Tag Archives: Paumanok Vineyards

Viniculture in LI, Part III: Paumanok Vineyards

“At Paumanok we practice viticulture that allows us to achieve our goal of growing the ripest, healthiest grapes our vineyards can produce while managing the vineyards in a responsible, sustainable way. In general, we follow the program and principles of New York State’s Sustainable Viticulture Program set forth here: VineBalance, by Cornell Cooperative Extension with whom Paumanok has had a productive relationship since my parents planted our first vines in 1983. We believe that the most important factor in making great wine is starting with the healthiest, ripest fruit possible. Growing grapes in order to achieve this goal and growing them sustainably are not mutually exclusive; in fact, they are one and the same.”

–Statement from an essay by Kareem Massoud, “Sustainable Viticulture at Paumanok”

Established in 1983, the 103-acre estate (with 72 acres currently planted to vine) is entirely owned and managed by Ursula and Charles Massoud, and their three sons, Salim, Kareem, and Nabeel . The main red varieties are Merlot & Cabernet Sauvignon; the main white ones are Chardonnay and Chenin Blanc. As for clones, a field already planted with Cabernet Sauvignon was replanted with clone 412, which produces very tiny grapes, which provide more flavor and tannins (it was developed by ENTAV/INRA of France, to which a royalty of $.20-.25 per plant is paid). However, there are no experimental plots as such here, for, as pointed out by Kareem, everything planted in the vineyard could be said to be experimental.

The dense planting of the vineyards (at 1,100 vines per acre) they say produces more concentrated fruit and therefore higher quality wines. Their wines are only made from estate-grown grapes and production is limited to just under 9,000 cases.

The first vineyard was planted across the street from the winery in 1982 (42 acres) but was not acquired until the late 1980s; the first Paumanok vines were planted in 1983, and the winery opened in 1991 with the release of the first estate-bottled wines; 12-15 acres were planted in a new field in 2005. They had to apply one to two tons of lime (calcium carbonate) per acre for the first twenty years on their original plots to bring soil acidity into balance so that it is now stabilized to the higher pH that is more amenable for vinifera varieties.

A more recent addition to Paumanok vineyards is a plot of 25 acres that was purchased from the Riverhead School Board in June of 2014, which will be planted to Chenin Blanc, the signature grape of the property. The property had originally been purchased by the school district for a school that was never built. The proceeds from the sale add to the coffers of the school district and represent an important resource for Paumanok, which will plant the first five acres to Chenin Blanc in 2015.

Certainly the newest and biggest addition occurred in August 2018, when Paumanok acquired Palmer Vineyards on Sound Avenue. This has added another 40 acres of vineyards to Paumanok’s holdings. It is a good fit with regards to the varieties planted at Palmer. Perhaps most appealing is the Albariño, which has been a great success at Palmer, so much so that other wineries are also planting the variety. Indeed, Paumanok has ordered an acre’s worth of this variety that is to be planted next year. The plan is that the new Paumanok planting will eventually be incorporated with the Albariño at Palmer to make even more wine of that variety. Meanwhile, the relatively small planting of Riesling at Palmer will be used to augment the larger Riesling planting at Paumanok.

The juice from the Palmer vineyards will be fermented at that winery but will be finished at Paumanok’s facility. Kareem will be responsible for all the winemaking for both properties.

Kareem, the eldest son, has been the winemaker in partnership with his father, Charles, for the last sixteen years. He also works very closely with his brother Nabeel, who manages the vineyard. Salim, the second son, is the factotum of the family business. For the Massouds, “sustainable” means “healthy,” for “the riper and healthier the berries the better the wine made with the least intervention.”

In the essay he provided me for this article, Kareem writes that “My perennial barometer of whether what we are doing is sustainable is the biodiversity in our vineyard: lady bugs, praying mantis, dragon flies, earth worms, etc., are present in our vineyard in abundance. As you probably know, some farms and vineyards actually introduce populations of some of these beneficial insects as biological controls. So the fact that we have them without having to introduce them says to me that we must be doing something right. We maintain a permanent cover of grasses and wild clovers and other vegetation [between the rows] and under the vine which create a habitat for all the biodiversity cited above.” In other words, at Paumanok they have naturally achieved the symbiotic diversity that is essential to sustainable viticulture.

Though Paumanok practices sustainable viticulture, Kareem thinks that organic farming, at least as understood by the general public, is a myth, insofar as organic farming allows the use of both copper and sulfur; nevertheless, some organic producers will claim that they are not “spraying chemicals” (but what are copper or sulfur if not chemicals?). Such farmers are therefore using the term “organic more as a marketing tool” than acknowledging the actuality of what organic farming entails. It is, in other words, a matter of the use , or misuse, of language. To him, it is more important to be “selecting more benign synthetic pesticides relative to more toxic organic (not an oxymoron) controls. The best example of a toxic organic control is copper. Copper does a great job at controlling downy mildew, but it is a heavy metal which is something we would rather not spray as it will destroy our soils as it accumulates in the soil over time. The sulfur used in [both conventional and organic] farming is made as a byproduct of petroleum production. There are numerous synthetic pesticides which are far more benign that we may opt to use instead.” Indeed, for Paumanok, organic is incidental to the outcome at the vineyard; however, he remains open-minded about aspects of biodynamics, as he thinks the compost tea preparations may be of value, but he remains skeptical of the ‘hocus-pocus’ associated with it, such as following astrological signs or stirring the compost teas in two different directions (the ‘biodynamic’ part of biodynamics). On the other hand, if the mystical aspects of biodynamics could be scientifically proven to be efficacious, he’d use it if it meant growing better fruit.

As Kareem points out, “at Paumanok, we manage our vineyard as sustainably as possible. . . . we do not use any more inputs (crop protectants, micro nutrients and fertilizers) than necessary to grow the ripest fruit possible.” For example, Integrated Pest Management (IPM) is driven by self-seeded ground cover, mostly rye grass and sorghum. The cover is allowed to grow into the vine rows and is kept under control by a special vineyard mower that is towed by a tractor. This machine, the Fischer GL4K, is described on the manufacturer’s Web site as “the world’s first hinged mid row and undervine slasher, offering total chemical free weed control solutions for growers with delved, ‘V’ shaped or uneven grounds.” It does, however, have some drawbacks, one of which is that it is capable of damaging or even cutting off the vine from its roots, as can be seen in the photograph to the right. Kareem explains that the vineyard crew is still learning how to use the machine without causing damage to the vines. The point is that it should allow control of weed growth in the vineyard without the need to use herbicides at all. (There is a video of the machine in action on Paumanok’s Facebook page.)

Further IPM control is managed by:

. . . employing] various IPM (Integrated Pest Management) tactics to reduce our reliance on pesticides. For example, we perform the following activities on the entire vineyard: manual-shoot positioning with catch wires and clips to hold the shoots up straight, suckering, shoot-thinning, fruit-thinning or “green-harvesting”, hedging and leaf removal in the fruit zone. All of these practices increase the vines’ natural ability to resist disease (such as powdery mildew or downy mildew) by allowing UV rays from sunlight to burn off the inoculum [material that introduces disease to a previously healthy plant] and generally make conditions less favorable for mildew and other pathogens by creating a microclimate within the vine that minimizes moisture and allows it to dry quickly after a rain event by allowing better ventilation. In any vineyard, but particularly on Long Island [emphasis mine], these activities are essential to give the vine its best chance of naturally fending off pests such as powdery mildew which would take hold much more easily and rapidly – and require more spraying – had we not done these activities. We carry out these practices as diligently, meticulously and thoroughly as possible. What does that mean? For example, when we drop fruit, i.e., green-harvest, we don’t do it just once but repeatedly until harvest. Some vines may have been visited four, five, six or more times (for green-harvesting alone) to ensure that only the cleanest, most desirable fruit remains hanging on the vine upon harvest.

In addition, “Several of the pesticides we use would qualify for an organic program, however, there are some grape pests for which we feel there is no satisfactory organic control [my emphasis] that we know of at this time, such as black rot, phomopsis and botrytis. Given that grapevines must be sprayed (if you know of a grower that never sprays their vines, please let me know), our belief from day one has been to use the most effective, least toxic material available regardless of whether that product is labeled for organic or biodynamic use or not.” Paumanok has therefore invested in state-of-the-art spraying technology. Kareem says that “we use a recycling tunnel sprayer to spray our vineyard. This sprayer greatly reduces drift, and, as the name implies, recycles much of what would have otherwise been lost as drift. This results in a reduced environmental impact and improved profitability, two key pillars of sustainability.”

With respect to the Cornell University Agricultural Extension VineBalance program, Paumanok is very involved; it has the book and follows it. Indeed, Ursula Massoud is on the Cornell Cooperative Extension Advisory Committee for viticulture. VineBalance is working towards a certification program for New York grape growers, but there are politics involved that inhibit its advancement, which has to do with growers and producers of juice grapes by corporations like Welch’s. They do not want third-party certification versus the wine-grape growers who do want it. So the certification program is still in development. Another way in which Paumanok shows its commitment to sustainability is by the installation of the first solar panels at any vineyard. As Kareem points out, the family lives on the property and drinks water from their own well, so they have one more reason to be responsible custodians of the lands they farm. Theirs is a “terroirist” stewardship that respects the land and its produce.

In the vineyard they make sure that at harvest the vines are all clean before the machines go through. (Their machinery uses synthetic food-grade hydraulic fluid (costing $20-25/gallon) in order to minimize the amount of industrial fluid that can find its way into the environment. Nevertheless, they prefer hand-picking, but to ensure that boxes of picked grapes never touch the ground, an empty one is used underneath the box with grapes to keep the fruit clean. The goal always is to pick clean as well as healthy grapes.

Kareem has one last thought:

As Paumanok continues to experiment in the vineyard and improve on our [30+] years of viticultural experience on Long Island, we will pursue whatever methodology allows us to achieve our goal of growing the healthiest, ripest grapes possible regardless of whether that method is known as organic, practicing-organic, biodynamic, IPM, sustainable, etc. There is only one dogma to which we will adhere:

GREAT WINE IS MADE WITH THE HEALTHIEST, RIPEST GRAPES OBTAINABLE.

Consequently, given all the above, Paumanok joined the Long Island Sustainable Winegrowers group, becoming the twentieth member as of November 2015.

And the results show in the wine that Kareem, as winemaker, produces at Paumanok. For me the proof is in one of the finest Sauvignon Blanc wines made in this country that I’ve tasted, and an excellent Chenin Blanc that is unique in Long Island. Paumanok also sells: steel-fermented Chardonnay, barrel-fermented Chardonnay, two Chenin Blancs, Cabernet Franc, three different Merlots, two Cabernet Sauvignons, a late-harvest Riesling, a late-harvest Sauvignon Blanc, two Rosés, and several blends, all made by what Kareem calls “minimalist” wine making (he dislikes the term “natural wine making,” which implies something that it really is not).

The July 6, 2015 issue of the NorthForker has an article, “Long Island wines receive record-breaking reviews in The Wine Advocate” which reports:

Paumanok Vineyards in Aquebogue also earned some impressive numbers, with four scores of 93 and three scores of 92.

“In the world of wine, Robert Parker has been recognized as possibly the world’s most influential wine critic,” said Paumanok winemaker Kareem Massoud. “We think of [wine ratings] as a necessary evil. Like it or not, people are going to evaluate your wine and give your wine a score. In spite of all of the limitations of relying on a number, it still feels good to end up with a highly rated wine.”

Massoud said Mark Squires of WA visited the winery in March of 2015 and later requested a second set of samples of the wines he tasted, a common practice for wine critics.

“Even the best critics will get palate fatigue,” Massoud explained.

One of the Paumanok standouts for Squires was its 93-point 2007 Merlot Tuthill’s Lane.

“Here, [Paumanok] makes a wonderful Merlot,” Squires wrote. “Full-bodied and caressing on the palate, this shows very fine depth, but it retains its elegance all the while.”

All in all, 23 of Kareem’s wines earned a score of 90 or more. That is more than any other winery on the Island and a remarkable achievement.

Paumanok was named NY Winery of the Year 2015 by the NY Wine and Food Classic held in August at Watkins Glen in the Finger Lakes. This is the second time that the winery has been so honored. Its 2014 Medium-Sweet Riesling was declared best white wine in the competition. See Edible East End’s article. More recently, Paumanok was selected as Winery of the Year 2021 by the New York Wine and Grape Foundation.

It should also be noted that in July 2018 Paumanok purchased Palmer Vineyards, another North Fork producer, and Kareem is now winemaker for both.

Based on an interview with Kareem and Nabeel Massoud on 3 May 2011 with additions from “Sustainable Viticulture at Paumanok Vineyards,” an essay by Kareem; last updated September 15, 2018

Paumanok GPS Coordinates

40°56’54.38″ N
72°36’12.18″ W

PAUMANOK Vineyards
North Fork of Long Island
1074 Main Road (Route 25)
P.O. Box 741
Aquebogue, NY 11931

Phone: (631) 722-8800
Fax: (631) 722-5110
Email: info@paumanok.com

Viniculture in LI, Part III: Palmer Vineyards

Based on interviews with Miguel Martin & Josh Karp in October 2010; updated May & August 2018

Palmer Vineyards was opened to business in 1986 when Bob Palmer, a New York City advertising and marketing executive, purchased farmland on the North Fork of Long Island in 1983. He built what was then the most modern winery on the island and planted a vineyard. Before long, using his marketing savvy and traveling worldwide to promote his new venture and its product, Palmer became one of the best-known LI wineries. Since then many other vineyards and wineries have been established on the East End, some of them even larger and more modern. Yet Palmer still has one of the largest vineyards, at 100 acres planted to vines (in two parcels, each of 50 acres), with an annual production of 10,000 to 12,000 cases, including red and white wines, a rosé, and a traditional-method sparkling wine.

Until 2018, Palmer’s winemaker was Miguel Martín, who was hired by Mr. Palmer in 2006 to succeed Tom Drozd as winemaker. Miguel an experienced and highly knowledgeable vintner had previously worked at, among others, Robert Mondavi in California, Caliterra in Chile, and Gonzalez Byass in Spain. While living in Barcelona (he worked in the Penedés wine region of Cataluña) he and his wife, Ellen, who is from the Hamptons area, saw an ad in a trade publication for a winemaker in Long Island. When Palmer took Miguel on he was told that he had free rein to do whatever he deemed fit to run the winery and make wine. It was an offer Miguel could not turn down, so he moved back to the Island with his family and took over winemaking at Palmer. He has done exactly as Palmer told him to do, making very good, often excellent wines, and constantly extending Palmer’s offerings: Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Gewürztraminer, Merlot, Muscat, Pinot Blanc, Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, and Viognier. He was also the first to plant Albariño–a Spanish variety from Galicia– in the region in 2010. Its wine is aromatic, with a touch of spice, yet dry, and it became an immediate hit.

Over the years, Miguel continued to introduce a new range of wines. The latest, released in 2018, is Reposo, a dessert wine made from raisined, botritised Gewürztraminer grapes left on the vine for weeks after harvest. The grapes were then fermented in used brandy casks and allowed to age for eight years before being bottled and released. A fine account of the production of this wine can be found at Edible Long Island: Palmer Reposo wine.

I’d visited Palmer Vineyards a few times before, but in mid-October, 2010, I arrived at the time of the harvest. I observed first-hand the work of a mechanical harvester—a $300,000 behemoth that is share-owned with another vineyard in order to make it more affordable. The harvester is used for collecting the grapes so efficiently that it can complete a 200-yard row in about 10 minutes or less, with little damage to the fruit, but of course without the selectivity that comes with hand-picking. Obviously, this is not the method the winery uses for producing top-quality wines with prices to match, but rather is one means of producing decent wines at affordable prices. In this case the vineyard lot in question was planted with Merlot, and a crew of experienced vineyard workers efficiently went through the rows to be harvested, lifting and fixing the bird netting to expose the grape clusters. The harvester straddles a row and using a set of mechanical beaters shakes the vines so that the ripe grapes fall to a conveyor belt of plastic cups that carry the grapes up to a collection grid that dumps the grapes into either of two mechanical arms—one on either side of the harvester—with bins large enough to hold about a ton-and-a-half of fruit each. When the bins are full—after four or five rows have been harvested—the harvester delivers its largess to a stainless-steel gondola with a capacity of five to six tons. Once the gondola is filled with grapes, it proceeds to the winery, where it is immediately hooked up, by means of a 4-inch diameter hose, to a pump that then feeds the grapes into a destemmer-crusher.

The destemmer-crusher is a compact machine that accomplishes two things at once: it removes any stems or leaves from the grapes by means of a steel rotating spindle with long steel pins, hurtling them out at one end of the machine while the grapes pass through, by gravity, to the crusher. The crusher does just that to the fruit, which is to say that it crushes the grapes enough to break their skins and allow the juice to flow out. (Pressing is a much more forceful way of getting the maximum juice out of the grapes, leaving behind only the pomace—but more on that at a later time.)

On a subsequent visit in late October, I observed a handpicked harvest, where Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon were being selectively clipped, stems and grapes together, and delivered to the winery. This time, a crew received the bins of grapes and dumped them on a sorting table. Any bad bunches were removed and the rest pushed into the destemmer-crusher, which this time was piling the removed stems so quickly that they needed to be regularly removed by pitchfork and placed in a wagon. These grapes were destined for the high-end wines made at Palmer.

