Marglin on Taste

As you read this, grapes are ripening on the vines for what could be one of the greatest years ever for Long Island winemaking. This sounds like a half-hearted compliment, but it’s not: these days Long Island, located within about three hours’ travel from Boston, is great wine country.I recently spent a weekend visiting many of the 22 North Fork (and three South Fork) wineries, and quite frankly, I was blown away. I feel like the rock critic who caught Bruce in the early ’70s and claimed to have seen the future of rock and roll. Right now Long Island is the hottest wine region east of the Pacific states, and it may well be the most quickly improving anywhere.

The reds have just been released from the 1997 vintage, which was the region’s best vintage to date, and marks Long Island as world-class. And I’m not alone in thinking so. At a blind tasting in Manhattan, a very professional panel of sommeliers and restaurateurs rated wines from a North Fork stalwart, Lenz Winery, higher than French counterparts from Pétrus, Château Latour, and Le Montrachet. This is remarkable - it calls to mind the 1976 tasting in Paris where California cabernets beat the great French wines in blind tastings, putting California on the wine world’s radar screen.

Lenz wines are not yet available in Massachusetts, but don’t fret. Many other Long Island wines, such as Pindar, Jamesport, Wolffer Estate, and Pellegrini, are distributed here. But what you need to do, given that the harvest is happening now, is jump in your car, drive to New London, and hop on the ferry. An hour after that, you will be on Route 25, with more than 20 wineries ahead of you.

In my next column, I’ll get more in-depth about Long Island winemaking - the grapes, the history, and so on. For now, these tips and strategies for navigating its wine country should come in handy.

1) Map it out. You cannot seriously visit 20 wineries in a day, or even in two. To do a winery justice, whether it offers a tour or just tastings, you need to spend about an hour there. Five wineries is a fine number for one day; seven is a lot. Long Island has great brochures to help you pick your spots, and the www.liwines.com Web site is loaded with information.

2) Choose your poisons. Every winery will have several wines open for you to taste. Usually, you’ll be able to try a number of wines for free or for a single charge; a handful of reserve wines will cost a few dollars per taste, or as a flight. You do not need to try every wine. Pouring staffs generally know what their best wines are. Do not stick exclusively to your favorite grape varieties. One of the reasons to visit wine country is to discover new wines.

3) Spit and designate. Every tasting room has some receptacle into which you can - and should - spit wine. You are wine tasting, not wine drinking, and if you swallow you will soon be a) totally blasted, and b) unable to taste well. Even if you’re not the designated driver, if you want your day to be memorable, spit.

4) Purchase wisely. Make a budget, and then do not blow it all at the first winery you visit. Many wineries sell wines on their premises that you will not see anywhere else. Prices tend to be retail, with normal case discounts. You will want to buy wines that stand out, and by the end of the day, you will wish you had more money to spend. Forgo the volume discount - buy a bottle here, a bottle there of the wines you like the best. Each one you will remember well - if you followed the first three steps - when you serve it later.

Here are the wineries I particularly enjoyed, listed from north to south (the Ferry drops you far north).

North Fork

Lenz Winery. Wine-in and wine-out, the best winery between California and Europe. Awesome room, too.Pindar Vineyards. Bigger and showier, with jazz and hundreds of people. Open until 6 p.m. Great sparkling wines, and it’s usually worth it to pony up for the reserve wines.

Bedell Cellars. Michael Jordan allegedly loves its merlot, which is served in his Grand Central Station steak house. Quality talent and top-notch fruit ought to lead to plenty of bigger, better things. A champion. Hargrave Vineyard/Castello di Borghese. The Hargraves pioneered the Long Island wine renaissance in 1972, and they recently sold their winery to the Borgheses (descendants of Italian nobles from Tuscany) for about $4 million. But the Hargraves remain on as consultants, the wines remain excellent, and their future is bright.

Galluccio Estate Vineyards, Gristina Winery. This was simply called “Gristina” before being sold to Vincent Galluccio, a “force of nature” who worked for IBM and British Telecom. The tasting room is truly lovely, with a great spot for a picnic lunch.

Pellegrini Vineyards. Beautiful room reminiscent of a monastery, splendid wines, helpful staff. Pellegrini is often the top-rated Long Island wine (its 1997 merlot got a 90 from the Wine Spectator). Try the Finale, a delicious dessert wine.

Jamesport Vineyards. The tasting room is an old converted barn, with a beautiful party area out back. They were playing Phish on the stereo when I tasted, and the staff, though busy, found the time to go through the extensive selection with me. Try the white port and the succulent cabernet franc. The best selection.

Palmer Vineyards. On Route 48, pretty much the most westerly winery on the North Fork. Very solid.

South Fork

Channing Daughters. Right in the cornfields, this winery is up-and-coming, with a sauvignon blanc that’s the best I have tasted east of the West Coast. Lovely place and, along with Wolffer, worth the hour or so drive to the South Fork.Wolffer Estate. My favorite Long Island winery in terms of the setting. People have weddings here every weekend, and you can see why. Great tasting room, with stained glass and ornate wood carvings, located right in the vineyards. Really good wines, too, and a friendly staff.

