Tag Archives: Greg Gove

Viniculture in LI, Part III: Peconic Bay Winery has reopened

Peconic Bay Winery (now Peconic Bay Vineyards), which derives its name from the eponymous body of water by which it is located, was established in 1979 by Ray Blum, making it one of the oldest wineries in Long Island.  Next owned by Paul and Ursula Lowerre, who live and work in New York City, the winery closed its doors in October of 2013, because, according to Paul, as quoted in the North Fork Patch of October 28, “Our decision to stop production at Peconic Bay Winery was based on simple economics. . . .  I’m not going to say we’re finished producing wine – but we’re most likely finished making wine for ourselves.”

In fact, in 2017 an attempt was made to use the winery tasting room to sell a variety of wine, beer, and spirits from producers in New York State, somewhat along the lines of Empire State Cellar, albeit on a small scale. The experiment lasted about a year, but in the end it was shut down. However, in October 2019, Peconic Bay Winery was sold to Stefan Soloviev, a real estate investor who owns other agricultural properties in Long Island. His former wife, Stacey Soloviev, will run the estate once it reopens in late Spring or early Summer. It is probable that the vineyards will be tended by Bill Ackerman, who looks after the vineyards of other wineries on the North Fork. More details about this story are to be found in this Newsday article: Soloviev buys Peconic Bay Winery

When it was in full operation under the ownership of Paul and Ursula Lowerre, the day-to-day running of the winery was by a very capable team that included Jim Silver, the General Manager, Greg Gove, the winemaker (who now makes wine under his own label, Race Wines), Zander Hargrave, the assistant winemaker (and now winemaker at Pellegrini), and Charlie Hargrave, Peconic Bay’s vineyard manager (now retired).

The varieties grown at the vineyards included Riesling, Cabernet Franc, Merlot, and Chardonnay, which produced some of their best wines.  For example, on the parcel called Sandy Hill the grapes are more subject to drought than elsewhere in the vineyard.  Its terroir, however, also grows grapes with sugars that are higher and more concentrated, ultimately resulting in the best Chardonnay grapes of the property.

Until the purchase of Peconic Bay by Stefan Soloviev, the Oregon Road vineyard parcels had been taken over by Premium Wine Acquisitions, and under the supervision of Russell Hearn was being managed by Bill Ackerman, of North Fork Viticultural Services. Now, however, Peconic Bay is open for business again as Peconic Bay Vineyards and Stacey Soloviev is now the owner and manager. Greg Gove, the former winemaker, is back and working as both oenologist and also vineyard manager. They intend to plant new varieties, such as Pinot Blanc and Grenache and expand the vineyard.

Already, Greg has produced Viognier, Riesling, and Chardonnay, which are available to taste and purchase in the tasting room. We have a great deal to look forward to with this renewed operation.

Updated 28 October 2014, 10 November 2019, 16 October 2021.

Updates to Wines of Long Island, 3rd ed.

Updates to Wines of Long Island, 3rd ed., since it was published.

The book was published on August 19, 2019; since then, significant changes have taken place in the wineries of Long Island. This, of course, is no surprise. I knew that my book would be out-of-date the day it was published. But I’m not planning to write yet another edition. I haven’t even sold all the copies that I had printed so am still out of pocket. However, it’s now possible to update a book online, so I urge all the purchasers of my book to read this and even download it for reference when using the book.

First, the really good news: not a single winery in Long Island went out of business due to the Covid outbreak. In fact, the wineries thrived in 2020, partly because people couldn’t travel abroad, so locals and people from the City made their way to Long Island Wine Country.

Indeed, the Long Island Wine Council has changed its name to Long Island Wine Country, and as of May 2021 has 30 members, up from 24 at the time of publication.

Recently, three wineries have changed their names. Most notably, Shinn Estate, which was sold by Barbara Shinn and her husband, David Page in 2017, is now Rose Hill, according to an article in the Northforker by Grant Parpan (April 15, 2021). The owners, Randy and Barbara Frankel, felt that enough time had passed and they wanted a name that resonated for them. Rose Hill is a neighborhood in Manhattan where they first lived, and though the terrain of the vineyard is flat as a pancake, they chose the name Rose Hill for apparently sentimental reasons.