So, back at the winery, after a day’s harvest, I had a chance to sit down with Miguel and talk about another matter that is of special significance to this series of posts on viticulture in LI: the question of terroir, which is something that has long been discussed, argued over, embraced as a concept of agriculture in France, while seriously questioned in the United States.

Here is a classic statement about it by one of its adherents:

‘The very French notion of terroir looks at all ‘the natural conditions which influence the biology of the vinestock and thus the composition of the grape itself. The terroir is the coming together of the climate, the soil and the landscape. It is the combination of an infinite number of factors: temperatures by night and by day, rainfall distribution, hours of sunlight, slope and drainage, to name but a few. All these factors react with each other to form, in each part of the vineyard, what French wine growers call a terroir.’ –Bruno Prats, the proprietor of Château Cos d’Estournel in Bordeaux, as quoted in The Vintner’s Art: How Great Wines are Made, by Hugh Johnson and James Halliday (1992)

(One of the factors not named explicitly above is the human one: culture, politics, agricultural practices, even belief systems play a part in terroir. In other words, human intervention, such as the choice of varieties to be grown, the vine density, pruning and training methods, how the vine rows are laid out—e.g., to take advantage of sun or to deal with prevailing winds—etc.)

According to Miguel, the most important issue in LI is the climate (which includes the weather), as it is the one element that cannot be controlled, being highly variable and therefore the greatest challenge to both the viticulturist and the vintner. In 2009, for example, the vineyard lost 10-15% of harvest due to heavy rains, but had to spend more in order to retain the fruit that was still hanging. Indeed, climate is definitely a controlling factor in terms of site choice, viticultural practices as mentioned in the paragraph above, and dealing with such issues as vine diseases and pests, which is particularly problematic given the high humidity that prevails in LI. Thus, virtually all vineyards on the North Fork , including Palmer, use double-cordon training with Vertical Shoot Positioning (which is explained in my introductory post to this series, Viticulture in Long Island, introduction to Parts 2-xx).

With respect to the soil as a part of the concept of terroir, Miguel is firm in saying that the effects of soil alone are exaggerated, and he cites for evidence an article published in The New York Times in May of 2007, by Harold McGee and Daniel Patterson, “Talk Dirt to Me.” The point is made in the article that what we like to call goût de terroir (taste of the earth), is in fact not at all the result of rocks and soil alone, but more the result of the fermenting yeasts and human intervention. “Plants don’t really interact with rocks,” explains Mark Matthews, a plant physiologist at the University of California, Davis who studies vines. “They interact with the soil, which is a mixture of broken-down rock and organic matter. And plant roots are selective. They don’t absorb whatever’s there in the soil and send it to the fruit. If they did, fruits would taste like dirt.” He continues, “Any minerals from the solid rock that vine roots do absorb — sodium, potassium, calcium, magnesium, iron, a handful of others — have to be dissolved first in the soil moisture. Most of them are essential nutrients, and they mainly affect how well the plant as a whole grows.” This insight is a clarification of the soil factor in terroir, but would seem to put to rest the notion of a goût de terroir as something discernible in wine.

In the Palmer vineyard, historically a combination of both natural and synthetic composts has been used based on soil needs, such as additional nitrogen or phosphate. The lack of either of these would be visible in the vine leaves by means of certain patterns of discoloration. Indeed, in what should be seen as a move towards a more organic viticulture, Josh wrote in an e-mail: “With some (much needed) advice from Barbara Shinn I have started a [natural] compost pile. At Palmer we always put the pomace back into the fields along with the prunings from the winters’ pruning but a [natural] compost I feel will affect the soil faster and with more nutrients.”

Palmer, like most East End vineyards, uses clones designed for late blooming and early ripening in its newer plantings, such as of Albariño, Viognier, and Muscat, in order to avoid the damages inflicted by spring frosts and autumn weather. Clover (which is self-seeding) is planted for ground cover between the rows, because it is low-growing and nitrogen-fixing. Copper-sulfate sprays are used up to one month before the harvest. One should only spray the foliates, not the fruit (there is a type of curtain spray system used for this—it has a trough that recovers and recycles dripped spray so that it doesn’t enter the soil, an important factor, as high levels of copper in the soil can be toxic to the topsoil biota). As harvest-time approaches, the copper sprays are put aside and alternative, more environmentally-friendly sprays such as Serenade or Stylet oil are used. (Stylet oil is a highly-purified white mineral oil which is extremely versatile and it functions as an effective insecticide, fungicide, and miticide.) Thus, if there is a late appearance of, say, powdery mildew, it can then be dealt with in a way that poses no risk to the plant, the fruit, the land, or the worker. Furthermore, said Josh: “Any product used is always being checked to see if it can be used less (fewer times used along with a lower rate) with the same effectiveness or can be replaced for a product that can be organic or that is considered less harsh.”

What this all means is that supervision of the vineyard is a constant, requiring that both the winemaker and vineyard manager are checking daily for signs of disease, pests, vine malnourishment, and so on. For example, overlapping canes lead to problems of rot, so must be corrected regularly by the vineyard workers in the field. Bird netting (seen in the picture wrapped and marked for the row on which each will be set) has to be carried, after veraison, into the rows of vines and set properly, otherwise birds would decimate the crop. (The nets do not trap the birds, but merely keep them from reaching the grape bunches.) That still leaves raccoons, deer, foxes, and other vermin to feed on low-lying fruit. Groundhogs need to be monitored too, for their tunnels and underground burrows can heave vines and kill them. One must love nature in a tough way in the vineyard. This year Palmer has installed both bat and owl boxes to help keep insects and animal pests under better control. Unfortunately, owls and bats seem to be rather particular about where they nest and the offer of domiciles has so far gone ignored. It doesn’t mean that they aren’t around, though. Both are among the vineyards natural friends, but there are also insect predators who feed on aphids, mites, caterpillars, moths, and so on. Ladybugs, for instance, are a natural control for aphids, which suck the vine leaves and can cause them to wither. In other words, to the extent possible, natural pest controls are used.

What all this has meant is that Palmer Vineyards was very ready to join the Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing group some years ago, and in May 2018 was again recertified as complying with the standards of LISW, the Vinebalance Workbook, and international standards of sustainability.

Bob Palmer died in January of 2009, and though the winery continues as he had envisioned it, his family had put the property up for sale. In July 2018 it was purchased by Paumanok Vineyards, owned by the Massoud family. Paumanok had been seeking to expand and Palmer fit it plans very well. Unfortunately, while they held on to most of the Palmer staff, they could not justify having two winemakers and had to let Miguel go. Kareem Massoud, the very gifted winemaker at Paumanok, will handle winemaking at both wineries. The story was published in the Wine Spectator: Paumanok Vineyards buys Palmer

Miguel is held in such high esteem that when it was reported that he was now unemployed, Wölffer Estate immediately contacted him and offered him the position of Assistant Winemaker to Roman Roth. But then, they’d known Miguel for years, and he also makes the white wines for Roanoke Vineyards, owned by Richie Pisacano, who is the vineyard manager at Wolffer. That story is told in an article in Edible East End: Miguel Martin moves to Wölffer Estate

Palmer Vineyards

Aquebogue, Long Island, New York 11931

631.722.9436

Long Island Wines Score Serious Attention

Anyone who has been enjoying wines from Long Island over the years knows that the quality of the wine has been improving to the point that most of the last several vintages have resulted in many superb wines. Occasionally a few wines here and there have received excellent review and high scores, such as from Wine Enthusiast, Wine Enthusiast and Wine Spectator. Oz Clarke has long been a fan. Still, the mainstream press has largely ignored the breadth of the achievement.

Finally, there is a level of recognition of the quality of Long Island wine that should leave no one in doubt, given two sets of tasting notes published this past June and October. In the June 30, 2015 issue of the Wine Advocate eMag, Mark Squires has rated the wines of 26 producers and given scores of 90 to 94 points to 78 of nearly 200 that were tasted, along with some detailed tasting notes. In the October 30 issue, he reviewed some 2013 new releases that weren’t available at the time of his prior review, and six producers not included earlier: Brooklyn Oenology, Suhru, Mattebella, Pindar, Duck Walk, and Diliberto. In all, 26 wines out of 78 scored 90 to 93 points, while Paumanok had the best results with 10 of its 12 wines scoring over 90. What this means that of nearly 280 wines that have been tasted for the two reviews, over 100 had high scores, but as usual, read the tasting notes to understand the scores.

90-plus scores are what catch the attention of readers, but the details are in the notes, which should be read carefully to better understand the reason for the points that have been awarded. These reviews are the opinion of one man, but he is a seasoned wine professional and really knows his stuff. His essay about the Long Island wine industry is well worth reading, but one needs a subscription to the Wine Advocate in order to do so. (I obtained the article by subscribing for a month–$20).

Some salient points made by him:

“There is plenty of evidence that the region has arrived and is on the cusp of maturity, no longer an outlier, but increasingly reliable in good vintage years. More improvements are likely, to be sure, but overall there is a lot to admire.”
“They also care about making wines to age. The top wines here typically demand cellaring and reward it.”
“The array of sauvignon blancs that I saw fit in well here and they were extremely successful. This region may be underrated for its sauvignons right now.”

What is particularly notable about Squires’ reviews is that none of the wines scored less than 82 points and that so many (nearly 36%) scored 90 points or higher. Until now, no wines from the region had ever received more than 92 points, but this time 24 wines had that score or more. But again, it must be emphasized that the tasting notes are the thing to read. The scores should be used as pointers.

32 producers reviewed out of 53 that make commercial wines is just two-thirds of the total in Long Island (including two in Brooklyn). Squires points out that he will be returning to the region from time to time so it is to be hoped that he’ll get around to reviewing the rest, for there are some significant brands that have been left out of the first two sets of reviews, such as Castello di Borghese, Laurel Lake, Palmer, and T’Jara.

Squires’ article has also been thoughtfully commented on by Eileen Duffy in her byline on Edible East End. Notably, she has also provided links to the tasting notes for each winery. Furthermore, for those who do not subscribe to Wine Advocate, she’s done a great service by making these notes available to all.

Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing: The Road to Certification

The Challenge to be Sustainable

“Green” is a global movement to promote sustainable practices in all walks of life, from recycling waste to reducing one’s dependence on materials that cannot be reused, as well as improving automobile fuel economy, minimizing energy consumption (reducing one’s ‘carbon footprint’), and promoting safer, cleaner means of producing energy, primarily by the use of renewable sources such as wind and solar power. It also means promoting and using sustainable practices in agriculture, whether in the raising of farm animals and produce, or in viticulture (the growing of table and wine grapes)—itself a type of agriculture. Green—a synonym for “sustainable”—is now a mantra for the ecologically-aware and sensitive consumer and it demands to be taken seriously by those who produce food, wine, and care for the land on which it is raised.

A big push towards sustainable practices in viticulture in New York State recently has been made by Walmart, which joined the Sustainability Consortium in 2009, and wants to sell grape juice with an “ecolabel” displayed on the containers, showing that it has been sustainably produced. Given that Walmart is the world’s largest retailer, its demand has forced winegrowers throughout the state, whether producing juice grapes or wine grapes, to respond to it. What follows is about the response to the challenge on the part of Long Island winegrowers.

In a presentation by Barbara Shinn, of Shinn Estate Vineyards, and Richard Olsen-Harbich, of Bedell Cellars, given at the 31^st Annual Long Island Agricultural Forum, held on January 13, 2012, attended by most of the vineyard managers in the region—all were invited to attend—an outline of the process by which vineyards could become certified for practicing sustainable viticulture gave clear form to what is involved in achieving that goal, with the objective of minimizing environmental impact and as a means of responding to the needs of the community at large.

The VineBalance Program

What follows is a précis of the presentation along with relevant commentary by the participants who together form the Core Group in the certification project: Barbara Shinn, Richard Olsen-Harbich (the presenters), Jim Thompson of Martha Clara Vineyards, and Larry Perrine of Channing Daughters. In addition, Alice Wise, who is the Viticulturalist and Education Specialist for the Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County, at the Long Island Horticultural Research & Extension Center in Riverhead, provided some background for this article on the initial sustainable viticulture program for New York State, VineBalance:

“In 1992, I received a grant to create a Long Island sustainable viticulture program. Working with a group of growers, we created a set of vineyard management guidelines that emphasized good stewardship practices. Established programs such as Oregon LIVE, Lodi Rules, and AEM (Agricultural Environmental Management) were very helpful to us. A number of individuals associated with those programs provided guidance as well. Our efforts drew attention from both upstate wine growers and the upstate Concord industry. Starting in 2006, a group from Cornell and from the industry received a series of grants to create statewide guidelines, now called VineBalance.

“Growers participated in the process of creating the guidelines so additional review has not been necessary. That said, VineBalance was written to be inclusive of all grape industries in NY. There are certain things in it that do not apply to Long Island. Also, vineyard management is not a static thing, it evolves each season as we learn how to best manage our vineyards. Consequently, Long Island growers decided to further refine VineBalance to more closely reflect the current management of Long Island vineyards.

“VineBalance will continue to serve as the framework for any sustainable viticulture programs in NY. The creation of additional, region-specific guidelines is great, it shows that growers are analyzing their practices and are genuinely interested in the process. All regions should do this.”

Why Certification?

However, while VineBalance provides a pathway to self-certification, that does not carry the same weight as certification by a recognized third-party certification authority, and is therefore not really meaningful in the marketplace or wine industry. Certification by an outside authority has many advantages, such as:

Validation of a claim of sustainable farming practices
Promotion of on-farm accountability
Provision of a pro-active response to local needs and concerns
Acting as another tool with which to respond to global competition
Improving the strength and viability of the Long Island wine brand

The concept of sustainability as laid out in virtually every certification program in the U.S. boils down to three concerns[1]:

Environmental soundness
Economic viability
Worker & Community care

Certification Program Models

There are, already, a number of third-party certification authorities with national or global recognition, based on the strength of their guidelines and regulation, such as:

Certified California Sustainable Wine (CCSW)
Lodi Rules
Napa Green—Napa Valley Vineyards (NVV)
Oregon Certified Sustainable Wine (OCSW)
Oregon LIVE (Low Input Viticulture and Enology)
Sustainability in Practice (SIP)

Serra presentation to LI Winegrowers

Each of these, as well as the internationally-recognized authority, Sustainable Wine New Zealand (SWNZ), is directed at specific ecological systems, which is why Long Island needs its own authority, but these at least provide models for the project to be known as Long Island Sustainable Winegrowers (LISW). In December of 2011, Chris Serra, of Oregon’s LIVE certification program, was invited to give a presentation to the East End vineyard managers. The expenses for his trip were paid for by Martha Clara, Bedell, Shinn Estate, and Channing Daughters, the four vineyards whose managers form the Core Group.[2]

Whatever certification authority Long Island wine growers create must have credibility and address not only agricultural standards of sustainability but must also deal with ethical issues; for example, a certifier representative must not be involved with the vineyards being visited in the capacity of consultant or have any other ties to them.

How Certification Works

Certification is a seasonal program that would involve:

Use of the VineBalance Workbook (the full title is The New York Guide to Sustainable Viticulture Practices Grower Self-assessment Workbook)
Core Criteria based on the Workbook
Winegrower’s Pledge that is signed in the spring prior to the growing season.

One of the challenges regarding sustainability and certification is the issue of participation. The larger the body of participants, the more viable and reputable the certifying authority will be. Jim Thompson, a thoughtful Midwesterner with long experience in agriculture, says that “sustainability [in Long Island] is achievable.” Furthermore, a Sustainable Certification will help the local industry survive by giving it stronger bona fides. Thus, he believes that certification should be made accessible to all vineyard managers. However, as Olsen-Harbich pointed out, “One of the issues that the certification project needs to address is that of offering ‘inclusivity’ versus ‘teeth.’ In other words, the lower the bar for certification, the more people will join, but once standards for certification have real ‘teeth’ and make real demands on those who want certification, the likelihood is that fewer will seek it.”[3]

Participation in a third-party certification program means that:

Members get a visit from a certifier representative in the first and second years of the track to certification and every third year thereafter.
A visit means a walk through the vineyard and a view of the records kept by the vineyard
A review of practices in the VineBalance Workbook
A review of vineyard inputs (i.e., chemicals used to control disease and fertilizers applied to the fields)
The report by the representative is then sent to the Core Group of the certification authority

For example, Shinn Estate is currently seeking to be certified by both Demeter (the Biodynamic® Certification body) as well as the National Organic Program (N.O.P.), each of which applies standards for general agriculture, but not specifically viticulture. As is the case with all certification agencies, the record keeping is fully standardized though the standards are not particular to viticulture. For Shinn, there is one visit per year every year, which comes at the end of the season, often right after harvest. It involves a two-to-three hour visit consisting of a walk through the vineyard followed by a sit-down session in which the vineyard records are reviewed. The advantage of a late-season visit is that it allows the certifier to see the condition of the vineyard after a full season’s farming, such as the ground cover, and allows for a full review of the entire season’s inputs. For Long Island Sustainable Winegrowers, after the first two years, there is one visit every three years. “It isn’t very demanding,” says Shinn, “provided you’ve kept good records.”

