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Long Island’s New Wine Wave

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Long Island wine country is situated on the North and South Forks of Long Island—two scraggy tines of land that extend into the Atlantic Ocean. With its maritime climate and northerly latitude, the region’s vintners have long embraced comparisons to Bordeaux and other Old World wine regions. Yet, nearly 40 years since its first commercial vinifera vineyard was planted, a new era is emerging in an area once mainly occupied by potato farms and fishing villages. Amidst the pioneers who started it all, second-generation Long Island vintners, as well as new international winemakers, are choosing to stay and work on Long Island. Experimenting with an array of grape varieties and wine styles, many of the best winemakers are focused on producing artisanal, small-lot wines intended to express the island’s terroir. 

—Anna Lee C. Iijima


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An Old-Fashioned Wine Harvest

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At one Long Island winery, they crush the grapes the way the Romans did—with their feet. Sophie Menin on what this means for their wine. 

Picture a 180-pound man at a vineyard in Bridgehampton wearing waders and standing on top of a ton of whole grape bunches beneath a billowing white tent that might otherwise be used for a lawn party. With music blaring through the earbuds of his iPhone, he stomps his feet to crush the fruit. Five minutes later, he is up to his thighs in liquid that is quicksand thick. He works up a sweat. The juice bubbles and gives off heat as it begins to ferment. 

This is not a remake of the classic I Love Lucy episode, “Lucy’s Italian Movie.” It is a portrait from the annual harvest at Channing Daughters Winery on Long Island’s South Fork, where Christopher Tracy, the exuberant and slightly manic winemaker, insists that the age-old custom of donning waders and stomping on clusters of whole grapes is the gentlest extraction method for red grape varieties in a cool-climate region. 

“It’s a conscious choice about style and structure,” he says. “There is one person per bin to express the juice. We don’t crush everything. We want whole berries. The goal is to make wine that is structured, supple and sexy, which means minimizing the extraction of green unripe tannins.” 

Tracy’s ability to look at the winemaking process with freedom and draw upon techniques that have fallen from fashion comes from being part of a team of winemaking iconoclasts operating in a region free from historical constraints. The North and South Forks of Long Island may have sunlight and soil reminiscent of the Loire Valley, but 40 years ago there were potato fields where vineyards are now planted. 

The vineyard’s founder, Walter Channing, a sculptor who works with discarded tree trunks, is the founding partner of C.W. Group, a venture-capital business with a focus on health care. Tracy’s mentor Larry Perrine, Channing Daughters’ CEO and co-owner (known affectionately as “the guru” in winemaking circles), earned advanced degrees in soil studies, microbiology, enology and viticulture, concentrating on the interaction of soil, climate, and wine on Long Island. A partnership with the viticulturist Steve Mudd provides access to North Fork Vineyards planted in the 1970s. Tracy founded a theater company before attending the French Culinary Institute, working as a pastry chef, then going on to earn a sommelier certificate and a diploma from the International Wine Center. He's a Master of Wine candidate. 

With 7,000 bottles spread over 26 bottlings, Channing Daughters fuses the creative energy of experimental theater with the hand-made values inherent in artisanal winemaking. Tracy plants the classic international grape varieties Cabernet Sauvignon, Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Noir, Merlot, Chardonnay and Petit Verdot, along with more esoteric Austrian and Italian varieties such as Blaufränkisch, Dornfelder, Lagrein, Refosco, Pinot Bianco, and Malvasia. He ferments white wines with their skins on and calls them "orange wines." He ferments wines using indigenous wild yeast and lets the barrels sit outside. He co-ferments white and red fruit. He creates field blends by growing several grape varieties in one vineyard then harvesting and fermenting them together. He uses gravity bottling. He blends freely—in a wine called Sculpture Garden the sweet spice and bramble flavors of Blaufränkisch flesh out the plums and blueberries of Merlot.

—Sophie Menin

Web Page: http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2010-10-18/wine-harvest-on-long-island-channing-daughters-winery/?cid=topic%3Amostrecent3

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Rose Wines for Summer

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Wine columnist Jay McInerney says some of the best rosés are from Provence—and Long Island.

Channing Daughters 2009 Rosato di Merlot is selected as a top pick in a tasting of 2009 Roses from around the world. 

Web Page: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703561604575282682495695468.html 

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Long Island Wine: No Longer a Long Shot

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When I last reported on the wines of New York State - in Issue 165 - it was as someone who had only recently become seriously acquainted with viticultural Long Island. As I made clear then, the quality of the best wines issuing from what might seem like the unpromisingly supine finger that juts far into the Atlantic east of New York City is impressive..

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Impressionism in a Glass

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...complexities suggest the dabs and streaks of colors in Impressionist paintings... 

Christopher Tracy has turned the Bridgehampton cellar in which he makes Channing Daughters whites into a kind of artist’s studio. Even when simple, these dry wines aren’t monochromatic; their complexities suggest the dabs and streaks of colors in Impressionist paintings. 

An experimenter, Mr. Tracy addresses each vintage’s unique characteristics by shifting the proportions of the grapes used in blends and by calibrating the flavor relationships and accents, seemingly in restrained fashion. These wines have uniformly long aftertastes. 

This approach explains why, year by year, Mr. Tracy’s portfolio of boutique whites, influenced by food-oriented styles in northern Italy, is Long Island’s most ambitious. 

Channing Daughters’ prettily aromatic, appetite-whetting 2008 pinot grigio ($20), made with a dollop of chardonnay, has an elusive mintiness. The attractively hearty 2008 tocai Friulano ($24), produced from grapes from the Mudd West Vineyard, on the North Fork, evokes a late-summer melon. 

Mr. Tracy’s zippy, creamy, palate-cleansing 2008 Scuttlehole chardonnay (a good buy at $16) is faintly figgy and pearlike. Produced in steel, it avoids the oak-barrel influences that have diminished the popularity of overly wooded chardonnays. 

Channing Daughters’ 2008 Sylvanus ($24) is a masterly field blend: it uses muscat ottonel, pinot grigio and pinot bianco grapes that were farmed, picked and fermented together. The wine has a charming flower garden scent and flavors swirling with subtleties. 

The weighty, refreshing 2007 Vino Bianco (a $20 bargain) is a triumph of blending: tocai Friulano, sauvignon blanc, pinot grigio and grapes from two different chardonnay clones. It delivers a sweet bouquet and, in the glass, hints of honey and herbaceousness.

—Howard G. Goldberg

Web Page: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/nyregion/18vinesli.html 

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