NY Wine and Culinary Center--Wine Tasting Report

With friends in town from Boston and Albany I really wanted to show off Central New York.  But these weren't just any friends.  They'd been here before.  We were all classmates in grad school at Cornell University in the early to mid 90s.  I wanted them to see Central New York with new eyes. On Saturday we traveled throughout the Finger Lakes for some good food, wine tasting, and a visit to our beloved alma mater.

We started out at the New York Wine and Culinary Center.  I was extremely pleased to see how bustling things were there on a day that was one of the most beautiful--weather wise--of the summer and that was full of competition for fun events like boating on the lakes and the Fox Run Garlic Festival over on the westside of Seneca Lake.  This was my first time there since the Center has been officially open. 

We started out by tasting some wines.  The bottles on offer for tasting changes each week but they seem to always offer four flights of wine and one of grape juice to taste.  Between the four of us drinking wine, we tasted two different flights and were able to make some nice comparisions between them.  I tasted the "New York on the World Stage" which featured NY wines made from European grape varieties.  I especially enjoyed the chance to compare Cabernet Franc wines from the Hudson Valley (Millbrook's 2004) and the North Fork of Long Island (Palmer Vineyards' 2003) at the same time. 

They make it easy for you to do these comparisons by giving you a placemat with all the wines in the flight labeled, with a few tasting notes.  They pour all the wines at once but line them up in the prefered order for tasting.  My flight began with the 2005 Eveningside Reserve Chardonnay from the Niagara Escarpment (another regeion I'd been anxious to try).  I found this one to be unlike any other Chardonnay I've had--there was a bit of carbon dioxide making it a bit more jumpy on the tongue than I prefer. 

The 2004 Vineyard 48 Reserve Chardonnay from Long Island's North Fork was the second wine in the flight and I loved it.  It had a very deep gold color to it and a wonderful note of pineapple on the nose that came through subtly on the tongue.  The 2004 Millbrook Cab Franc was another winner--and I was surprised to like it more than the Palmer Vineyards (which I didn't much like).  I've always thought that Long Island had the upper hand when it comes to Cab Franc but the Millbrook was great--notes of berries and black pepper--yum!  Finally, the Long Island 2001 Peconic Bay Merlot was also a favorite of the tasting.  Once it opened up a bit, the black cherry, chocolate and cedar notes won me over. 

Alas, I have no photos of the wine--check the next post for the food porn.  The NY Wine and Culinary Center tasting room was a great way to kick off a day in the Finger Lakes.  We were able to purchase some of the Long Island and Hudson Valley wines we'd tasted and then go on to visit the Finger Lake wineries themselves.  I don't know when I'll next get to the Hudson Valley for wine and we have no Vintage New York wine shop in the area.  But looking out over Canandaigua Lake on a sunny Saturday I'm convinced that this really is the way to taste the wines of New York.

Comments

[Lenn]

I've tried contacting the center a few times...I'm trying to figure out how they select the wines that they pour.

I'd say, out of 30 local Cabernet Francs...Palmers is in the middle of the pack, if not the 20s. Not what I consider a great representation of what Long Island can do.

[Jennifer]

Lenn, I was told that they are trying to have all 212 wineries represented in the tasting room at some point in the course of a year but I don't know what that means in terms of the actual wines they select. It will be interesting to see if they also offer some of the "higher end" wines.