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Wine pioneer Kip Bedell in his home art studio. (Photo credit: Jeremy Garretson)
A Long Island native, Kip Bedell is happy these days to embrace his first passion — painting — and spending time with his family but the gold standard he set at his namesake winery continues: terroir-driven wines that turn heads.
What was supposed to be a little five-acre hobby in 1979 turned into a 50-acre award-winning winery that garnered enough attention to be sought out and purchased in an offer Bedell couldn’t refuse by Michael Lynne, the former head of New Line Cinema, in 2000. It has easily become one of the flagbearers for quality and the excellence that can be achieved from our soils.
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Amy Zavatto is the Editor-in-Chief for southforker, northforker and Long Island Wine Press. She's a wine, spirits, and food journalist whose work appears in Wine Enthusiast, InsideHook.com, MarthaStewart.com, the New York Post, Liquor.com, SevenFifty Daily, Imbibe, Men’s Journal and many others. She's the author of The Big Book of Bourbon Cocktails, Prosecco Made Me Do It: 60 Seriously Sparkling Cocktails, Forager’s Cocktails: Botanical Mixology with Fresh, Natural Ingredients, and The Architecture of the Cocktail. She is a respected judge for the American Craft Spirits Association’s annual small-production spirits competition, and has moderated numerous panels on the topics of wine, spirits, cocktails, and regional foodways. She is the former Deputy Editor for the regional celebratory publications, Edible Manhattan and Edible Brooklyn, as well as the former Executive Director of the Long Island Merlot Alliance. She is a member of the New York chapter of the international organization of women leaders in food, wine, and spirits, Les Dames d’Escoffier. The proud daughter of a butcher, Amy is originally from Shelter Island, N.Y., where she developed a deep respect for the East End’s natural beauty and the importance of preserving and celebrating it and its people.