Scouting the Vineyard

Let us consider one aspect—a very important one—of a vineyard manager’s responsibilities, for it bears directly on the issue of sustainable practices. It begins with the concept of Integrated Pest Management (IPM). An authoritative viticultural specialist and qualified soil scientist, Larry Perrine explains: “IPM originally and primarily has to do with the control of insects. It requires knowledge of the life-cycle of each of the insect pests, thus to know when they are most vulnerable to pest-control applications. Insect infestations don’t behave like fungal ones—fungal control requires foliar application before an infestation develops, whereas insect pests can be tolerated up to a certain level of insect damage. Therefore, scouting in the vineyard is necessary to determine when or if the insects are reaching the point at which insecticide application is necessary. Scouting means that the vineyard manager needs to check a block of vines and calculate the density of pests present on, say, 50 leaves. For example, Grape Berry Moths overwinter in trees that may border a vineyard. Vineyard rows bordering those trees are most vulnerable to GBM attack. They can best be controlled by strategic use of insecticides, after scouting—for minimum environmental impact. The use of pheromone lures on twist ties, which confuse the moths during their mating season, can be helpful.”

Barbara Shinn, who has long been deeply committed to certification, elaborates, “I might go out to a particular block of vines and check the vine leaves for the presence of mites. If, say, I find that out of forty rows of vines, ten of the middle rows of vines have significant mite populations whereas the rest only had one or two mites, then I would have to consider applying the appropriate insecticide for the mites in the infected rows only—the more specific the target that the insecticide is designed for the better, as there is less collateral damage. Of course, each grower has to set his or her own limits—there is no set number. All growers have a list of acceptable inputs for sustainable, or organic, or Biodynamic practices. One selects from the list starting with the inputs with the lowest impact to the environment to those with the highest.”

What Certification Means

There are real potential benefits that come with sustainability and certification, and Long Island’s third-party certification will be carefully watched by wineries elsewhere in the Eastern United States, including Virginia, South Carolina, and New Jersey. What LISW does will certainly influence them in the development of certification authorities for their regions.

The Web site for LISW will include:

The VineBalance Workbook
Downloadable forms
Weather Data
A list of participants in the Certification Program

Olsen-Harbich, an articulate, acknowledged expert in both the vineyard and the winery, pointed out that, “Sustainability is a pathway which is ongoing and is not an ideology. It must be, and is, based on peer-reviewed science. It is the most viable form of safe agriculture.” Nevertheless, vineyard managers and all other farmers, whether sustainably farming or not, often use three products that are not naturally-made:

Stylet oil, a highly-effective, biologically-degradable foliar input used to control fungal diseases such as Downy mildew, but which is itself a highly-refined petroleum product
Sulfur, while a natural element, is another highly-effective foliar input used to control diseases and is usually a by-product of petroleum refining
Copper sulfate is also a widely-used industrial product that is used in agriculture primarily as a fungicide.

In addition, he points out, “Chemical companies have their ears open to what is going on in agriculture, and as a major player in the production of agricultural inputs (herbicides, fertilizers, pesticides, fungicides, etc.), they are always ready to come up with new products. These, in turn, often push the boundaries between natural/sustainable/synthetic inputs. They need to be considered, but with great care, when addressing the issue of sustainability.” Perrine cautions that, “There is no such thing as a ‘natural’ pesticide. Both traditional materials such as copper or sulfur, as well as the most recently developed hydrocarbon-based pesticides need to be considered for environmental impact, therefore sustainability.”

Olsen-Harbich goes on to say, “There is also the matter of synthetic nitrogen vs. compost nitrogen—which is the preferred product to use in a sustainable program? Fish products, which are natural, are often used in the form of compost and fertilization material, but the very practice of commercial fishing is itself not sustainable.” To which Perrine adds, “Synthetic nitrogen accounts for more than 50% of the nitrogen used to grow plants around the world. To maintain a food production to feed the world, requires more than the organic sources of nitrogen that are available. The 100,000,000 tons of synthetic nitrogen produced around the world consumes only 1.5% of the world’s annual fossil fuel consumption. Indeed fish fertilizer is not sustainable, while synthetic N is

Weighing in on the nitrogen issue, Barbara Shinn has this to say:

“Here is where even amongst a group of ecologically-based farmers opinion differs. I prefer to take a byproduct from the fishing industry and make it useful by regenerating my soil with it – along with seaweed, whey (from the cheese making industry) and compost (made on-farm with our winemaking musts, bedding from the local horse-boarding industry and wood chips from the local tree trimming industry). The reuse and recycling of materials helps close a cycle that otherwise could be viewed as unhealthy for our planet and does not originate from a fossil fuel. I prefer to use materials on my soil that are connected to an originally living material. This type of soil work has been proven in peer reviewed papers to produce more minerally complexed food, and of course wine is an agricultural product so wine is food. In my opinion synthetic nitrogen dumbs down the soil, skipping over the all-important step of feeding the microbial life and in essence ignoring the natural lifecycle of our soil. In this respect, synthetic nitrogen is not sustainable. This difference in opinion is what makes our LISW group dynamic and, in the end, a viable springboard for fascinating discussions.”

Furthermore, “As ecologically practicing farmers it is important to retain our brotherhood. Whether we practice Sustainable, Organic, Permaculturalist, Biodynamic, or any other restorative-based farming, our root issues are the same. As a whole group banded together our concerns for the future of this planet have a huge voice, much louder than if we were separated by difference of opinions.”[4]

For the LISW, there are potential partnerships with environmental entities such as:

The CCE (Citizen’s Campaign for the Environment), which is committed to encouraging citizens’ involvement in promoting strong environmental policy at the state and local levels
Sustainable Long Island, which promotes community revitalization
Peconic Land Trust, “which is dedicated to conserving Long Island’s working farms and natural lands.”

According to the CCE, “Long Island has been designated as a sole-source aquifer region by the U.S. EPA. This means that 100% of our drinking water supply comes from underground. The almost 3 million residents on our island are completely dependent on groundwater as our fresh water supply. The Lloyd aquifer is the deepest and cleanest source of drinking water on Long Island.” Larry Perrine says, quite bluntly, that with respect to agriculture, “there is, of course, the question of where the line gets drawn, especially with respect to a community’s sole-source water supply—as is the case in Long Island—the protection of which is of pre-eminent concern.”

Further to that, Perrine pointed out, “The Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing program will include on its Web site materials to help the public better understand what sustainable farming is and how it helps protect the community and its drinking water. The reason this must be done is that too many people come to conclusions based on the easiest and most available informational sources, which often are not reliable, fact-checked, or accurate, but often sensationalize the news. Such sources include TV, the Web, and newspapers. We wish to provide science-based and factual information that can be readily understood by the concerned public.”

Sustainability and the Community

To the question of how a vineyard relates to its community, Barbara Shinn, made the following points:

“Farming practices, as mentioned above, such that they should not have a negative effect on the community at large; choice of sustainable inputs is an important part of this.
“Land conservation, which means how the vineyard property seeks to maintain and protect animal and plant species and their variety that naturally appear and exist on the property, apart from pests that need to be controlled
“Public education about vineyard practices and objectives, particular to both viticulture and to farming practices generally. This can include information offered to visitors to the winery as well as the publication of books and articles for the general public (such as this one).”

Jim Thompson, observed that the issue of sustainability carries with it legal, environmental, and personal concerns. On a legal basis, certification would mean that a vineyard’s neighbors—often private homes or other, non-farm businesses, could rest assured that nothing dangerous is going into the ground or being wafted into the air that could affect a person’s health or neighborhood. On an environmental level, it would mean, for instance, that ground water would be protected, hence the community drinking water would be safe. “On a personal level,” he went on to say, “it means a safer environment in which to work, with the satisfaction of knowing that vineyard workers would be not exposed to the potential toxicity that is present in many of the [possible] input applications used in the vineyard.”

Larry Perrine summarized the situation well when he said: “It should be kept in mind that the natural world is in most cases self-healing over time. Farming itself is not natural, for it represents a massive intervention in nature. The goal of sustainability is to mitigate the impact of that intervention. The farmer is therefore in a compromised position, for in agriculture there is no perfection—he is always striving for something at which we can never arrive. Still, we want to leave a proper legacy for our children.”

The Long Island Sustainable Winegrowers program became a reality in April 2012. With its debut, Long Island is be the Eastern US leader in Sustainable Certification. (It has 501(c)(3) not-for-profit status.)

According to Perrine: “LISW expects about 10 wineries to sign up initially. Others are taking a wait-and-see attitude. It may take a few years for them to join. Not all of the initial members will effect a complete change-over to the sustainable practices advocated by LISW in the first year. It is, after all, only a pathway and not in itself the goal.” [One of the first to join apart from the core group was Wölffer Estate.]

Trent Pressler, CEO of Bedell Cellars, addressing the LISW audience.

On 6 June 2013 Bedell Cellars hosted the First Anniversary celebration of the founding of the LISW. As of September 2015 the LISW now has nineteen members, with sixteen of them already having achieved full certification:

Bedell Cellars (founding member)
Channing Daughters (founding member)
Corwith Vineyards (certified)
Duckwalk Vineyards (in transition)
Harbes Family Farm & Vineyard (certified)
Kontokosta Winery (in transition)
Martha Clara (founding member)
Mattebella Vineyards (certified)
McCall Wines (certified)
Mudd Vineyards
One Woman Vineyards (certified)
Palmer Vineyards (certified)
Paumanok Vineyards (certified)
Pindar Vineyards (in transition)
Roanoke Vineyards (certified)
Sannino Bella Vita Vineyards (certified)
Shinn Estate (founding member)
Sparkling Pointe (certified)
Surrey Lane Vineyards
Wölffer Estate (certified)

Paumanok Vineyards and Sparkling Pointe are the latest to achieve certification as of November 2015, bringing the total to 20 members. So the majority are already certified, each having put nearly 200 elements of sustainable practice into operation for a year or longer with two left in transition to certification. This represents very fast growth for a new certification authority, as it already has nearly a third of all the vineyards on the island. Such rapid growth can be explained in part by the fact that many of the vineyards already were practicing the guidelines of Cornell’s VineBalance program, which is the underpinning of LISW approach. There are still some that are taking a wait-and-see position, such as Osprey’s Dominion (“we’re already farming sustainably, but we need to be sure of the benefits of joining”) and Lenz (Sam McCullough told Wine Spectator [May 2012 issue]:

“The number one reason we’re not participating is that I typically buy my pesticides for the coming season at the end of the year [to save money], so I had already committed to purchase things that they don’t allow in the program,” said Sam McCullough, vineyard manager for the Lenz Winery. While he cited fungus control as his big concern in Long Island’s humid climate, he felt the sustainability program provides enough options to deal with any problems that might arise and didn’t think the required changes would be onerous.” Still, McCullough has yet to decide about participating next year. “I think it’s a fine idea, but I don’t know that there are really that many genuinely harmful practices out here. We’re all pretty responsible. I see it mainly as a perception issue and a public relations act rather than changing the way we take care of the environment, but anything that helps market our product is a good thing.”

Furthermore, the Spectator pointed out that “smaller wineries are concerned about the cost and whether consumers are willing to spend more to offset the extra expenses. Right now, [Roz] Baiz [of The Old Field Vineyard] said, she’d rather use the combined $800 in membership and inspection fees to purchase some new needed equipment.”

But twenty have joined so far, such as Mudd’s Vineyard, which says that “It’s the right thing to do.”

For wineries that are certified, the LISW logo can be included on the wine labels, thus showing that the wines are made from grapes raised with a conscience. This, it is hoped, will also help promote Long Island wines among those consumers who care about this, and the number who do are steadily growing.

Certification is accomplished by the expertise of LISW’s independent third-party inspector: Allan Connell, the former District Conservationist for the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resource Conservation Service (NRCS), using the New York VineBalance Grower Workbook as a roadmap for evaluation of the sustainable viticultural practices of Long Island vineyards.

More information about sustainable farming is available upon request from LISW at lisustainablewine.org, facebook.com/sustainablewinegrowing, and twitter.com/liswinegrowing.

As of Feb. 27, 2014, a new post was published on the Bedell blog by Richard Olsen-Harbich: “Seal of Approval,” pursuant to a visit last December by one of the world’s leading experts in the field of sustainable viticulture – Dr. Cliff Ohmart. Pursuant to that visit, on March 17, 2014, Wine Spectator published a blog post by its Managing Editor, Dana Nigro: How Serious Is Long Island About Sustainable Wine? with the subtitle, “Region’s new program gets green thumbs-up from outside expert.”

From Lodi, we have this interesting piece in : Sustainable Winegrowing Certification: Why Do Growers Participate? The most recent article, as of September 2014, is available online at the Wine Industry Advisor Website: “Demand for Sustainability Resonates . . . ”

Further to that, a February 6, 2016 NY Times article, “Cover Crops: A Farming Revolution with Roots in the Past” finds that all kinds of agriculturalists all over the country are finding out that cover crops are good for their crops!

NOTES:

[1] Interview with Larry Perrine, 10 February 2012, at Channing Daughters

[2] Interview with Jim Thompson, 4 February 2012, at Martha Clara

[3] For example, Oregon LIVE (Low Input Viticulture and Enology), which was established as a sustainable viticulture certification program in 1997, has about an 80% participation rate.

[4] E-mail from Barbara Shinn, 1 March 2012.

Correspondence by e-mail with Alice Wise was from January 29 to February 7, 2012.

Viniculture in LI, Part II: background.

In exploring vinicultural practices in Long Island, I intend to particularly examine the practice of sustainable farming, which includes organic and Biodynamic® agriculture. My original, first posting on 15 June 2010, Can 100% Organic Grapes be Grown in Long Island?, provoked some interesting and even useful responses. I have since renamed it The Challenge of Growing Certified Organic Grapes in Long Island, given the developments at Shinn Estate and The Farrm that have taken place since that 2010 posting. The series now continues with this posting (now updated to April 2015 to include new developments and information, particularly with the Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing [LISW] program established in 2012).

This Part II post serves as an introduction to the Part III articles devoted to the individual vineyards and wineries of Long Island.

To put things in perspective, one should bear in mind that New York State is the 3rd-largest producer of grapes by volume in the United States, after California and Washington. Admittedly, most NY vineyards grow table grapes, but as of 2014 there were, according to the NY Wine & Grape Foundation (NYWGF), 373 wineries in the State, of which of which one in six are in Long Island. Of all the wine regions of the State, Long Island is the one that is most committed to growing Vitis vinifera varieties, with very little planting of French-American hybrid vines and no Native American grapes at all.

I want to point out some factors that I believe appertain to most of the vineyards that I’ll be writing about—which is to say, all of the ones in Long Island, of which there are sixty-six bonded wineries, all but a handful of which are on the North Fork, as well as seven vineyards that sell their fruit to others. They comprise, by my own calculation, about 2,565 acres of planted vines (the NYGWF calculates 2,041 acres.)

Geology & Soils

Geologically, Long Island is extensively formed by two glacial moraine spines, with a large, sandy outwash plain extending south to the Atlantic Ocean. These moraines consist largely of gravel and loose rock that would become part of the island’s soils during the two most recent extensions of Wisconsin glaciation during the Ice Age some 21,000 years ago (19,000 BCE). The northern, or Harbor Hill, moraine, directly runs along the North Shore of Long Island at points. The more southerly moraine, called the Ronkonkoma moraine, forms the “backbone” of Long Island; it runs primarily through the very center of Long Island. The land to the south of the Ronkonkoma, running to the South Shore, is the outwash plain of the last glacier. When the glaciers melted and receded northward around 11,000 BCE, their moraines and outwash produced the differences between the North Shore and the South Shore soils and beaches.

A General Soil Map (below), devised by the USDA Soil Conservation Service and the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station in 1972, shows the different kinds of soils that dominate the East End of Suffolk County, the part of Long Island that is home to most of the vineyards there.

The soil associations (or types) for Suffolk County as listed in the General Soil Map (and relevant to viniculture) are as follows:

“Carver-Plymouth-Riverhead association [N. shore of the North Fork, extending across the Fork at Mattituck and then running East along the S. shore of Great Peconic Bay to Southold]: Deep, rolling, excessively drained and well-drained, coarse-textured and moderately coarse-textured soils on moraines
“Haven-Riverhead association [running from Brookhaven along the southern edge of 1 (above). With an interruption at Mattituck, then extending as far as Orient Point; this is the dominant soil of the North Fork]: Deep, nearly level to gently sloping, well-drained, medium-textured and moderately coarse-textured soils on outwash plains
“Plymouth-Carver association [runs across the middle of the West-East axis of the county, encompassing Riverhead just south of 2. It then extends into the Hamptons or South Fork as far as East Hampton but at no point touches the south shore.] rolling and hilly: Deep, excessively-drained, coarse-textured soils on moraines [the Ronkonkoma Moraine].
“Bridgehampton-Haven association [actually runs immediately adjacent to, and south of, 3.]: Deep, nearly level to gently sloping, well-drained to moderately well-drained, medium-textured soils on outwash plains”

“Textures refer to surface layer in major soils of each association.” [A caveat regarding the use of the map says,] “The map is . . . meant for general planning rather than a basis for decisions on the use of specific tracts.”