The second winery to change its name is Laurel Lake, which changed hands this winter when it was sold by the Chilean consortium that had owned it. The new owner, Dan Abrams of ABC News, also chose a personal name of great sentimental meaning, taking the names of his two young children, Everett and Emily, and deriving from them the logo EV&EM. For now, Juan Sepúlveda continues as the winemaker. While Rose Hill is now an official and registered name, EV&EM will not be official until this summer. Sentimental names are not unusual, by the way. Consider Channing Daughters, named in honor of the late Walter Channing’s two daughters when that winery was established, or Martha Clara, named for the mother of Robert Entemann, who purchased the property 1978, initially as a horse farm, but eventually it became a 100-acre vineyard, which was recently bought by a Mexican winemaking family, Ribero-González, which renamed it RGNY.

Then, Sal Diliberto, now 75, decided that it was time to sell his eponymous winery and vineyard, given that none of his children was interested in continuing the business, and it was purchased in February 2021 by a young couple from Riverhead, Jacqui and Greg Goodale. They have renamed it Terra Vite Winery & Vineyard. They hired Kelly Koch, formerly of Macari, as their winemaker, which means that they’ll be making very good wine in the future. The tasting room and winery have been renovated and opened again for business on Memorial Day.  diliberto-long-island-wine-country

Another name change since publication is that of Chronicle Wine at Peconic Cellar Door. This needs some explanation. Originally, Alie Shaper and Robin Epperson-McCarthy were independent winemakers. A few years ago they decided to offer their labels from a tasting room on Peconic Lane that they called Peconic Cellar Door. That is now Chronicle Wines at Peconic Cellar Door, but their individual labels remain. In the book Alie’s main brand, BOE, has its own entry, though she has other labels of her own, including Shindig, As If, and Haywater Cove. So too does Robin have her own entry under Saltbird Cellars. Today they would be written of as a single entry, which by no means would diminish their individual accomplishments. In fact, it’s a real and very successful partnership.

In December of 2020 Juan E. Micieli-Martinez, the former winemaker of Martha Clara Vineyards, and his sommelier wife Bridget Quinn Micieli-Martinez, proudly unveil Montauk Daisy Wines in collaboration with Theresa Dilworth and her husband Mineo Shimura of Comtesse Therese Vineyard. Collectively, the group shares 80 years of experience within the Long Island Wine industry. Juan and Bridget, after multiple years of making wine and running operations for many noteworthy producers including Pellegrini Vineyards, Shinn Estate Vineyards, Martha Clara Vineyards, Palmer Vineyards, Clovis Point, and Premium Wine Group, decided it was time they produce wine for themselves. So now there is a new winery, formed taking the fruit of the Comtesse Therese vineyard and Juan making the wines at PWG. This deserves a blog post of its own, which should be forthcoming this summer.

Most remarkable may be the resurrection of the Peconic Bay Winery, now Peconic Bay Vineyard, purchased by Stefan Soloviev, with Stacey Lynne (formerly Mrs. Stefan Soloviev) listed as the owner, and Ken Cereola is the General Manager. Happily, winemaker Greg Gove has returned to his old haunt to resume his work and continue producing excellent and distinctive wines. Furthermore, Evan Ducz, who was at Sparkling Pointe, is the tasting room manager, which means that the room will be very well-managed and run. The winery had been closed for eight years and the vines had been tended by other wineries, so they’re in very good shape. There are now 125 acres planted to grapevines. The winery and its tasting room officially opened in May. As the winery had been closed when the book was published, it was not included, but it will have a new blog post dedicated to it pending an interview with Stacey, which we hope we can do this coming November.

In the meantime, a few wineries are currently for sale: Osprey’s Dominion and Bedell are now on the market and Castello di Borghese has sold a parcel of acres along with the family house, but not the tasting room. Meanwhile, they continue producing wine as they always have.

If you haven’t yet bought my book, please do so here, and download this page to insert it in the book when you receive it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oenology in Long Island: Anthony Nappa Wines

Anthony at ESC

Anthony Nappa pictured with his wines prior to a Winemaker’s Tasting at Empire State Cellars in Riverhead

Anthony Nappa wears several hats at once: as winemaker for Raphael, a major winery on the North Fork, as founder and owner of Winemaker Studio in Peconic, Long Island, and as winemaker for his own brand of wines with intriguing names like Anomaly, Luminous, Spezia, and more. Of the eleven Nappa wines that are presently offered at the Winemaker Studio three have earned 90 points from Wine Enthusiast and a red has won 91 points–the highest score ever by WE for a North Fork wine. That’s really quite remarkable for such a small producer—albeit clearly a gifted one.

