy Turiano offer the alternative to that lousy cup of coffee. Deep, flavorful, locally roasted coffees. Check out her link and philosophy of using fair trade certified products. Like Finger Lakes Wines, Joe Bean is a local treasure.

Rooster Hill Pig Roast

The month of August is here and we started it with a bang at Rooster Hill's Wine Club Pig Roast. Again, another fabulous day on the east side of Keuka Lake! The view from their patio is stupendous! Their patio also hosts a huge wood fired pizza oven. So while we arrived, distributed our raffle tickets, and enjoyed participating in a blind wine tasting, the pizza oven was cranking out gourmet pizzas! (Seafood, pineapple, pepperoni and plain with huge chunks of tomato in the sauce...yum!) The band played Jimmy Buffet and other favorites while club members tasted wines and socialized. We were able to try all the newly bottled 2009 wines which are not yet released. We especially liked the Pinot Noir (young but complex, so it will only get better), the Gewurztraminer and the Estate Late Harvest Vidal Blanc. Watch for these releases and give them a try! The dinner was fabulous: awesome pork with fresh salads, baked beans, rolls and cookies!

As the sun slowly sank in the sky, we sat on the patio enjoying our last glass of wine with new friends Dave and Barb, and made plans to meet them again at the Holiday Party! Thank- you Amy Hoffman (president and co-founder) and staff for a well-organized and enjoyable afternoon.

Fox Run Happenings

I am sipping Fox Run's Dry Rose as I write this. It is the perfect dry wine, well chilled, on a warm evening! Which reminded me that Fox Run Vineyards has several events coming up. Most immediately is their 18th Annual Garlic Festival happening this weekend August 7th and 8th. This is a huge event with food, music, and of course wine! Also coming up are more Tapas Tastings. These are held Thursday evenings from 6-8 pm and cost $20 per person. Winemakers Peter Bell and Tricia Renshaw will discuss the wines and the food pairings. The upcoming dates are Aug 19, Sept 2, Sept 16 and Oct 7. These informal gatherings are a great experience because you get to meet the winemakers and chat about the wines you're drinking. And Executive Cheft Heather Tomkins and her staff always do a bang-up job with the food pairings. Hope to see you there!

Ravines Wine Club Dinner

Wow! Where does the time go, especially in the summer? It has been almost a month since we attended the First Annual Ravenous Wine Club Party on July 10th. It was a hot, steamy afternoon with a gorgeous view of Keuka Lake. Ravine's is located on the east side of Keuka Lake where the lake splits into a "Y". This gives you a panoramic north and south view as well as a nice view of the widest part of the lake. And it was a perfect day for a dinner. We enjoyed scrumptious appetizers while winemaker and owner Morten Hallgren poured his wonderful, dry, European-style wines. Morten's wife, Lisa, is the chef and mastermind behind the food pairings. Her dinner followed with fantastic salads made with local produce: Laurence Francois's Mediterranean Couscous, Cold Green Bean and Lemon Salad and the utterly awesome Lisa's Potato Salad. These were accompanied by Grilled Chicken with Garlic Scape Pesto and followed by desserts of cheesecake and chocolate! (The recipes for the chicken and salads are on Ravines new website http://ravineswine.com/welcome/ ). We truly enjoyed ourselves and had a chance to make some new acquaintances while reconnecting with old. Well done, Ravines!

Update: Standing Stone 2009 Riesling and Heron Hill Ingle Vineyard 2006 Chardonnay

I tweeted a few days back that the Standing Stone 2009 Riesling was excellent. Wine Spectator verified it, giving this Riesling 88 points! AND Standing Stone's Riesling Ice 91 points! Congratulations to Standing Stone! I have said before how much we love Standing Stone wines so it is great to see Marti and Tom get this recognition! Both are available in the winery's tasting room.

I also finally got a chance to try Heron Hill's Ingle Vineyard 2006 Chardonnay that we purchased at the Rochester Public Market (it is also available at the winery). I am not a huge Chardonnay fan, especially of buttery California Chards, but was really impressed with this one. It was clean and crisp, and slightly buttery, but not overwhelmingly so. (The bottle says it is fermented in European oak which is more subtle than American oak). I am saving a bottle to give Pam for her Big 5-0 as she loves exceptional chardonnays. Also thinking about how well this would pair with shrimp scampi, sauteed scallops, or lobster bisque!

Here's Maggie's review of the Heron Hill Chardonnay!

I highly recommend this chardonnay before it runs out!

Damiani Wine Cellar's New Tasting Room is Coming...

Damiani Wine Cellars will be opening their new tasting room in about a month's time. It is located 5 miles south of the current tasting room on the east side of Seneca Lake, Route 414. We will definitely have to schedule a trip there when it opens, but in the meantime, we had a great tasting opportunity with Gabriel Damiani last weekend. Their current tasting room is really a beautiful old house, and it was gloriously air-conditioned! We previously had only tasted their reds and their 2009 Riesling, so welcomed the opportunity to try the other whites available. Gabriel said they don't make any bad wines, and he was right. We have loved their reds for awhile, but now we love them all. The wines are all dry wines, but some taste sweeter or fruitier depending on the type of grape. They are a small winery making a limited numbers of cases (from 100- 600). We started with the whites. The Sav Blanc (188 cases made) was exceptional. Lots of grass and tropical fruit flavors. The Riesling (2009) is made with grapes from Argetsinger vineyards. I love this Riesling; it is so crisp and clean. We sampled and liked the Gewurztraminer. The Pinot Grigio was also lovely and Gabriel was glad everyone in the group liked it as he said he planted all the vines for this grape by hand, and that the vineyards are truly a labor of love that he hopes will be there for the family's descendants to enjoy.

Then came the reds. We really, really liked the Cab Franc Barrel Select, The Merlot, the Cab Sav and the Meritage. The Pinot Noir was well done also. Lastly we tried the 2007 Sparking Brut. All I can say is if you have a special occasion or even don't have a special occasion, but like champagne, try this! It was truly a taste experience as it goes through many changes as soon as it hits your mouth! The effervescence changes from sweet to citrus to vanilla. Wow. Needless to say, we purchased a bottle of the Brut to accompany the Barrel Select Cab Franc and Riesling. As we were driving home we realized we didn't grab a Meritage. Guess we'll just have to go back when the new tasting room opens!

P.S. Today "Rover" Jon sent me this photo of the wines he purchased at Damiani this weekend: the Barrel Select Cab Franc, the Barrel Select Pinot Noir, and the Cabernet Sauvignon Barrel Select! As a fellow Damiani lover, he is enjoying his purchases in celebration of the 4th. His review of these Damiani wines: "awesome"!

Heron Hill Scoops

We attended a wine tasting of Heron Hill Winery wines the other night. This vineyard has a drop-dead gorgeous wine tasting facility north of Hammondsport on Keuka Lake. We tried several delicious wines, but also found out the scoops on an upcoming exceptional vintage: the 2007 Cab Franc. Watch for it when it is released! We also heard that the 2006 Ingle Vineyard Chardonnay is outstanding. While it was not available for the tasting, the word is that it is available at the Public Market at the Heron Hill booth. We will check it out this Saturday and let you know...(or get to the Market yourself, try it and let US know what you think!)