(There are ten soil types shown on the map, but we list only the four that form part of the terroir of the vineyards of the East End.)

With respect to the soil types in the North Fork and Hamptons AVAs, Louisa Thomas Hargrave wrote an article, “The Dirt Below Our Feet,” in the Spring 2011 issue of Edible East End, in which she made some important observations:

Every discussion of a wine region’s quality begins with the soil. Going back to ancient Roman times, around ad 50, Lucius Columella advised, in his treatise on viticulture, De Re Rustica (“On Agriculture”), “Before you plant a piece of ground with vines, you should examine what sort of flavor it has; for it will give the wine a similar taste. The flavor can be ascertained…if you soak the earth in water and taste the water when the earth has [g]one to the bottom. Sandy soil under which there is sweet moisture is the most suitable for vines…any soil which is split during the summer is useless for vines and trees.”

The “useless” soil that splits is clay, a colloidal suspension of particles similar to Jell-O. Clay retains too much moisture when it rains, making the tender roots of wine grapevines rot; it withholds nutrients from the vine when the weather is dry.

There is little clay on the East End of Long Island, except in specific and easily identified veins. We have remarkably uniform sandy soils here that vary in available topsoil (loamy organic matter), but all contain the same fundamental yet complex mixture of minerals. These soils are ranked by the U.S. Soils Conservation Service as “1-1,” the most auspicious rating for agriculture. Any single handful of Long Island soil will show the reflective glint of mica; the dull gray of granite; the mellow pink, salmon and white of quartz; the red and ochre of sandstone; and black bits of volcanic matter. To describe them simply as “sandy loam” fails to acknowledge the profound effect that having this mixture of minerals must have on the vibrancy and dynamic quality of Long Island’s wines.

Richard Olsen-Harbich, the author of the two AVA applications for the Hamptons and the North Fork, published a two-part series on the soils of Long Island for Bedell Cellars, where he is winemaker: the first, The Soil of Long Island. Part 1 – Ice Age: The Meltdown, published on April 12, 2011, and the second, more recent piece, The Soil of Long Island. Part 2 – There’s No Place Like Loam, published Sept. 6, 2013, which are useful and lucid explanations of how the glaciers of the Ice Age left Long Island with the soils that grow the vines today.

It should also be pointed out that Long Island soil, regardless of its composition, tends to have a rather low pH, which is to say too acidic for Vitis vinifera vines to grow well as it weakens the vines’ ability to assimilate nutrients from the soil. The vines need the addition of lime to balance the pH and is something that nearly every vineyard must do to get itself established for vinifera. It can take years—Paumanok Vineyards was adding lime to its vineyards every year for twenty years before it was able to relax the practice. It nevertheless has to be done again every few years when the pH gets too low again, as it appears that the added lime may get leached out of the soil over time.

Climate

Overall, Long Island displays a cool maritime climate. The brutal summer heat seen in the Iberian Peninsula, which is at the same latitude, is tempered in the Hamptons AVA by the Labrador Current which moves up the eastern Atlantic Ocean. Summer temperatures are also moderated by Little Peconic Bay to its north. The North Fork enjoys the moderating influences of Long Island Sound. These same bodies of water help to temper the effects of the Canadian air masses that move in during the winter. The influence of these waters helps prevent late spring frosts which can kill young grape buds. The cumulative effect is a lengthening of the growing season to approximately 210-220 days. Wine-grape varieties can thrive here, as they can grow better and ripen further than just about anywhere in the U.S. outside of California. The North Fork is such a narrow band of farmland, situated between the bay and the sound that virtually all of the vineyards or near or on the water. According to the Appellation American Website:

Despite being next door to each other, there are notable differences between the South Fork and the warmer North Fork. The South Fork is more exposed to onshore Atlantic breezes, delaying bud-break by as much as three weeks. Even after bud-break, the area is frequently foggy, keeping early season temperatures and sunshine hours lower than on the North Fork. By the end of the growing season, the seemingly subtle weather differences between the Forks add up to quite different overall climates. The Hamptons are generally very cold to moderately cool, while the North Fork is moderately cool to relatively warm. The damper silt and loam soils of The Hamptons, along with climactic differences, create a unique style, with wines from The Hamptons generally being more restrained and less fruit-forward than wines from the North Fork.

Wineries & Vineyards

By my own count, as of March 2015, there are a total of 76 wine production entities in Long Island, of which:

21 are wineries with vineyards, though they may also buy fruit from others
3 are wineries without vineyards that buy their fruit from growers
11 are wine producers that have neither a winery nor a vineyard, but outsource their production, having their wine made to their specifications from purchased grapes
33 are vineyards without a winery, but use an outside facility to make wine to their specifications from their grapes
1 is a crush facility that makes wine from fruit, provided by others, to the providers’ specifications
7 are vineyards that sell their fruit to wine producers
In all, there are 58 tasting rooms in Long Island

Vinicultural Practices

Regardless of the different terroirs of either Fork, the first point that I’d like to make is that, based on my visits, so far–to Wölffer Estate and Channing Daughters in the Hamptons AVA, and to Bedell Cellars, Castello Borghese, Diliberty, Gramercy, Jamesport, Lieb, Lenz, Macari, Martha Clara, McCalls, Mudd Vineyard, The Old Field Vineyards, Osprey’s Dominion, Palmer, Paumanok, Peconic Bay, Raphael, Kontakosta Winery, Sherwood House, and Shinn Estate in the North Fork AVA–the standards of vineyard management are of a very high order. The neatness of the rows of vines, their careful pruning and training (most, if not all, are using Double Cordon trained on two wires with Vertical Shoot Positioning, or VSP, and cane pruning), the use of cover crops between rows, and much else besides, attest to the high standards and sustainable practices to which the vineyard managers aspire.

A handful of vineyards are endeavoring to farm organically and/or Biodynamically, though only a single vineyard, Shinn Estate, is actually working to obtain actual certification for both. Then there is The Farrm, in Calverton, run by fruit and vegetable grower Rex Farr, who obtained full organic certification in 1990 and planted vinifera vines in 2005–thus harvesting the first certified-organic grapes on LI in 2012. It is expected that the first wine to be made from its fruit will be produced in 2013 by a newly-established winery on the North Fork. None of this is to say that a vineyard that does not seek to grow organic or Biodynamic grapes is the lesser for it, though all should seek to farm sustainably. Excellent, even great wines have been and shall continue to be produced whether farmed organically or not. Indeed, as I pointed out at the beginning of my first post, there is no proven correlation of quality of a wine because it is made with organic or Biodynamic grapes. (A case in point is the famous and incredibly expensive wine of the Domaine de la Romanée Conti, in Burgundy. It has been long acknowledged as the source of some of the greatest red and white wines of all of France, and this was the case before it was converted to Biodynamic farming, and continues to be the case today.) Part of what makes it so difficult to quantify the quality of a wine made by either method is that fact that there is vintage variation every year, due primarily to factors of weather and climate. Thus, there is no objective way of being sure that viticultural practice was the dominant reason for the quality of a particular vintage, rather than the weather of a particular season. Nevertheless, those who practice organic/Biodynamic viniculture do aver that it is reflected in the wine and there are consumers who do think that they can detect the difference.

By now virtually all of the vineyards on the two forks are attempting some form of sustainable farming, though the kind of sustainable work can vary considerably across the gamut of over sixty vineyards. Along these lines, an important development took place when a new accreditation authority was created in May 2012: Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing, Inc., with the intent of setting out the guidelines for sustainable viticultural practices for all wineries in the region. Membership is voluntary, but already, as of April 2015, there are sixteen vineyards that have joined, with thirteen already certified and three in transition. Others are giving membership serious consideration. A post devoted to the LI Sustainable Winegrowing authority was published on this blog in April 2012 (since updated as of 21 June 2013).

Another important factor to keep in mind is the role of clone selection for the vineyards. A very useful article about the significance of clones was posted by Richard Olsen-Harbich of Bedell Cellars on March 19, 2013: Revenge of the Clones. The piece is well worth reading in its entirety, but there are two salient paragraphs that are worth quoting:

Over the past 10 years, grapevine clones have shown themselves to be of increasing importance in our vineyards. Simply put, clones are a genetic variant of a particular variety. The Chardonnay grown on Long Island decades ago is not the same vine we have today. Plantings since that time – especially in the past 10-15 years, have benefited from a wider selection of available plant material. Back in 1990, if you wanted to plant Chardonnay, you had one choice. Today there are more than 70 registered clones of this noble white grape being grown throughout the world and they all have their particular nuances and characteristics. Many of these clones are already in existence in Long Island vineyards – from the tropical and aromatic Musqué to the classic and alluring Dijon clones from Burgundy. Although these are all Chardonnays, each exhibits their own distinctive character.

This fact is also true of grapes like Merlot and Cabernet Franc, where profound differences in wine quality can be seen between clones grown in the same vineyard, on the same soils. Over 50 clones of Merlot have been identified in Bordeaux. Pomerol alone has over 35 clones of Cabernet Franc. Newer French clones, long kept overseas as tightly held trade secrets, are finding their way into the United States. In most cases these new clones are better suited to our maritime climate. Often these clones will ripen earlier than the older selections we used to have. Some are more resistant to disease. The ultimate result is higher quality wines. I’ve seen clones so different from each other that you would think the wines were made from another variety entirely.

In other words, when the first vinifera vines were planted in the 70s and 80s most of the clones came from California. Many of these clones had been developed at the University of California at Davis (UCD) but of course were created with California vineyards in mind. This meant that the clones were less suitable for the very different, maritime climate of Long Island. For example, the Sauvignon Blanc clone 1 (the ‘Wente clone’) was very vigorous and produced large clusters but it was also very susceptible to rot in LI. Only in the 90s were new clones planted to replace clone 1, and all of these came not from California but France (primarily from Bordeaux, in the case of the Sauvignon Blanc.) This process was true for several other varieties. In other words, the new clones are part of what makes Long Island the most ‘European’ of the wine-growing regions of the United States.

As a matter of fact, the Long Island Wine Region, which includes both the North Fork and the Hamptons AVAs, in 2010 became signatory to the Declaration to Protect Wine Place and Origin that was first enacted in 2005 in Napa (it is also known as the Napa Declaration on Place). The original signers included not only the Napa AVA but also Washington and Oregon State AVAs, and Champagne, Jerez/Sherry, and Oporto/Port in the EU, among others. (The point of this, of course, is to control the use of place names and prevent the misuse of the name ‘Champagne’ for example, on any sparkling wine that is not from there. Chablis, Port, and Burgundy were also place names that were widely abused around the world.)

There is no intention whatsoever in my series to judge a vineyard because it does or does not grow or intend to grow organically or Biodynamically. (Indeed, wineries that are technically organic can still choose not to be certified. Among the many reasons for this, for example, are that a winery may not want the added costs and the bureaucracy entailed in registering, or a winery may disagree with the government standards. Whatever the case, such wineries are not allowed to use the term organic on their labels.)

In any event, the point of this series is to understand the reasons for choosing a particular approach to grape production over another. We want to understand why Long Island vineyards do what they do before we go on to explore their methods of vinification, for between what is done in the vineyard and what happens in the winery is what determines the quality of the wine that is produced. The wines from Long Island have long been improving since those first, tentative years going back to 1973 (when the Hargraves planted the first vinifera vines in LI) and in recent years are receiving their due recognition in the form of positive reviews, awards, and high scores for individual bottlings.

Important Terms Defined

AVA or American Viticultural Area: An area defined by a unique geology and climate that is distinctive from other vine-growing areas and hence that produces wines of a distinctive overall character. There are none of the restrictions as to varieties planted, vine density, allowable harvest per acre, or any of the other limitations that exist in European appellations, such as the French Appellation d’Origine Contrôlée (AOC). Long Island has three AVAs, all applied for to the TTB (Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau) which administers the program, in the mid-1980s: The Hamptons (South Fork), the North Fork AVA, and the Long Island AVA.
Biodynamic®, or Demeter USA, certification; also, Demeter USA, FAQ, Biodynamic wine (PDF file). Also, see an excellent discussion in a 5-part series beginning with New York Cork Report, Biodynamics, Part I, by Tom Mansell, along with the ensuing debate in the comments that follow each of the postings. There is also a controversial series against Biodynamics by Stuart Smith, a winemaker in California, called Biodynamics is a Hoax, a polemic that is worth reading, along with the comments in response.
Bordeaux Mix: A widely-used type of fungicide that mixes copper sulfate and lime, first used in Bordeaux in the 1880s; see Univ. of Calif., Davis, Pesticide notes
Compost Tea: A type of natural compost mixed with water for distribution in liquid form (it may be seen as agricultural homeopathy); see National Sustainable Agriculture Information Service, Compost Tea Notes
Copper Sulfate: A widely-used industrial pesticide, allowed in both organic and Biodynamic farming within specified limits: see Cornell Extension Toxicology Network (ExToxNet), Pesticide Information Profile, copper sulfate
Cover crops: Vegetation that is either deliberately planted between vineyard rows (e.g., clover, to replenish nitrogen in the soil) or weeds that are naturally allowed to grow between and into rows (the Biodynamic approach); see UC Davis, Cover Crop Selection and Management for Vineyards
Integrated Pest Management (IPM): A major component of sustainable agriculture, it is labor-intensive but effectively reduces the need for certain kinds of pesticides; pheronome ties are a typical method of disrupting the reproduction cycle of some insect; see EPA, Factsheet on IPM
Macroclimate: The climate of a large area or region, such as that of all of Long Island, or perhaps just the East End of LI.
Mesoclimate: The distinct climate of a smaller area, such as that of a single vineyard or a parcel thereof.
Microclimate: The climate of a very small area; it could be as small as a single vine or a distinctive climate of a tiny part of a vineyard, such as a depression in a row of vines. (NOTE: These terms are often used interchangeably, but most often microclimate may be used to refer to the mesoclimate of a vineyard.)
Organic Certification: USDA, National Organic Program, Organic Certification
Regalia: A biologically-based pesticide; see Marrone Bio-Innovations, Products, Regalia
Serenade: A biologically-based pesticide; see PAN Pesticide Database, Products–Serenade
Stylet oil: defined in the industry as a Technical Grade White Mineral Oil, it is used as a biodegradable fungicide and insecticide in integrated pest management programs. It also serves as as a substitute for sulfur, reducing or eliminating the need for that application, according to Steve Mudd, a LI vineyard owner and consultant.
Sustainable agriculture: according to Mary V. Gold, on the USDA Website, “Some terms defy definition. ‘Sustainable agriculture’ has become one of them. In such a quickly changing world, can anything be sustainable? What do we want to sustain? How can we implement such a nebulous goal? . . . If nothing else, the term ‘sustainable agriculture’ has provided talking points, a sense of direction, and an urgency, that has sparked much excitement and innovative thinking in the agricultural world.” Follow this interesting, full explanation of the term at USDA, Sustainable Agriculture definition. Another excellent source for information about sustainable agriculture is to be found on the NY State VineBalance Program website, which is dedicated to sustainable practices in NY State vineyards, and as mentioned above, the Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing certification program, with sixteen vineyards already committed to its regulations and guidelines.
Variety vs. Varietal: not to be pedantic (though I can be), Variety is the term applied to a particular kind of vine and its grape; e.g., Cabernet Franc or Riesling; Varietal is the wine made from a variety or a blend of different varieties. The terms are often used interchangeably but shouldn’t be.
Vertical Shoot Positioning: is a training system used with single or double Guyot, cane-pruned training, or with a Cordon, spur-pruned system. VSP is very common in cool and/or humid climate regions with low to moderate vigorous growth, as it encourages better air flow through the vine. This is accomplished by making all the shoots grow vertically, with no vegetative vine growth allowed below the cordon/cane. The increase in air flow helps prevent problems associated with disease and also allows the fruit to dry out more quickly after it rains.

Both cluster thinning and harvesting are generally made easier using VSP, given that there is better access to the fruit. The objective is to train the shoots so as to create a narrow layer that provides good sunlight exposure and air flow in the fruiting zone of the canopy. Each shoot is thus trained to grow vertically by attaching it to movable catch wires. The shoot’s length can easily be controlled by pruning any growth above the top catch wire. The fruiting zone is generally kept at waist height, which makes it more convenient for the vineyard workers, given that the vineyard rows are worked throughout the season.)

For a full explanation of VSP, see Cornell Univ. Agriculture Extension, Training, and Trellising Vinifera Vines.

Viticulture vs. Viniculture: again my pedantic side will out–Viticulture is the general term for the growing of any kind of grape vine, whether intended for the table or for wine; Viniculture refers to the raising of wine grapes in particular.