Anthony’s road to becoming a winemaker in Long Island was, as is so often the case, circuitous. Born in Massachusetts, he went to the University of Massachusetts in Amherst to earn a degree in agriculture with a focus on fruit-growing. A couple of years later he decided to obtain a degree in viticulture and found that the program at Lincoln University in Christchurch, New Zealand, was the most economical for an English-speaking country. It ended up being a degree in oenology as well, and that was where it discovered that he had an aptitude for it. Four years later he went to Italy, where his family is from, and spent a year at a winery near Naples. After six years abroad he returned and helped start a winery, Running Brook, in southern Massachusetts. He was there for a year before moving on to California to try winemaking there, but West Coast life wasn’t for him. Finally, in 2007, he came to Long Island, got married, and in partnership with his wife, Sarah Evans, who works as a chef, started making his own wine while working at Shinn Estate.

I met him several years ago, when he was at Shinn (2007 to 2011). He went there with the understanding that he could use their facilities to make wine for his own label, which bears his name. His first wine under his label was 200 cases of LI Pinot Noir that he dubbed Nemesis. After he left Shinn he focused more on his own wines and made them at Premium Wine Group, the custom crush facility in Mattituck.

He now has same arrangement with Raphael. As he explains, “We keep everything very separate. [Raphael’s] business is very separate from ours. We pay to make the wine here; it’s just like at Premium. We pay to store it; we pay everything just like we would if we were just a customer. A lot of times I’m working on my stuff, I’m working on their stuff or whatever, but I just try to keep everything very separate.” (To read about Raphael’s wines, see Viniculture in LI: Raphael.)

For Anthony, who has certainly had plenty of experience on both coasts, Long Island is the place to make wine in the East. He told me that “I really think Long Island is the best wine region on the East Coast by far. It’s so diverse; we’ve so much potential. The wines that I’d tasted even ten years ago were better than anywhere else along the East Coast, and they’re even better now.”

As Anthony Nappa Wines has no vineyards of its own, all the wines are made from purchased grapes. Anthony explains:

“I buy grapes from a dozen different vineyards. It changes all of the time. We buy grapes from Upstate, as well. We made a Riesling in the beginning. For me Finger Lakes Riesling is the best Riesling in the country, and I’m just buying grapes. Why wouldn’t I make Finger Lakes Riesling? We label it Finger Lakes and everything; we put vineyard designation on as much stuff as we can.”

Speaking of the dependence on purchased fruit, Anthony said, “The hard part about only buying grapes is we can’t necessarily be consistent. We don’t always get the same quality of fruit. So we might make a wine and then not be able to make it again for years. So it’s hard to be in the marketplace that way. But on the other hand, it’s got its advantages, because we can adjust our production levels every year. We can be opportunistic and jump on good vintages and make extra wine and hold back in bad vintages. We can just do a one-off wine with some grape variety that I was able to purchase and make whatever even just once, if there are some grapes available. We can be opportunistic at the last minute and buy fun stuff, different stuff. There are a lot of advantages to not owning a vineyard, and there’s a lot less risk.”

For example, Anthony has made Nemesis, his first wine, a Pinot Noir, only once.  He eschewed making again until this year as he did not find grapes of the quality he demanded for making that varietal again.  Talk about fussy.

Anthony operates on the idea of honesty in all things bearing on his wine: honest wine that is made with minimal manipulation (if any) and reveals its varietal character; honest marketing—with full disclosure of how the wine is made; and honest labeling—straightforward and direct, without unneeded embellishments.  A testament to that is found in his wine spec sheets which accompany each of his wines.  Talk about full disclosure.

The Winemaker Studio

Anthony’s The Winemaker Studio is owned and operated by him and his wife, Chef Sarah Evans Nappa, of Anthony Nappa Wines.   They moved to the North Fork in 2007 and in the same year Anthony established his own wine brand, Anthony Nappa Wines while working as winemaker for Shinn Estate.  His first wine was Nemesis, a white wine made from Pinot Noir, of which 200 cases were made.   Sarah has considerable international experience and is previously the Sous Chef at the North Fork Table & Inn in Southold, NY.  When she is not looking after their son Leonard (born in 2013), or running the tasting room, she is available for hire as a private chef for small events and dinner parties.

