After my last column about how to survive a day tasting wine on the North Fork with your kids, my wife and I decided to put my tips to good use and head out east ourselves over the weekend. Our goal was simple – stop at Roanoke Vineyards to taste some of their new wines, eat a picnic lunch there and then pick up our wine club shipment at Southold Farm + Cellar.
Thanks to baseball gloves, iPads, lots of snacks, visits to Magic Fountain for ice cream and Horton’s Point Lighthouse, we accomplished our mission unscathed.
And we got to taste some terrific new wines along the way.
Roanoke Vineyards has been what I call our “home winery” for many years. It’s one of the wineries closest to our house, we’ve loved many of the wines over the years and we know we can bring our kids there without worry. Owners Rich and Soraya Pisacano have watched our family expand and now grow up to the point where my kids know them as Uncle Richie and Aunt Soraya.
There’s another reason that we’ll always go to Roanoke – it’s one of the few wineries left that combine great wine with allowing customers to bring a picnic lunch, like we did.
The wines did not disappoint on this visit.
We almost always enjoy the rosé and Roanoke Vineyards 2014 Rosé ($19) – a blend of merlot and chardonnay – is a winner. Mouth-filling and refreshing at the same time, it offers fresh red fruit flavors and notes of pear and citrus. It’s a versatile wine that will be at home on the beach or on your dinner table with grilled chicken tacos.
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Next we tasted Roanoke Vineyards 2014 Sauvignon Blanc ($19) – one of three sauvignon blanc-based wines Roanoke produced in2014. Made by Miguel Martin from Palmer Vineyards, this is a classic Long Island sauvignon, driven by citrus and melon with just a bit of salinity. It’s fresh, clean and very well priced in a local industry where quality sub-$20 sauvignon blanc is tough to find.
Another Martin creation, Roanoke Vineyards 2014 Brio ($24), is vibrant and complex — and the winery’s first-ever white blend. Made from 66% chardonnay, 14% viognier, 12% muscat canelli, and 8% malvasia bianca, it offers layers of citrus, melon and spring flowers with great acidity and a long finish.
We had a glass of rosé with our picnic lunch, I played catch with my son for a bit and then we headed east to Southold Farm + Cellars where Regan and Carey Meador are seemingly always coming up with something new.
Southold Farm + Cellar “Artful Dodger” Sauvignon Blanc ($26) has all of the verve you should expect in sauvignon blanc, but there’s more here – a depth and a richness born from a bit of pre-fermentation skin contact and fermentation in older French oak barrels. If you like your sauvignon clean and fruity, this might not be your thing, but if you like texture and a background note of nuts and toasty oak, check it out.
The Meadors got and continue to get a lot of attention for their 2013 sparkling red wine, “Damn the Torpedoes,” a merlot-dominated blend that sold out a while ago. I think they may get even more attention for Southold Farm + Cellar 2014 “Counting Stars” ($28) a new, 100% petit verdot sparkling red. It’s inky – nearly black – and offers flavors to match. It bursts with black and blue fruits, black pepper and big acidity and tannins. It’s at once chewy and refreshing. I’ve never tasted anything like it. But I’ll probably taste it again and again this summer. There may be no better wine to serve (lightly chilled) with charcoal-charred steak on a searing hot day.
The last of the new releases Southold Farm + Cellars 2014 “Flying and Falling” Cabernet Franc ($32) is still a baby, but it’s already displaying what can make Long Island cabernet franc so delicious. It’s got all of the herbal greenness that franc fanatics crave, but also ripe, blackberry/black currant fruit. It straddles the line between the Loire and wines that come from much warmer climes – with great energy and freshness. I hope I can hide a bottle from myself to have with Thanksgiving dinner in the fall.