_________________________

The vineyards that I intend to write about are listed below in alphabetical order (those wineries that have no vineyard but purchase their grapes from others will not be part of the vinicultural survey– these are shown in gray; the ones that have already had articles posted on this blog are shown in purple; those that have been ‘indirectly interviewed’ are shown in light purple. If the vineyard has been certified by the Long Island Sustainable Winegrowing Group (LISW), that is indicated:

Ackerly Ponds, North Fork AVA (85 acres) is now part of Sannino’s Bella Vita Vineyards (which see)
Anthony Nappa (no vineyard) posted 6/14
Baiting Hollow Farm Vineyard, North Fork AVA (11 acres)
Bedell Cellars, North Fork AVA (78 acres, LISW sustainable-certified); Rich Olsen-Harbich interviewed on May 12, 2011; posted June 2, 2011
Bouké Wines (no vineyard)
Castello di Borghese Vineyard & Winery [formerly Hargrave Vineyard], North Fork AVA (85 acres); Giovanni & Allegra Borghese interviewed on Nov. 18, 2014 and Mar. 27, 2015, to be posted
Channing Daughters Winery, Hamptons AVA (25 acres, LISW sustainable-certified); Larry Perrine interviewed on April 30 & May 21, 2012; posted January 22, 2013
Clovis Point, North Fork AVA (20 acres); see Bill Ackerman interview
Coffee Pot Cellars (no vineyard)
Corey Creek Vineyards, North Fork AVA (30 acres, LISW sustainable-certified), owned by Bedell Cellars; posted June 2, 2011
Corwith Vineyards, Hamptons AVA (3 acres; LISW sustainable-certified); Dave Corwith interviewed May 20, 2014 and Nov. 16, 2015; posted Oct. 15, 2014, updated Nov. 19, 2015.
Croteaux Vineyards, North Fork AVA (10.5 acres); see Steve Mudd interview
Deseo de Michael, North Fork AVA (.3 acres)
Diliberto Winery, North Fork AVA (4 acres); Sal Diliberto interviewed Mar. 28, 2015, to be posted
Duck Walk Vineyards, Hamptons AVA, and Duck Walk Vineyards North, North Fork AVA (130 acres; LISW candidate); Ed Lovaas, winemaker, on Nov. 16, 2015. to be posted.
Gramercy Vineyards, North Fork AVA (3.5 acres); Carol Sullivan, owner, interviewed October 2, 2012; posted; as of June 2015 the vineyard is leased out; no longer making wine
The Grapes of Roth (no vineyard)
Harbes Family Farm & Vineyard, North Fork AVA (5 acres, LISW sustainable-certified)
Harmony Vineyards, LI AVA (7 acres); see Steve Mudd interview
Influence Wines (no vineyard); Erik Bilka interviewed 6/15; to be posted
Jamesport Vineyards, North Fork AVA (60 acres); Ron Goerler, Jr. interviewed on April 14, 2014; posted Sept. 9, 2014.
Jason’s Vineyard, North Fork AVA (20 acres)
Kings Mile, North Fork AVA (leased vineyard); Rob Hansult interviewed on Sept. 26, 2013; posted same day
Kontokosta Winery (23 acres, LISW sustainable-in transition); Michael K. interviewed Nov. 18, 2014, Gilles Martin interviewed Mar. 28, 2015; to be posted
Laurel Lake Vineyards, North Fork AVA (21 acres); Juan Sepúlveda interviewed Sep. 26, 2015
Lenz Winery, North Fork AVA (65 acres); Sam McCullough interviewed April 20 & 27, 2011; posted May 16, 2011; Eric Fry interviewed Mar. 27, 2015, to be added to original Lenz post
Leo Family Wines; John Leo interviewed for PWG on October 3, 2012; posted February 11, 2013
Lieb Family Cellars, North Fork AVA (50 acres, LISW sustainable-in transition); Logan Kingston, Sarah Kane, & Jildo Vázquez interviewed June 6, 2013; posted October 4, 2013
Loughlin Vineyards, Long Island AVA (6 acres)
Macari Vineyards & Winery, North Fork AVA (200 acres); Joe Macari, Jr. interviewed July 9, 2009 & June 17 2010; posted June 30, 2010
Martha Clara Vineyards, North Fork AVA (101 acres, LISW sustainable-certified); Jim Thompson & Juan Micieli-Diaz interviewed Feb. 3 & March 27, 2012; posted May 3, 2012
Mattebella Vineyards, North Fork AVA (22 acres, LISW sustainable-in transition)
McCall Vineyards, North Fork AVA (22 acres); see Steve Mudd interview
Mudd Vineyards, North Fork AVA (50 acres, LISW sustainable-certified); Steve Mudd interviewed; posted September 18, 2012
The Old Field Vineyards, North Fork AVA (12 acres); Ros & Christian Baiz & Perry Weiss interviewed on May 12, 2011; posted on June 7, 2011
Onabay Vineyard, North Fork AVA (180 acres total, not all with vines): see Bill Ackerman interview
One Woman Vineyards, North Fork AVA (12 acres, LISW sustainable-certified)
Osprey’s Dominion Vineyards, North Fork AVA (90 acres); Adam Suprenant interviewed April 23 & May 8, 2012; posted February 3, 2013
Palmer Vineyards, North Fork AVA (100 acres, LISW sustainable-certified); Miguel Martín interviewed October 12 & 22, 2010; posted November 13, 2010
Paumanok Vineyards, North Fork AVA (72 acres planted, LISW sustanble-certified); Kareem Massoud interviewed May 3, 2011; posted May 23, 2011
Peconic Bay Winery, North Fork AVA (58 acres); Jim Silver & Charles Hargrave interviewed; posted May 9, 2011; winery is now closed but see interviews with Steve Mudd & Bill Ackerman, since Peconic Bay’s vineyards have been turned over to Lieb Cellars as of January 2013
Pellegrini Vineyards, North Fork AVA (72 acres); see Steve Mudd interview
Pindar Vineyards, North Fork AVA (500 acres; LISW candidate); Pindar Damianos interviewed Sept. 26, Ed Lovaas on Nov. 16, 2015. to be posted.
Pugliese Vineyards, North Fork AVA (45 acres); Pat Pugliese interviewed Jan. 19, 2015
Raphael, North Fork AVA (55 acres, LISW sustainable-certified); Leslie Howard & Steve Mudd interviewed May 21 & June 13; posted September 17, 2012; Anthony Nappa interviewed
Roanoke Vineyards, North Fork AVA (10 acres, LISW sustainable-certified); interviewed Richard Pisacano, owner; posted July 10, 2013
Sannino’s Bella Vita Vineyard (5.25 acres, LISW sustainable-certified); interviewed Jan. 30, 2015; to be posted
Sherwood House Vineyards, North Fork AVA (36 acres); interviewed Bill Ackerman on September 26, 2012; posted
Shinn Estate Vineyard, North Fork AVA (20 acres, LISW sustainable-certified); Barbara Shinn & David Paige interviewed June 18, 2010; posted July 12, 2010
Southold Farm+Cellar, North Fork AVA (9 acres; as of Sept. 2014 just entering production); Regan Meador interviewed Jan. 30 & Nov. 16, 2015; to be posted
Sparkling Pointe (29 acres, LISW sustainable-certified)
Suhru Wines (no vineyard); Russell Hearn, owner, interviewed for PWG on October 3, 2012
Surrey Lane Vineyards, North Fork AVA (25 acres, LISW sustainable-in transition); see Steve Mudd interview
T’Jara Vineyard, North Fork AVA (14 acres); Russell Hearn , owner, interviewed for PWG
Vineyard 48, North Fork AVA (28 acres planted)
Waters Crest Winery (no vineyard); interviewed Nov. 17, 2014, to be posted
Whisper Vineyards, Long Island AVA (17 acres); interviewed Steve Gallagher on Mar. 27, 2015, to be posted.
Wölffer Estate, Hamptons AVA (174 acres, LISW sustainable-certified); interviewed Roman Roth & Rich Pisacano on April 30, 2012 & June 20, 2013, updated and posted on July 10, 2013

Three very useful links that serve as portals to most of these vineyards are 1) Long Island Wine Country which lists only those wineries and vineyards that are members of the LI Wine Council; 2) Uncork New York! (aka the New York Wine and Grape Foundation) which provides links to all wineries and wine vineyards in New York State. Also indispensable for New York State wines is the New York Cork Report by Lenn Thompson, with its many interviews, coverage of wine tastings, reviews, and more.

A framable 24 by 36-inch map of the wineries and vineyards of the East End of Long Island, by Steve De Long, can be purchased on Amazon:

2013 Assessment of Long Island Winery Websites

As of July 2016, despite a much-needed reassessment, as so many of the sites have been significantly updated and improved, I have had no time to do a full re-evaluation. My book, The Wines of Long Island, 3rd edition, has just been turned in to my publisher, SUNY Press. After a period of decompression, I shall revisit all the Websites and update this post.

In an article published in Wines & Vines, “What Visitors Want from Wine Sites” (June 2011), Kent Benson explained what information he thought serious visitors to wine sites (specifically winery and vineyard ones) should provide. I thought that his ideas were worth serious consideration and decided to try and apply those criteria to the websites of the region that I am most familiar with: Long Island. Benson’s original article is accessible at Wines & Vines 6/11.

The Criteria

In order to assess the quality of the Long Island winery/vineyard websites, I have chosen to evaluate them on the basis of both the historical and technical information that they provide. Below is my adaptation (mostly a reorganization) of Kent Bensons’ wish list for wine websites:

Identify type of operation up front: Winery &/or Vineyard &/or Tasting Room
History: frank and honest, including founder, subsequent owners and corporate owners: (don’t pretend you’re a “family” winery when you’re not)
Winemaker, vineyard manager, and owner: names, pictures and bios
1. Technical information (viniculture)
  1. Vineyard information: acreage, vine density, vinicultural practices, yields, maps
  2. Wine grape source locations, soil types, vine ages
  3. List of all grape varieties in the vineyard with acreage
  4. Vintage report
  5. Technical information (vinification)
    1. Forthright, step-by-step, detailed description of the winemaking process: (tell all); e.g., details of aging regimen: proportion aged in wood, proportions of French & American oak, proportions of new, one-year, two-year, etc., oak alternatives employed
    b. Technical data: degrees Brix at harvest, actual ABV, TA, pH, RS, dry extract, disgorgement date: (for sparkling wine) [this set data is for wine geeks; most others may not care]
    1. Estimated drinkability range from vintage date
    2. Purchase information (Online/Wine Club)
      1. Available current releases and at least two previous vintages
      2. Pairing and serving temperature suggestions
      3. Bottle and label shots: (keep them current, show front & back labels)
      4. Pictures of estate or controlled vineyards and of winery
In addition, I would like to see Winery websites that are easy to navigate and do not require that a visitor need dig for information or other data. All features should be easily accessible, which means that navigation options should not be embedded more than a level or two down from the main menu or home page.Blogs are very nice to have and can be extremely informative: Bedell Cellars, Channing Daughters, and Shinn Estate have particularly useful ones. However, they are not scored for this assessment, as most sites have no blogs.

Events and event calendars are an essential part of nearly any retail winery, but these are not scored individually in the assessments that follow, as they are mostly about entertainment and social matters, and information on winegrowing and winemaking is our real concern.
Consequently, I have also added a new criterion, for ‘general’ features. These are scored by the number of features listed above that appear on the Website, thus 10 ‘yes’ answers (features present) is complete. If a feature is not applicable (n/a) the score is not reduced. Furthermore, if a newsletter is available, I score the newsletter for quality of its information—if no newsletter is offered, it is not scored.

About the Assessments

NOTE: The assessments on the following pages are based on my version of Benson’s wish list. They are my own, and therefore subjective. Poor scores may sometimes reflect a deliberate desire on the part of the winery not to provide the kind of information that is being looked for here, possibly due to the time and cost of including it on the Web. In no case do these scores reflect on the wines offered on these sites.

The purpose of this assessment is both informational for visitors and, hopefully, a prod to the web designers and the site owners to add or improve features, if possible. Naturally, many of the wineries are very small and may not have the wherewithal to spend money on a better website than they already have. Some don’t appear to have the means to keep their sites up-to-date, or at least certain features such as blogs, which are time-consuming to maintain. It would be helpful if all sites provided a ‘last time updated’ on their home pages.

It shall be updated from time-to-time as enough changes to the websites so warrant. Assigning scores to the websites

Listed alphabetically, the assessments of the websites carry no imputations regarding a winery’s products. Major features are graded on a scale of 1 to 5:

1 = inadequate/little or no information
2 = fair/some information, albeit cursory
3 = adequate/basic relevant information, but lacking depth
4 = very good/most relevant information
5 = excellent/all relevant information
n/a = not applicable (e.g., no viniculture information because no vineyard)

The highest score possible for a website is 5.0 points out of 5. Nominally, the lowest score should be 1.0 point out of 5, but there is one site that has a blog about money and dogs and nothing about wine—an aberration, to be sure, but listed nevertheless for the sake of completeness.

The Sixty-two Websites (as of 11 June 2013)

NOTE: In May 2012 there were fifty-five Websites that were evaluated. As of July 2016 there are over seventy sites to be assessed.

Anthony Nappa Wines / Winemakers Studio: (3.9 out of 5)

Vineyard: No; no grape source info either
Winery: No (uses Raphael facilities)
Winemaker: Anthony Nappa
Tasting Room: The Winemaker Studio, Peconic (see Web assessment below)
History / background: (4/5) Very good
About / Biographies: (5/5) Excellent bios on both sites
Vineyard / viniculture information: (n/a)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (3/5) No notes, but adequate descriptions with food pairing suggestions on both sites
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (3/5) No; brief descriptions of wines, but purchase can only be made by phone at Winemakers Studio; there is also a resellers listing
Wine Club: Anthony Nappa: No; The Winemaker Studio: Yes, but the membership form must be printed and mailed in—a tad inconvenient.
Contact: phone, snail mail, or e-mail for both Nappa & the Studio
Directions: Yes, for Winemaker Studio, with map
News/reviews link: Yes, and up to date.
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Tours: n/a
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (4/5) Elegant, easy to navigate, but link to The Winemaker Studio takes you to a very different style and layout (see assessment below)
General feature set: 5 out of 10 (2.5/5)
Additional features: Resellers option; link to Anthony Nappa Wine’s Facebook page.
Up-to-date: Nappa: Mostly, but there is no mention of Anthony’s hire by Raphael to be its winemaker; Studio: OK.

Anthony Nappa Wines

Comment: Two linked websites, one for Anthony Nappa Wines, another for the tasting room at The Winemaker Studio; information about the vineyards that source the grapes would be very welcome (and so interesting to the geeks among us).

NOTE: The Winemaker Studio features and sells wines by Anthony Nappa, Roman Roth (Grapes of Roth), Russell Hearn (Suhru Wines & T’Jara Vineyards), Erik Bilka (Influence Wines), John Leo (Leo Family Wines), and Adam Suprenant (Coffeepot Wines)

Baiting Hollow Farm Vineyards: (3.6 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No (PWG)
Winemaker: Tom Drozd using PWG facilities
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (4/5) Personal, family focused
About / Biographies: (4/5) Personal, no staff biographies
Vineyard /viniculture information: (3/5) Succinct, no maps, no mention of terroir; focus on sustainability, but few specifics
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (4/5) very good, but not all wines are fully commented
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (3/5) Many choices, brief descriptions, food pairing suggestions; gift baskets
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: e-mail & phone
Directions: Yes, with map
News/reviews link: No
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes; focus on Rock & Roll and Bluegrass performances; weddings
Tours: Virtual (online)
Photo gallery: Yes, and video of horses and games as well
Website design: (4/5) Attractive if a bit busy-looking, with many options
General feature set: 7 of 10 (3.5/5)
Additional features: Virtual tour, rescue-horse farm & pony rides, corporate ideas, entertainment schedule
Up-to-date: Yes

Baiting Hollow Farm Vineyard

Comment: Greeted by a picture of a child with a horse, one knows immediately that this is a family-oriented; the vineyard and its wines itself needs more attention. The BHFV Horse Rescue operation, by the way, a 501 (c) (3) non-profit corporation, devoted to the rescue of horses.

Bedell Cellars: (5.0 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Richard Harbich-Olsen
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (5/5) Excellent account of sustainability & its practice
About / Biographies: (5/5) Excellent, full biographies of all staff
Vineyard / viniculture information: (5/5) Excellent, full description and parcel maps, discussion of terroir, sustainable practices (member of Long Island Sustainable Winegrowers [henceforth LISW])
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5) Excellent, complete notes: (PDFs)
Technical wine data: Yes, in PDFs
Purchase online: (5/5) Very good descriptions, many choices, including sets
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: e-mail, phone & fax
Directions: Yes, with map
News/reviews link: Yes, many links to reviews in NYT
Newsletter / Mailing List: (5/5) Yes, by far the most informative and interesting newsletter of all, with keen and thoughtful observations about wine, viniculture, terroir, and so on. Issued from time to time.
Wine Blog: Yes, highly informative with both wit and humor.
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: Yes, by prior arrangement
Photo gallery: Yes, and video as well
Website design / usability: (5/5) Excellent, elegant design (by Cro2), art is featured
General feature set: 10 of 10 (5/5)
Additional features: Excellent explanation of sustainable farming; art gallery; various wedding options
Up-to-date: Yes

Bedell Cellars

Comment: An elegant site, easy to navigate, many useful options, thoughtful design, exceptionally informative and complete. A plausible standard for winery websites with respect to the content that they could provide. Elegant design helps too, of course. The newsletter is a model as well—every issue is worth reading (though they do come out irregularly).