In the beginning Anthony invited other winemakers who were producing their own brands but had no tasting facilities of their own to offer their wines at the Studio.  It was a cooperative venture, and tasting rotated with a different brand being highlighted for tasting each weekend.  Over time a number of them moved to other tasting rooms that were more connected to their production.  For example, Russell Hearn, John Leo, and Erich Bilka all work at PWG (Premium Wine Group, a custom crush outfit) which has its own tasting facility, The Tasting Group, for brands that are made at PWG.  So while their wines are now available at retail from the Studio, their wines are no longer offered as part of the tasting menu, which now only highlights Anthony’s own wines and Greg Gove’s Race label of wines.

The Winemaker Studio is currently offering:

  • Anthony Nappa Wines from winemaker Anthony Nappa of Raphael Vineyards
  • Race wines by Greg Gove, former winemaker at Peconic Bay Winery—now closed.
  • Suhru Wines from winemaker Russell Hearn of Lieb Cellars and head production winemaker PWG
  • Leo Family from winemaker John Leo of Clovis Point and production winemaker at PWG
  • T’Jara Wines from winemaker Russell Hearn
  • Influence Wines from winemaker Erik Bilka of Castello di Borghese and production winemaker at  PWG
  • Coffee Pot Cellars from winemaker Adam Suprenant of Osprey’s Dominion Vineyards, who now has his own tasting room.

Anthony’s own wine labels are elegant in their simplicity and he likes to give his wines distinctive names—each in a different typeface—that reflect something of the character of each.  For example, of three that we sampled, the names suggest a story:

Anthony, anomalyAnomaly, so named because it is just that:  a white wine made from a red grape–in this case Pinot Noir.  According to the spec sheet for this wine, the fruit is sourced from several vineyards: that from the Finger Lakes brings acidity and fruitiness, while from the North Fork the grapes impart more structure and body.  Together the blend brings forth a good balance to Anomaly.  All the fruit comes from sustainably-maintained vineyards.  The grapes are hand-harvested and gently pressed with no skin contact, but using red-wine yeast from Burgundy.  Cold-fermented for two weeks, no oak was used nor was there a malolactic fermentation.  It was bentonite-filtered for heat stability, cold-stabilized, and sterile-filtered before bottling.

The 2013 Anomaly comes from an excellent vintage characterized by a cool summer and 50 days without any precipitation until harvest, resulting in fully-ripe and very clean fruit. The wine is of a medium lemon color with a slight blush, with a full body, firm acidity, and notes of strawberry, white peach, and a minerally finish, perfect as an aperitif or summer wine. 12.3 % abv; $20; ;  90 points from Wine Enthusiast.  Drink within a year.

Anthony, dodiciThe 2012 Dodici is a blend of 67% Merlot, 28% Cabernet Franc, and 5% Cab Sauvignon; the fruit, of an excellent vintage, came from two pre-eminent vineyards on the North Fork:  McCullough and Matebella, which are sustainably farmed.  The spec sheet also tells us that the grapes were fermented after 5 weeks of maceration and aged separately for 18 months in French oak, only blended just prior to bottling unfiltered and unfined.  Just 187 cases were produced. The resulting wine is a deep brick-red color with suggestions of tobacco, licorice, and red fruit on the nose while offering a full body and a nice, long finish with mineral notes. Drinkable now, it could be laid down to evolve for five more years.  It will happily accompany any red-meat dish or go with a full-bodied cheese. 13.2% abv; $35;  91 points from Wine Enthusiast.

Anthony, chardonnayAnthony’s 2013 Chardonnay has an Italian spelling that reflects what he considers to be a “rustic Italian style,”  but given that the grapes come from McCullough Vineyards one might wonder if there weren’t a touch of the Irish about it as well.  Anyhow, the vintage has been described above and as a result the fruit shows beautifully.  Unoaked, the wine was fermented with wild yeast and then underwent a malolactic fermentation, yielding aromas of ripe peaches, citrus, and buttery notes.  With that we have a full-bodied wine with firm acidity and a medium-length with some minerality.  In fact, we’d call it elegant, and it has excellent typicity–this can be nothing other than a Chardonnay, and a very-well made one at that.  Perfect with any fish or seafood.  13.9% abv;  $20; ;  90 points from Wine Enthusiast; to drink now or hold for a few years.

Anthony, TWS signAnthony Nappa Wines