Last week, I told you why you should hop in your car and motor down to Long Island: its wineries are showing off the results of their best vintage ever, 1997, and 2000 could be just as spectacular. Here’s how and why things got so good.To begin with, all world-class wine regions need proper climate and proper soil, two basic ingredients of what the French call terroir. Wine grapes need a long growing season when temperatures exceed 50 degrees Fahrenheit. Long Island isn’t perfect in this respect. The last frost doesn’t occur until some time in April, and in some years the weather doesn’t cooperate in September and October either, so the grapes do not get a chance to ripen fully. But this is also true in other world-class wine regions, including Bordeaux, Burgundy, the Rhine, and parts of Italy. Long Island, on the other hand, is (usually) sunny, which is a plus. What’s more, the ocean moderates temperature and makes it more consistent during the summer, and the area gets plenty of wind. That helps stress the vines (grapevines that are stressed yield more concentrated fruit) and exposes the grapes to sun by blowing aside the leaves.

Long Island also has the right kind of soil to stand up to rain — of which the area gets plenty, even though it’s the sunniest part of New York. The soil drains well and has the right depth and the right nutrients, as well as some coarseness and loam. Along with wind, these conditions are conducive to growing grapes and stressing vines.

Besides weather and soil, there are the intangibles. Serious money helps, because making world-class wine is an expensive business and, in the early going, not usually a particularly lucrative one. A community of like-minded folks is also good, because you get support from your peers and it is easier to find good staff. Long Island has had both since the late ’80s and early ’90s. Now there are more than 20 wineries on the North and South Forks (the latter includes the Hamptons AVA). The money is there, too — two North Fork wineries changed hands this summer for more than $5 million apiece.

Long Island’s wine industry was conceived around 1972, when, on Thanksgiving Day, Louisa and Alex Hargrave stopped at a fruit stand on the North Fork and pronounced the land a “little garden of Eden.” They founded a vineyard and released their first wine, a rosé, in 1975. It took two more decades for things to get really serious, but the 1997 vintage, in particular, will be remembered as the one when it all came together for Long Island. The wines from that year are the ones that did so well in the August tasting that pitted offerings from the North Fork’s Lenz Winery against French vintages from Pétrus, Château Latour, and Le Montrachet.

Lenz is by no means alone. Yet even though Long Island is now officially on the map, it’s still a work in progress, as winemakers try to figure out which varietals work best. Chardonnay and merlot are naturals, because these grapes have high market demand, grow vigorously with high yields, and can withstand cold winters better than others. These were the biggest winners against their heavyweight French counterparts in the recent tasting. The problem with both these grapes, however, is that they are vulnerable in the event of a false spring warming, which induces bud-break, followed by a devastating frost. California, Spain, and Australia do not have to fear this late-winter/early-spring wipe-out.

Cabernet franc, I believe, is going to be the grape of the future. People are gaining a taste for it, it ripens earlier than cabernet sauvignon (which is always in a race against cold fall weather), and it does better in harsh winters. But Long Island is also producing some impressive sparkling wines (the one category in which Lenz fell short of its French counterparts, although only barely), as well as good pinot noirs, pinot gris, gewürztraminers, and rieslings. And Pindar Vineyards just debuted impressive syrah and viognier.

None of these wines are what you’d call cheap — in fact, some prices are quite steep. But almost all the wines are worth the dollars, and many sell for between $10 and $20. Here are some in that price range that I would consider incredible values.

1997 Pellegrini Merlot North Fork Long Island ($16.99). A bit sharp, but will age really well. Get a lot of air on it and keep it overnight. Has lively, jazzy fruit; it’s well-polished, a classic for eating with big steaks and chops.

1998 Pellegrini Cabernet Franc North Fork Long Island ($16.99). Cherries and bacon, sort of fleshy, make this wine nice with roasted pork tenderloin, or any dish with plum or hoisin sauce. Shows the promise of the future.

1997 Palmer Vineyards Merlot North Fork Long Island ($14.99). Smoky and succulent, vibrant, with maybe a hint too much wood. It should mellow some over time. Long finish, easy to pair.

1997 Jamesport Cabernet Franc North Fork Long Island ($17.95). These folks make great wines across the board, and this is an elegant example: supple, well-oaked, fully ripe, pleasant, and approachable. Fine with trout or red meat.

1995 Palmer Vineyards Chardonnay North Fork Long Island ($6.99). Note the price! Some butterscotch, but mainly pear, pretty well-balanced. Great accompaniment to salmon, halibut, or trout. Lingering honeysuckle bouquet makes this more than okay for the price.

1998 Wolffer Estate Chardonnay Reserve The Hamptons, Long Island ($17.99). Loads of minerals and oak. Pear tart, butter, ample character.

1997 Wolffer Estate Merlot the Hamptons, Long Island ($19.49). The future of merlot — grand and delicious. Full, rich mouthfeel, soft tannins, ripe but not overly heavy blackberry, and a tinge of Bing cherries. It has some cab sauvignon and cab franc as well.