Bouké Wines: (4.2 4.6 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: No; purchases fruit from N. Fork & Finger Lakes vineyards
Winery: No (PWG)
Winemaker: No; Gilles Martin, consultant
Tasting Room: Tasting Room, Peconic
History / background: (5/5) Full & complete, well-organized
About / Biographies: (5/5) Excellent bios
Vineyard / viniculture information: (n/a)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5) Excellent, good technical info, PDFs
Technical wine data: Yes
Purchase online: (5/5) Good, brief descriptions, but dig down for full wine notes
Wine Club: No
Contact: e-mail & phone
Directions: No
News/reviews link: Yes, including a list of awards
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: Yes, via a small icon at the bottom of the page
Events / calendar: No
Tours: n/a
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (5/5) Attractive, clean design, unusual navigation in places
General feature set: 4 of 10 (2/5)
Additional features: Links to responsible drinking sites (AIM & Century); Jazz recommended listening; boutique for wine accessories; the blog is really just a series of links; blogroll is a set of links to blogs by others
Up-to-date: Yes

Bouké Wines

Comment: Attractive and easy to use, it reflects well on the products offered; much improved design with excellent navigation; it could mention the vineyards sourcing the grapes; the list of NYC retailers selling the wines is confined to Brooklyn.

Brooklyn Oenology (3.7 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: No
Winery: No; PWG makes the wine
Winemaker: Yes, Alie Shaper
Tasting Room: Yes, offers BOE wines and a selection of other LI and Finger Lakes wines
History / background: (5/5) Complete
About / Biographies: (1/5) None
Vineyard/viniculture information: (n/a)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5) Succinct but complete and clearly presented
Technical wine data: Spotty
Purchase online: (4/5) Yes, now BOE’s own online system
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Yes
Directions: Yes
News/reviews link: Eventually
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: Yes, but the last post was in Sept. 2012
Events / calendar: Yes; but no functional links to some events that could use them
Tours: n/a
Photo gallery: Mostly of the artist labels; art an emphasis of site
Website design: (4/5) Slick, sophisticated, but home page is rather busy in consequence
General feature set: 6 of 10 (3/5)
Additional features: Artists’ labels a focus
Up-to-date: Yes

Brooklyn Oenology

Comment: Site functions like a work in progress; the wine links don’t work properly if you select, for example, White Wines, as it takes you to an empty page. You must select a particular white wine, but it means that making comparisons a bit more difficult.

Brooklyn Winery (4.2 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: No
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes; Conor McCormack
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (4/5) Complete
About / Biographies: (5/5) Interesting and amusing
Vineyard/viniculture information: (n/a)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5) Complete and clearly presented
Technical wine data: Yes
Purchase online: (n/a) Online sales are apparently pending; for now, purchase at retail or at the winery
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Yes
Directions: Yes
News/reviews link: Presently there are no complete reviews; PDFs are awkward to use
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: Yes
Events / calendar: Yes; but no links to some events that could use them
Tours: n/a
Photo gallery: Mostly of the artist labels; art an emphasis of site
Website design: (4/5) Slick, sophisticated
General feature set: 8 of 10 (4/5)
Additional features: Artists’ labels a focus
Up-to-date: Yes

Brooklyn Winery

Comment: Site may still be a work in progress, given that though it shows a shopping cart and checkout, in fact online purchases cannot be made.

Castello di Borghese: (2.2 2.6 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Erik Bilka
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (3/5) Adequate, but one has to read the press releases to learn that this was originally Hargrave Vineyard, the first on LI, which the Borgheses purchased in 1999.
About / Biographies: (3/5) ) Adequate, with emphasis on aristocratic Italian heritage, but if one digs deeply there is a press article that provides some
Vineyard / viniculture information: (1/5) Inadequate, with nothing about viniculture
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (2/5) Adequate, praiseful adjectives
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (3/5) Good, but too much navigation is required
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: by phone, snail mail, and email via info@castellodiborghese.com
Directions: Yes, text.
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: (1/5) Yes; the newsletter, issued regularly, is largely confined to events at the winery and various links; there is no news about winemaking or viniculture
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: Yes, including a vineyard tour
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design /usability: (3/5) busy-looking, keeps viewer jumping around, awkward navigation in places
General feature set: 8 of 10 (4/5)
Additional features: Olive oil for sale; local beer on offer; Tour: ‘Winemaker’s Walk’ by appointment
Up-to-date: Yes

Castello di Borghese

Comment: Web focus is on winery’s prestige and social events as well as its wine; no staff bios, not even of the owners, unless you find the press releases—so the info is available, albeit in a desultory way.

Channing Daughters: (4.8 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Christopher Tracy
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (5/5) Excellent, especially with regard to its philosophy
About / Biographies: (5/5) Excellent, with full biographies
Vineyard / viniculture information: (4/5) Excellent, lacking only parcel maps, sustainable practices (member LISW)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5) Excellent: detailed and complete
Technical wine data: Embedded in the description/notes
Purchase online: (5/5) Excellent, wines are full described
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Yes
Directions: Yes
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: Yes, articles posted on East End by Christopher Tracy (not updated since 9/2011).
Events / calendar: Yes, but no entertainment or weddings, but rather for tasting classes.
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design /usability: (5/5) Excellent, elegant, easy to use (by Cro2)
General feature set: 8 of 10 (4/5)
Additional features: Art gallery featuring Walter Channing’s wood sculpture
Up-to-date: Yes, ‘Where to buy’ option shows the wines are offered in many states and are available in some of the best restaurants in the country, including Daniel in NYC, The French Laundry in Napa, as well as eateries in Montreal and Quebec City.

Channing Daughters

Comment: Elegant and very well-designed, easy to navigate; unusual range of wines, a Website by a very serious winery

Clovis Point: (3.2 3.7 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No
Winemaker: Yes; John Leo at PWG
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (4/5) Very good
About / Biographies: (1/5) Just names and contact info
Vineyard / viniculture information: (1/5) practically none
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (4/5) Very good: detailed
Technical wine data: Not much
Purchase online: (4/5) Very good, abbreviated tasting notes accompany the wine list
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, with map option
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes, for entertainment events
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes, of the tasting room for those interested in holding a party there
Website design /usability: (5/5) Excellent, easy to use (by EG Creative Group)
General feature set: 8 of 10 (4/5)
Additional features: Vintage notes for 2004-2011, by John Leo. Book a party
Up-to-date: Yes; last vintage notes are for 2011, latest vintage for sale, 2011.

Clovis Point Wines

Comment: Lacks staff bio details, offers nothing about the vineyard or its vinicultural practices, but the vintage notes shine.

Coffee Pot Cellars: (4.2 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: No, but sources are identified
Winery: No; uses Osprey’s Dominion facilities
Winemaker: Yes, Adam Suprenant
Tasting Room: Yes, just opened in 2013
History / background: (4/5) Succinct and to the point
About / Biographies: (4/5) part of History / background, more can be found under Press
Vineyard / viniculture information: (n/a) Sam McCullough supplies the fruit from his premium vineyard
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (4/5) Provides the most vital information
Technical wine data: Some
Purchase online: (5/5) Easy to use, with complete descriptions available under “Read more . . .”
Wine Club: Yes, with 3 categories
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, to the new tasting room (as of 2013)
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: Not yet functional
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Tours: n/a
Photo gallery: No
Website design /usability: (5/5) Simple, direct, easy to use (by Janet Esquirol)
General feature set: 6 of 10 (3/5)
Additional features: No
Up-to-date: Yes

Coffee Pot Cellars

Comment: Straightforward website, no frills, it’s all about the wine.

Croteaux Rosé Vineyards (3.0 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No
Winemaker: No; consulting winemaker is Gilles Martin, using PWG facilities
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (2/5) Barely adequate
About / Biographies: (0/5) No information
Vineyard / viniculture information: (4/5) Good but brief; includes aerial photo; no mention of sustainable practices
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (4/5) A very good explanation of winegrowing Rosé wines; good descriptions
Technical wine data: Some
Purchase online: (5/5) Excellent, wines are well-described for purchaser
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: phone, e-mail, snail-mail
Directions: text & map
Photo gallery: No
News/reviews link: No
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design /usability: (5/5) Excellent, very clean design, but limited options
General feature set: 4 of 10 (2/5)
Additional features: Farmhouse Kitchen, a linked website, offers cooking lessons
Up-to-date: Yes

Croteaux Vineyards

Comment: Attractive and easy to use, but lacks Background and About info, no bios

Diliberto Winery: (2.3 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No
Winemaker: Sal Diliberto
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (4/5) Very good, on the personal side, but must read reviews by others to get most of the information
About / Biographies: (3/5) Good, focus on Italian background; for fuller info one needs to go to the Newsroom option and read an interview in the LI Wine Press link
Vineyard / viniculture information: (n/a) No info about outsourced vineyard
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (2/5) Adequate
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (0/5) Nothing; though not indicated, wines can be purchased by e-mail or by phone or at the tasting room.
Wine Club: No
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail-mail
Directions: text & Google map
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design /usability: (3/5) Good, easy to use, but must “dig” for some info
General feature set: 4 of 10 (2/5)
Additional features: Weddings; tasting menu (in lieu of a wine list); winery apartment on offer
Up-to-date: Press info up to Jan. 2012; most recent wine listed is 2009.

Diliberto Winery

Comment: A very basic website; no online purchasing

Duckwalk Vineyards / Duckwalk North: (3.4 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes
Tasting Room: Yes, at both sites
History / background: (4/5) Very good
About / Biographies: (4/5) Very good, focus on Italian background
Vineyard / viniculture information: (2/5) Sustainable practices claimed, but little detail
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (3/5) Good, but little about vinification
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (4/5) Good, but prices don’t show with wine choices
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, fax, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: No, just the address
News/reviews link: Not yet
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes, devoted to entertainment
Tours: Yes, according to LI Wine Country, but it doesn’t appear to be the case according to the winery Website
Photo gallery: No, but a slide show of ten images includes one of goldfish (?). A picture of a duck would make more sense for Duckwalk, one would think.
Website design /usability: (4/5) Very easy to use; home page is dominated by pictures of its scheduled entertainers
General feature set: 5 of 10 (2.5/5)
Additional features: About Duck Walk’s supported causes; there used to be an option to choose any of four languages other than English: French German, Italian, and Spanish, but that appears to have been removed since the site was reviewed last year (2012)
Up-to-date: Yes

Duck Walk

Comment: What? No directions on how to get there? No newsletter? A rather basic site, it could also use more information about viniculture, especially given the claim to sustainable practices, and more about the wines, as well.

Grapes of Roth by Wölffer Estate: (4.4 out of 5)

Vineyard: No; grape sources are identified—incidentally—in a review
Winery: No, uses Wölffer’s facilities, as he’s its winemaker
Winemaker: Yes, Roman Roth
Tasting Room: Wölffer Estate and The Winemaker Studio, Peconic
History / background: (4/5) Very good
About / Biographies: (5/5) Excellent: full biography, in chapters
Vineyard / viniculture information: (3/5) Good, about outsourced vineyard
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5) Excellent: detailed and complete
Technical wine data: Yes, very detailed and complete
Purchase online: (5/5) Excellent, wines are full described
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: in small print at bottom of Home page: e-mail, snail mail, and phone
Directions: n/a
News/reviews link: Yes, but it isn’t up-to-date.
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: External events are listed and are up-to-date, but no calendar
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes, in connection with Roth’s bio in chapters
Website design /usability: (5/5) Elegant and straightforward design (in a glass), very easy to navigate (by ZGDG)
General feature set: 6 of 10 (3/5)
Additional features: No, but you may need to get used to the puns.
Up-to-date: Events, yes, but the reviews page has nothing later than 2010

The Grapes of Roth

Comment: Elegant design, if a tad idiosyncratic, very complete info about wines and Roth.

NOTE: Now that Roth has been named a partner in Wölffer Estate, where he has been winemaker for over 20 years, Grapes of Roth will be part of the Wölffer brand.

Harbes Farm & Vineyard: (3.2 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No
Winemaker: Edward Harbes IV
Tasting Room: Yes
History / Background: (2/5) Adequate, focused on family & farm
About / Biographies: (2/5) Adequate, but no biographies
Vineyard / viniculture information: (3/5) Good, though brief; sustainable practices (member LISW)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (3/5) brief, offers food pairing suggestions
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (3/5) Easy to use, wine descriptions brief but to the point
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: phone, fax, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: text and map
News/reviews link: No
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes, but it appears not to be functional as of 5/16/12
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: Yes
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design / usability: (4/5) Newly redesigned, attractive, easy to navigate
General feature set: 7 of 10 (3.5/5)
Additional features: Other farms, Farm Market, Family fun, Maze adventures, Groups & Parties, Weddings
Up-to-date: Yes

Harbes Farm & Vineyard

Comment: A wine website with a split personality: fun & games for kids; wine for adults, even a farm market; there are three different farms, only the one in Mattituck has a vineyard

Harmony Vineyards (1.8 2.2 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No
Winemaker: No; uses Eric Fry of Lenz
Tasting Room: No
History / background: (1/5)
About / Biographies: (1/5)
Vineyard / Viniculture information: ( 2/5) little is said in text, but some pictures are worth a few more words
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (2/5) actually, all wines are commented on by quoting reviews, but there are further notes when one goes to purchase online.
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (3/5) easy to use, adequate wine notes
Wine Club: No
Contact: Yes
Directions: address and map
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design: (3/5) Attractive and straightforward
General feature set: 5 of 10 (2.5/5)
Additional features: Art gallery (text, no images!), We Support (list of causes & charities); video of house moved to new site, accompanied by music; promotions
Up-to-date: wines of the 2010 vintage are on offer

Harmony Vineyards

Comment: Very limited options, focus is on worthy causes and charities

Influence Wines (4.3 out of 5)

Vineyard: No
Winery: PWG
Winemaker: Eric Bilka at PWG
Tasting Room: No
History / background: (5/5)
About / Biographies: (5/5) Minimal
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (5/5) Excellent
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5) Excellent, very complete
Technical wine data: Yes
Purchase online: No
Wine Club: No
Contact: Yes
Directions: n/a
News/reviews link: No
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (5/5) Minimalist; though not slick or pretty, it is clean, clear, and easy to navigate
General feature set: 2 of 5 (1/5)
Additional features: None
Up-to-date: 2010 is last vintage mentioned

Influence Wines

Comment: Production winemaker at PWG makes but one wine: Riesling, sourced from the Finger Lakes. As straightforward a website as one can find

Jamesport Vineyards (4.3 4.6 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Dean Barbiar
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (5/5) Excellent, very thorough
About / Biographies: (5/5) Excellent, though the biographies could be given more flesh
Vineyard / viniculture information: (4/5) Good description; sustainable claims, but lacks detail
Winemaker’s notes / wine description (4/5) Very good, little about vinification
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (5/5) Excellent; labels, full wine description, easy to use
Wine Club / Subscription: Yes
Contact: Phone/fax, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Google map
News/reviews link: List of awards, but no links to articles or reviews
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: Yes
Photo gallery: A combination photo gallery and video with musical accompaniment which provides some interesting and useful information
Website design: (5/5) Excellent, attractive, easy to navigate (by Cro2)
General feature set: 8 of 10 (4/5)
Additional features: Wine bottles recycling rewards program; Wholesale inquiries; Futures purchases
Up-to-date: Events, Retail & restaurants list needs updating

Jamesport-Vineyards

Comment: An informative and attractive website that needs a real News/Reviews link; it supports the Southold Project in Aquaculture Training (SPAT), for sustainable fishing.

Jason’s Vineyard (2.8 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No
Winemaker: Yes, Jason Damianos
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (3/5)
About / Biographies: (4/5)
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (2/5) Just adequate, but little about sustainability
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (2/5) Adequate, but barely
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (n/a) Wines are listed and briefly described, but cannot be purchased online.
Wine Club: No
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes
News/reviews link: No
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: TBA, according to the Website
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes, but limited
Website design: (4/5) Pleasant design with a Greek theme, easy to navigate and use.
General feature set: 3 of 10 (1.5/5)
Additional features: No
Up-to-date: Yes

Jason’s Vineyard

Comment: A basic website.

Kontokosta Winery (under construction)

Laurel Lake Vineyard: (3.0 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Juan Sepúlveda
Tasting Room: Yes
History / Background: (2/5) Very brief
About / Biographies: (1/5) Inadequate, no biographies
Vineyard / viniculture information: (3/5) Succinct
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (3/5) Very good for some wines, but spotty
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (5/5) Excellent
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, fax, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, with Google map
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: Yes
Photo gallery: No
Website design / usability: (5/5) Excellent
General feature set: 8 of 10 (4/5)
Additional features: No
Up-to-date: Yes for the wines, but reviews only go up to 2007.

Laurel Lake Wines

Comment: An attractive site lacking important information, including bios

Lenz Winery: (3.3 3.4 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Eric Fry
Tasting Room: Yes
History / Background / About / Biographies: (2/5) Adequate, no bios
About / Biographies: (1/5) Inadequate, no biographies
Vineyard / viniculture information: (3/5) Succinct; no parcel maps
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (4/5) Complete description, no notes
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (5/5) Excellent
Wine Club: Yes; 3-level club program
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, address and map
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes, and not just parties, but serious tastings of wines from around the world; Weddings (however, as of May 2013 the link to the events page is broken).
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design / usability: (5/5) Sophisticated, minimalist look and functionality
General feature set: 7 of 10 (3.5)
Additional features: Tours; “Petrus tasting” notes to emphasize quality by comparison to French equivalents; prior tasting results yet to be posted; Lenz cottage stays available for wine club subscribers
Up-to-date: hard to tell; latest wines offered date to 2009; the latest reviews were in 2006

Lenz Winery

Comment: An attractive, useful, and interesting site lacking some basic information, including bios

Lieb Cellars / Bridge Lane Wines: (4.0 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No, uses PWG
Winemaker: Yes, Russell Hearn is an owner and a winemaker/owner at Premium Wine Group
Tasting Room: Yes, at PWG
History / Background (4/5) Good, found under the rubric Our Vineyard.
About / Biographies: (3/5) Good, limited bio about owners
Vineyard / viniculture information: (3/5) Good, but incidental to the overall story; no maps; sustainable practices (member LISW)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (4/5) Very good; inconsistent from wine to wine
Technical wine data: Though indicated as available, trying to open the wine spec sheets and tasting note PDFs produces a “Error 404 Page not found.”
Purchase online: (5/5) Excellent
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, from different directions and a map to boot
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design / usability: (5/5) Excellent and very attractively designed.
General feature set: 6 of 10 (3/5)
Additional features: Featured restaurants that offer Lieb Cellars wine, particularly a link to Craft Restaurant, given that Lieb makes a sparkling wine for Craft’s private label as well as a link for Lieb’s Summer Rosé for Park Ave. Restaurant’s private label. (Both restaurants are in NYC.)
Up-to-date: Yes

Lieb Cellars

Comment: An attractive and largely well-designed site that is mostly easy to get around; though there are two separate labels—Lieb Cellars and Bridge Lane, the distinction between them is not made clear. The inability for users of opening the wine tasting notes and spec sheets is frustrating; apart from the error message, clicking on the Continue button simply takes one back to the wines page—in other words, a circular routing.

Macari Vineyards: (4.0 4.4 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Kelly Urbanik, also Helmut Gangl, consultant
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (4/5) Sufficient history & background
About / Biographies: (5/5) Excellent, especially on the backgrounds of the winemakers
Vineyard / viniculture information 4/5: Useful information about vinicultural practices; no parcel maps
Winemaker’s notes / wine description 4/5: Professionally-written descriptions, no notes
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (4/5) Easy to use
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Addresses with maps
News/reviews link: Yes, including many recent reviews for 2013
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: Virtual (online), tells much of the story of the winery and vineyards
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design: (5/5) Very attractive and easy to navigate
General feature set: 9 of 10 (4.5/5)
Additional features: Weddings, Private parties
Up-to-date: Yes, includes 2012 wines on offer and up-to-date reviews

Macari Wines

Comment: The virtual tour that I so highly recommended in 2012 is, alas, no more.

Martha Clara Vineyards (3.5 3.9 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No, uses Premium Wine Group
Winemaker: Yes, Juan Micieli-Martinez uses PWG
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (3/5) Brief, focuses on family
About / Biographies: (5/5) Full bios of owners & winemaker/manager
Vineyard / viniculture information: (1/5) Virtually no information, but uses sustainable practices (member LISW)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description (5/5) Full, rich descriptions; click on bottle illustration for more information, including . . .
Technical wine data: Yes, also via downloadable PDF.
Purchase online: (5/5) Store is a catchall for wine, gifts, and events; minimal descriptions of wines with food-pairing notes; full wine information is found under ‘Wines’
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: phone & e-mail. Also Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and BlogSpot.
Directions: Yes, text and Google map.
News/reviews link: No
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: No, it has been eliminated.
Tours: Yes
Events / calendar: Yes; encourages large parties, weddings, meetings, etc. Calendar shows upcoming events through Sept. 2013, including concerts, dinners, other. Does not mention special viniculture class led by vineyard manager, Jim Thompson, held once a year.
Photo gallery: Ample, nicely presented; videos offered, but apparently disabled as of 4/9/2012
Website design: (4/5) Front page busy & unattractive, the rest of the pages use a minimalist design & are easy on the eyes; navigation is mostly straightforward; home page uses functional Table of Contents (with fake page numbers—a tad confusing)
General feature set: 8 of 10 (4/5)
Additional features: Strong emphasis on community involvement & charity support; also offers horse & carriage rides. Videos offered, but no longer accessible. Small zoo for children.Up-to-date: Yes

Martha Clara Vineyards

Comment: Other than the opening page, an attractive site; however, to read about the wines involves using a display of pictures of wine bottles—to select click on the image to read about the wine; the media feature is, quirkily, not quotations or links from the press or reviewers, but rather, videos that are no longer accessible.

Mattebella Vineyards (3.3 3.6 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No, PWG
Winemaker: No, PWG
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (1/5) No real information
About / Biographies: (2/5) Just adequate
Vineyard / viniculture information: (5/5) Good, with emphasis on sustainability (member LISW)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description (5/5) Good, clear expression of philosophy
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (5/5) Excellent, with adequate wine descriptions and an interesting variety of purchase option
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, e-mail
Directions: Option is not functional as of 5/4/13
News/reviews link: Yes, but usually cited without dates
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: Yes, but not updated since 2009
Events / calendar: No, you can request information via a Gmail link.
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes, with many family pictures in all categories; e.g., Vineyard
Website design: (4/5) Attractive and easy to navigate, but a few too many mouse clicks needed here and there; some features are not yet active, such as a list of retailers and restaurants that offer the wines
General feature set: 6 of 10 (3/5)
Additional features: You can view the front & back labels of the wines, the only site that provides this
Up-to-date: The blog and some other sections seem to be spottily up to date.

Mattebella Vineyards

Comment: In most respects a good winery site, but lack of detail, particularly the About and Background features, frustrates

McCall Vineyards (3.7 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No
Winemaker: No: Gilles Martin for Merlot @ PWG; Millbrook Winery for Pinot Noir
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (5/5) Complete
About / Biographies: (4/5) Bios are limited to McCall family members, no staff
Vineyard / viniculture information: (3/5) No parcel maps; general, brief notes on sustainability
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (3/5) Tasting notes
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (4/5) Simple, direct, with tasting notes
Wine Club: Yes, 3 levels
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Contact: Yes
Directions: Yes
News/reviews links: Yes; not all links work but otherwise it is up to date.
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes; embedded in the page headers and then streamed
Website design: (4/5) Simple, attractive, easy to navigate
General feature set: 6 of 10 (3/5)
Additional features: Ranch: Charolais cattle; Conservation
Up-to-date: Yes

McCall Wines

Comment: A very attractive site to visit, but it could offer more information

Medolla Vineyards (2.0 2.2 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No, use Lenz
Winemaker: Yes, John Medolla with Eric Fry at Lenz
Tasting Room: No; Winemakers Studio; Empire State Cellars
History / background: (3/5) Family history, little else
About / Biographies: (1/5) Practically nothing
Vineyard / viniculture information: (1/5) Insignificant about either
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (2/5) Minimal
Technical wine data: None
Purchase online: (n/a)
Wine Club: No
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Contact: Yes
Directions: No
News/reviews links: Yes; best source for further background on Medolla, but the most recent reviews date to
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (3/5) Basic, clean pages, little offered, the home page greets one with mandolin music
General feature set: 6 of 10 (3/5)
Up-to-date: Unclear; was the 2007 the last wine Medolla made?
Additional features: None

Medolla Vineyards

Comment: Very basic website

Old Field Vineyards (2.5 2.8 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No, use Lenz Winery
Winemaker: Roz Baiz, with Eric Fry at Lenz Winery
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (4/5) Quite a bit of family/farm history
About / Biographies: (1/5) Very general information
Vineyard / viniculture information: (1/5) No details; though sustainable practices are used, no information is given
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (4/5) No notes, but decent descriptions
Technical wine data: None
Purchase online: (4/5) Easy to use, notes are interesting but could provide more information
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes; can use Google or Yahoo! maps
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes, but last newsletter dates to October 2010
News/reviews link: Yes, includes a few videos
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes, as part of each option; especially large for weddings section
Website design: (4/5) Attractive, easy to navigate
General feature set: 8 of 10 (4/5)
Additional features: Weddings; Newsletter (2005-2010)
Up-to-date: Yes

The Old Field

Comment: An attractively-designed site that could use more information about the vineyard and the winemaking; fuller biographies would be welcome too.

Onabay Vineyards (3.5 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No
Winemaker: No; consulting winemaker John Leo at PWG
Tasting Room: No
History / background: (3/5)
About / Biographies: (2/5) Some information, no biographies
Vineyard / viniculture information: (3/5) no vinicultural info; aerial photo
Winemaker’s notes / wine description (5/5) Very useful and complete
Technical wine data: Yes, can be downloaded
Purchase online: n/a; the wines are available from restaurants and retailers, for which there is a list
Wine Club / Subscription: No
Contact: Phone, e-mail via Gmail, snail mail
Directions: No, without a street address either
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes to both, though I’ve not received a newsletter since I signed up months ago
News/reviews link: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (5/5) Elegant, easy to use, conveys the seriousness of the owners
General feature set: 4 of 10 (2/5)
Additional features: None
Up-to-date: Yes, but a reverence to Steve Mudd as vineyard manager is no long valid; since 2012 it has been Bill Ackerman

Onabay Vineyards

Comment: Beautiful website, needs to provide more information

One Woman’s Wines: (2.0 2.1 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Claudia Purita
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (2/5) Some personal background.
About / Biographies: (2/5) Some personal background
Vineyard / viniculture information: (1/5) passing mention
Winemaker’s notes / wine description (3/5) Adequate description, no notes
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (4/5) Yes, but one must first create an online account.
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Text
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes, the newsletter is limited to visitor’s information and upcoming events
News/reviews link: Yes, but no dates are shown with the links; however, the most recent review was published in 2011
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes, but limited info
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design: (4/5) Attractive and straightforward; navigation is easy.
General feature set: 4 of 10 (2/5)
Additional features: No
Up-to-date: probably, but not entirely clear if it is.

One Woman’s Wines

Comment: Basic website, but then, Claudia is a one-woman operation (plus her daughter who works in the office).

Osprey’s Dominion: (1.8/5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Adam Suprenant
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (0/5) Completely ignored.
About / Biographies: (0/5) Completely ignored
Vineyard / viniculture information: (0/5) none
Winemaker’s notes / wine description 2/5 Sometimes uses quotations from critics, but no notes
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (5/5) Excellent, the site’s major focus, to the detriment of other options
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, with map
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes, but I’ve received nothing since signing up a year ago
News/reviews link: Yes, as part of the blog, Fishhawk News
Wine Blog: Yes, but little about viniculture or winemaking, not updated since April 2012
Events / calendar: Yes, focused on entertainment at the winery
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (3/5) Good, functional but not attractive; navigation is OK. (by Cro2)
General feature set: 5 of 10 (2.5/5)
Additional features: List of wine competition awards
Up-to-date: Up to 2012.

Ospreys Dominion

Comment: It’s apparent that this website was designed for other than informational purposes.

Palmer Vineyards: (3.0 1.0 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Miguel Martín
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (0/5) No longer, though it used to tell about the founder, Bob Palmer
About / Biographies: (0/5) No staff bios, but pictures of the staff
Vineyard / viniculture information: (0/5) Nothing
Winemaker’s notes / wine description 5/5 Excellent; some notes very complete
Technical wine data: For some wines
Purchase online: (4/5) With the new makeover it is not presently functional (but it had been very good, easy to use, brief descriptions of wines). Let’s hope that it will be as good as the former version (212)
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, via MapQuest
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
News/reviews link: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes; also a video promo
Website design: (3/5) OK, easy to use and navigate, but many useful features and options have been eliminated [the site was created using Vistaprint, a do-it-yourself Website application; previously it had been done by Cro2, a professional site designer
General feature set: 5 of 10 (2/5)
Additional features: None
Up-to-date: Apparently, given that it’s a new design, but there is no datable information, though this should be corrected once the online-purchase feature is enabled.

Palmer Vineyards

Comment: A brand-new look and feel, with the home page emphasizing “Live Music Every Weekend”; the site that feels incomplete and lacks the most basic information on the winery, vineyard, or staff. A shame, but the site will be regularly revisited to see what it will become once completed.

Paumanok Vineyards: (4.6 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Kareem Massoud
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (4/5) Very good
About / Biographies: (4/5) Very Good, no complete bios
Vineyard / viniculture information: (5/5) Excellent
Winemaker’s notes / wine description 5/5 Excellent; complete notes
Technical wine data: Yes, but only for their top red wines
Purchase online: (5/5) Excellent, full wine notes and reviews are quoted
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, with GPS coordinates & MapQuest
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes, issued regularly to announce wine dinners, reviews of their wines, and the occasional entertainment event
News/reviews link: Yes
Wine Blog: Yes, many interesting posts and links to articles, and it’s up to date.
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: Yes
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (5/5) An attractive and well-organized site, easy to use (by Cro2)
General feature set: 9 of 10 (4.5/5)
Additional features: Quotes Walt Whitman on Paumanok’s name; lists all the restaurants and wine stores at which their wines can be found, as well as a full selection of lodgings in the East End, plus a helpful list of related wine Web sites
Up-to-date: Yes

Paumanok

Comment: An excellent site that needs just a little improvement in the History & About sections, including staff bios

Pellegrini Vineyards (4.2 4.3 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes
Tasting Room: Yes, Zander Hargrave
History / background: (5/5)
About / Biographies: (3/5) Lacks biographical information
Vineyard / viniculture information: (5/5) Full description of the vineyards; no parcel maps; useful notes on viniculture
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5) Adequate on the Tasting Notes option, but much more complete if one goes to the Trade Support option (2001 through 2008)
Technical wine data: Yes, but one has to use the Trade Support option to get to them.
Purchase online: (4/5) No wine descriptions accompany purchase options, so one has to go the Tasting Notes option to read them
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Yes
Directions: Text & map
News/reviews link: Yes, excerpts only
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes, but since signing up 13 months ago, I’ve not received a single newsletter
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (5/5) Very attractive, straightforward to use, though one has to dig through some options; Tasting Notes aren’t also viewable in Purchase section; full wine notes are accessible through Trade Support option
General feature set:6 of 10 (3/5)
Additional features: In Trade Support there are images of both the front and back labels of the wines.
Up-to-date: Yes, for events and tasting notes (up to the 2011 vintage); Trade Support info only goes up to the 2008 vintage, as was the case when the Web site was reviewed in May 2012. There is no mention of the fact that Russell Hearn, the winemaker, recently left the winery.

Pellegrini Vineyards

Comment: An attractive and interesting site to use, but lack of biographies and unusual options can frustrate

Pindar Vineyards (3.2 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes, Edward Lovaas
Winemaker: Yes
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (4/5) No history about the site pre-Pindar
About / Biographies: (5/5) Includes biographies of all staff, including the dog
Vineyard information: (1/5) Very little other than the background history
Viniculture: (3/5) Info included in the Green section, including sustainable practices; general, not just about the vineyard
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (3/5) No notes, just description
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (4/5) Many choices besides wine; no additional wine descriptions
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Yes
Directions: Yes
News/reviews link: Yes, but media all dates to 2005-2007; no updates since.
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (3/5) Attractive, but retrieving info can be complicated by unusual options, can require some digging around
General feature set:5 of 10 (2.5/5)
Additional features: Green, Making Wine with Wind, Pindar Giving
Up-to-date: Yes, but not news/reviews; Mother’s Day notice still up on 5/18/12

Pindar.net

Comment: Excellent background and history, but could use more information about viniculture and winemaking philosophies.

Pugliese Vineyards (1.7 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Peter Pugliese
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (1/5) Almost no information
About / Biographies: (1/5) Almost no information
Vineyard information: (1/5) Virtually no information
Viniculture: (0/5) No information
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (2/5) Brief descriptions, food-pairing suggestions
Technical wine data: None
Purchase online: (4/5) Straightforward, suggests food pairings
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Yes
Directions: No
News/reviews link: Awards list only
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (4/5) Easy to use but limited features
General feature set:2 of 10 (1/5)
Additional features: Painted glassware
Up-to-date: Recent wines are listed up to 2011, but awards listed date back to 2001-2002

Pugliese Vineyards

Comment: The site is strictly devoted to selling the wine; otherwise there is little or no info.

Queens County Farm Museum Vineyard (1.8 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No, PWG makes their wines
Winemaker: No, Russell Hearn @ PWG
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (3) A long history, briefly dispatched; no mention of vineyard
About / Biographies: (3) No bios
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (0) Nothing at all.
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (0) Nada.
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (n/a)
Wine Club: No
Contact: Yes
Directions: Yes, text only
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Tours: Yes
Events / calendar: Yes, up-to-date and covers 2013-14
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (3) Easy navigation but run-of-the-mill.
General feature set:4 of 10 (2/5)
Additional features: map of farm PDF, but vineyard is not apparent from the layout.
Up-to-date: Yes

Queens County Vineyard

Comment: Vines and wines are an afterthought on the website of this museum-farm operation.

Raphael Wine (4.1 out of 5 points)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Anthony Nappa
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (4/5)
About / Biographies: (3/5) No bios
Vineyard / viniculture information: (3/5) Minimal on vineyard, no maps; viniculture is mentioned under several options
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5) Complete with vintage information for each wine, though the comments are a bit self-promoting
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (5/5) Easy to use, full information on each wine by clicking its label
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Yes
Directions: Yes
News/reviews link: No
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: Yes
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design: (5/5) Elegant, easy to use and navigate
General feature set:7 of 10 (3.5/5)
Additional features: None noted
Up-to-date: Yes

Raphael Wine

Comment: A nice, clean design featuring an elevation drawing of the façade of the Raphael winery, it is notable in part for what it doesn’t have as well as what it does: No quotations or links from the news media or reviewers. It also lacks any biographical information on staff, and tells a visitor little about the vineyard. One the other hand, it offers excellent wine notes.

Red Fern Cellars (1.8 out of 5)

Vineyard: No
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Aaron Munk
Tasting Room: No
History / background: (0/5) No
About / Biographies: (0/5) No
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (n/a)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (4/5) No notes, ample descriptions
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (n/a) e-mail or phone orders only
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: only by snail mail or e-mail; no phone listed
Directions: No; visits must be arranged in advance
News/reviews link: ; link to WineLoversPage.com; Jewish Week (2008, though it reviews 2005 wines)
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design: (3/5) Adequate and straightforward, but few options
General feature set:4 of 10 (2/5)
Additional features: LI Wine links; option for custom labeling
Up-to-date: No; it doesn’t appear to have been updated since 2008; latest wines listed are 2005; it hasn’t changed since last year’s assessment (2012)

Red Fern Cellars

Comment: Functional, but with minimal information; is it even up-to-date?

Red Hook Winery (1.4 out of 5)

Vineyard: No
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Abe Schoener, Robert Foley
Tasting Room:Yes
History / background: (1/5) Bare minimum to be useful
About / Biographies: (0/5) Minimal info, no bios
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (n/a) buy grapes from many sources
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (0/5) No notes, descriptions
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (3/5) OK, but no information on the wines
Wine Club: No
Contact: by phone, snail mail or e-mail
Directions: Address only
News/reviews link: No
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design: (3/5) Adequate and straightforward, but few options
General feature set:1 of 10 (0.5/5)
Additional features: None
Up-to-date: Yes

Red Hook Winery

Comment: Functional, but with minimal information

Roanoke Vineyard (4.4 out of 5) [updated 11-16-13]

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No
Winemaker: Roman Roth at Wölffer Estate
Tasting Room: Yes, both at the vineyard and on Love Lane in Mattituck
History / background: (5/5)
About / Biographies: (5/5) Good info and full bios of all staff
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (3/5) Little vineyard info or maps; though an adequate, brief note on viniculture (strange, given that the Owner, Rich Pisacano is a “vineyardist” and his father, Gabby, is the vineyard manager.)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (4/5) Brief, sometimes more complete, often less, and just a tad tongue-in-cheek in the self-promoting phrases; e.g., a ‘wild fermentation’ Chardonnay “Quite simply . . . leaps out of your glass!”’
Technical wine data: Yes, but some more, some less
Purchase online: (n/a) Order by phone, then arrange for pickup or delivery on one’s own.
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Yes, phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, uses Google Maps
News/reviews link: Yes, via the option, ‘Judgment of Riverhead’
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes, they are mostly about wines and tastings, often in cahoots with restaurants, some with themes, such as “how to be a Wine Snob”; issued weekly
Wine Blog: Of sorts (‘Judgment of Riverhead’ again) but informative, amusing, and well worth reading.
Events / calendar: Yes, and it’s all about wine, like the Smackdown tastings
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Not as such, but many pages are well-illustrated
Website design: (4/5) The opening page looks crowded but as a whole the site is easy to use and very functional. Some features require a bit of clicking around.
General feature set:9 of 10 (4.5/5)
Additional features: Wine library, Winemakers’ Smackdowns
Up-to-date: Yes

Roanoke Vineyards

Comment: A website that doesn’t take itself too seriously, but provides a good deal of serious information in a sometimes light-hearted way. It is, in its way, rather endearing. However, it’s a vineyard, so why is there not more information about the vineyard proper?

Sannino-Bella Vita Vineyard (2.5 3.4 out of 5 points)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Anthony Sannino; also with his vine-to-wine students
Tasting Room: Yes, at Ackerly Pond’s barn
History / background: (3/5) Adequate
About / Biographies: (5/5) Full bios
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (2/5) Little information, as a member of the LISW, it practices sustainable viniculture, but a nice video of the vineyard with pleasant musical accompaniment
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (3/5) Descriptions with food-pairing suggestions
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (3/5) Yes, with brief wine descriptions
Wine Club: Yes, through vine-to-wine program
Contact: Yes, phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, with map
News/reviews link: Yes, this is where one can find more information about the wines.
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes, but I’ve received none since I signed up a year ago
Wine Blog: Option is not functional
Events / calendar: Yes, including music, tours, and classes
Tours: Yes
Photo gallery: Yes, several that are thematically based
Website design: (3/5) Not unattractive but busy yet functional, though to find the video one needs to select the B&B option
General feature set: 9 of 10 (4.5/5)
Additional features: Bed-and-Breakfast (reservations can be made online); Vine-to-Wine experience; virtual tour of the vineyard and slide presentation of the Tuscan Suite guest house.
Up-to-date: Yes

Sannino Vineyard/Bella-Vita-Vineyard

Comment: website with focus on the Vine-to-Wine program; several interesting options but little about the vineyard; considerably improved over the version assessed last year.

Scarola Vineyards (3.6 3.9 points out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No
Winemaker: No; uses Roman Roth at Wölffer Estate
Tasting Room: No, planned but not yet open to public
History / background: (5/5) Complete
About / Biographies: (5/5) Complete, with brief bio sketches of all the staff
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (1/5)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5) Full notes and description at Trade option
Technical wine data: Yes, via For the Trade option
Purchase online: (4/5) Limited wine descriptions, with no direct link to the Trade option; order by phone, e-mail, or online
Wine Club: No
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: No, only the street address
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: Yes
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design: (4/5) Attractive enough, but there are some navigational challenges
General feature set:6 of 10 (3/5)
Additional features: link to Cedar House on Sound B&B, owned by Scarola family
Up-to-date: Yes

Scarola Vineyards

Comment: Strongly family-oriented and emphatically Italian. Given that the Scarolas have a vineyard and no winery, it is frustrating to find that the site scrimps on vinicultural information yet has plenty to say about its wines (made Roman Roth).

Sherwood House Vineyards (3.6 points out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No
Winemaker: No; Gilles Martin is the contract winemaker
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (5/5)
About / Biographies: (5/5), full biographies of the owners and Gilles Martin
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (1/5) Very little mentioned
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (3/5) no notes, pairing suggestions
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (4/5) Very easy to use, but limited wine information; wines sold online are available in a minimum of 2-bottle lots (or 4, 6, or 12)
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, with MapQuest to the vineyards, tasting stand, and tasting room
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes, sent monthly
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes, and up to date.
Tours: No
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design: (4/5) Elegant, very easy to navigate
General feature set:7 of 10 (3.5/5)
Additional features: Private events information
Up-to-date: Yes

Sherwood House Vineyards

Comment: Very attractive site that tells too little about the vineyard or viniculture

Shinn Estate: (3.7 4.1 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Patrick Caserta
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (4/5) Yes, and blog fills some gaps
About / Biographies: (4/5) Bios of the owners
Vineyard / viniculture information: (4/5) Very good, but no maps, block info
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (3/5) Adequate description with food-pairing suggestions
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (4/5) Yes, good wine descriptions, easy to use
Wine Club: No
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, and a Google photo map
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: Yes, fun and informative, regularly updated
Events / calendar: Yes; mostly about wine, but also features palm readings on Friday; dinners on occasional Saturdays
Tours: Yes
Photo gallery: Yes
Website design: (5/5) Excellent, very easy to navigate and use.
General feature set: 8 of 10 (4/5)
Additional features: B&B, Distillery
Up-to-date: Yes

Shinn Estate Vineyards

Comment: Newly redesigned website, much improved and easier to navigate than the old one; much useful information but short on tasting notes, which used to be much more complete and included technical notes as well. That’s a loss.

Southold Farm + Cellar:

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: uses Raphael Winery facilities
Winemaker: not yet
Tasting Room: not yet
History / background: (2/5) At present a brief story, with much hope for the future
About / Biographies: (2/5) owners don’t even mention their surnames
Vineyard / viniculture information: (n/a)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (n/a)
Technical wine data: n/a
Purchase online: (n/a)
Wine Club: No
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: No
News/reviews link: No
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes, but a newsletter may be a while off
Wine Blog: n/a
Events / calendar: n/a
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (n/a) Under development.
Additional features: No
Up-to-date: Yes

Southold Farm + Cellar

Comment: Brand-new site still under development., but it does tell the story of the renovation the farm building that will become its tasting room

Sparkling Pointe: Méthode Champenoise (3.7 3.9 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No
Winemaker: No; Gilles Martin is the exclusive contract winemaker
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (5/5) told as a charming story
About / Biographies: (5/5) bios for owners and winemaker
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (1/5)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5) Excellent
Technical wine data: Yes
Purchase online: (5/5) Well-designed, with direct access to wine info
Wine Club: Yes, but how to join is not clear as it is not available as an option
Contact: Phone, snail mail (can’t find e-mail option)
Directions: Yes, and a Google photo map
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes, issued weekly
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: Yes, but virtual tour feature doesn’t work
Photo gallery: Virtual tour of the VIP space isn’t functional
Website design: (3/5) Home page is rather busy; but generally is easy to navigate. Somewhat improved over version of 2012
General feature set: 8 of 10 (4/5)
Additional features: Weddings
Up-to-date: Yes

Sparkling Pointe

Comment: I find the design too forward and distracting. Still, it has its good points: detailed information about important things such as its history, the biographies, notes; bad point: almost nothing about the vineyard or viniculture.

Suhru Wines (4.6 out of 5)

Vineyard: No
Winery: No; uses PWG, of which owner Russell Hearn is a partner
Winemaker: Yes, Russell Hearn
Tasting Room: Winemakers Studio
History / background: (5/5) Excellent
About / Biographies: (5/5) Bios of the owners and the sales manager
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (n/a)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5)
Technical wine data: Yes, if one clicks on the Wine for the Trade option
Purchase online: (4/5) with full descriptions, but one must go to the Trade option to see the notes & tech information before purchasing
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, e-mail via Gmail, snail mail
Directions: n/a
News/reviews link: Yes, though not up to date
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes, sent monthly
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: n/a
Tours: n/a
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (4/5) Well-designed and attractive, if rather busy, but mostly easy to navigate
General feature set: 5 of 7 (4/5)
Additional features: None
Up-to-date: Yes

Suhru Wines

Comment: A really serious website. The focus is entirely on the wine. Premises are not open to the public.

T’Jara Vineyards (4.1 out of 5)

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: No; uses PWG, of which owner Russell Hearn is a partner
Winemaker: Yes, Russell Hearn in cahoots with Jed Beitler, co-owner
Tasting Room: Winemakers Studio
History / background: (5/5) Excellent, via a 12-page PDF
About / Biographies: (5/5) Very complete with a curious omission: the owner’s last names aren’t mentioned, but they can be found in the contact information.
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (2/5) Some excellent description, including a parcel map, but no mention of practices
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5)
Technical wine data: Yes
Purchase online: (4/5) It would be nice if it would allow one to click and see the notes & tech information before purchasing; 3-bottle minimum
Wine Club: No
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: No, but there is an address
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: No
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: No
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (5/5) Well-designed and attractive, easy to navigate
General feature set: 5 of 10 (2.5/5)
Additional features: None
Up-to-date: Yes, for the wines, but the last news entry dates to 2012

T’Jara Vineyards

Comment: A serious but engaging website. The focus is on the history and the wine. Premises are not open to the public.

Vineyard 48

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (1/5)
About / Biographies: (1/5)
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (1/5)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (3/5)
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (3/5)
Wine Club: No
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
News/reviews link: Yes
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes, all music
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (2/5) Some navigation choices are in very small text at the bottom of the page; not intuitive or easy to figure out
Additional features: Row of Vines Dedication, Weddings and Private parties
Up-to-date:

Vineyard 48

Comment: There are links for reviews if one does a search for it. (It had been a minimalist approach to providing access—the focus was strongly centered on purchases and events. Little information, even about the wine.) NOTE: online reviews tend to trash the place as a party venue out of control; other reviews extoll it as a party venue

Waters Crest (2.0 points out of 5)

Vineyard: No
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Jim Waters
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (2/5) No history, a little background in About section
About / Biographies: (3/5) Good overview, but no bios per se
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (n/a)
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (4/5) Good description but no notes
Technical wine data: No
Purchase online: (1/5) Apparently not, but perhaps through wine club; not clear; one has to fill out a PDF application and send it in
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Only the street address
News/reviews link: Yes, but very limited
Newsletter / Mailing List: follow on Facebook
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: No
Photo gallery: No
Website design: (4/5) Attractive, mostly straightforward to use.
General feature set: 6 of 10 (3/5)
Additional features: Link to LI Wine Country Places to eat & stay.
Up-to-date: Yes, clearly indicated on each page.

Waters Crest Winery

Comment: In some ways its functions can be frustrating, but this is the only website in this survey that gives a page’s most recent update

Winemakers Studio

Comment: see Anthony Nappa Wines, for they share a Website.

Wölffer Estate (4.7 4.9 out of 5)

As of January 2016 it has been substantially updated, but not yet reassessed.

Vineyard: Yes
Winery: Yes
Winemaker: Yes, Roman Roth
Tasting Room: Yes
History / background: (5/5)
About / Biographies: (5/5) Good biographies of all the staff
Vineyard / Viniculture information: (5/5) Mostly general observations, with focus on terroir; for viniculture info one needs to dig into the News feature, but as of 2013 there is now a link to the LISW Web site, which details the sustainable practices followed by Wölffer.
Winemaker’s notes / wine description: (5/5) Very complete and full
Technical wine data: Yes, very complete, one could not ask for more
Purchase online: (5/5) Full notes and descriptions immediately accessible to buyer, but not all wines are provided with notes &/or descriptions—an odd inconsistency; they also offer verjus and vinegar
Wine Club: Yes
Contact: Phone, fax, e-mail, snail mail
Directions: Yes, text with a painted map (not Google or MapQuest)
News/reviews link: Yes, though a 2013 review by Howard G. Goldberg has no link.
Newsletter / Mailing List: Yes
Wine Blog: No
Events / calendar: Yes
Tours: None appear to be offered
Photo gallery: Yes, on Flcker
Website design: (5/5) Newly updated, clean and attractive, mostly straightforward navigation, but why should one have to dig for the vinicultural information?
General feature set: 8 of 10 (4/5)
Additional features: Weddings & Private events, Wölffer Estate Stables
Up-to-date: Yes

Wölffer

Comment: One needs to dig a bit for some features. Very complete information in many areas, but strangely lacking in details about the vineyard—no map, mention of acreage, etc.; read Wine & Vineyard and you then have a link to another page, The Vineyard & Winemaking, where one can find out about viniculture. Some inconsistencies with regard to wine notes (very full for some wines, no information at all for others).

A Conversation with Louisa Thomas Hargrave

Louisa Thomas Hargrave is the doyenne of the Long Island wine business, having established the very first wine vineyard, Hargrave Vineyard, in 1973 with her (then) husband, Alex Hargrave. They were true pioneers, determined to plant vinifera grapes where they had never successfully grown before, even in the face of well-meant advice against taking on such a risky venture. Neither of them had ever farmed until they planted the vineyard.

At the time she was a recent college graduate, having gone to Harvard, earning her BA in Government at Smith, and thence to Simmons College to earn a MAT (Masters of Arts in Teaching). But she and Alex had caught the wine bug, and became seriously interested in starting a vineyard and winery of their own, with the idea of producing quality wine from V. vinifera grapes in the styles of Bordeaux and Burgundy. Consequently, Louisa next went to the University of Rochester to study Calculus and Chemistry, and further studied the latter at Stony Brook University with the idea that she could apply what she had learned to the making of wine.

Louisa & Alex Hargrave, 1975

After planting vines of Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, and Sauvignon Blanc in the original 17-acre field of the old potato farm that had become Hargrave Vineyard, Louisa went to the Cornell Cooperative Extension program to earn a Certificate in Land Use Planning in 1974, an ongoing interest of hers as Suffolk County and New York State developed new laws and regulations that had an impact on her ability to farm. By 1998 Louisa had been awarded a Doctor of Science, honoris causa, from Dowling College, in recognition of her contributions to viticulture in Long Island.

Between the very solid academic credentials that Louisa has earned over the years and the deep and long experience of establishing and maintaining a vineyard for twenty-six years, as well as making wine and running a successful winery, Louisa has perhaps the most sound credentials of anyone in the Long Island wine world. Furthermore, after selling Hargrave Vineyard in 1999, when she and her husband agreed to separate, she went on to establish Winewise LLC, a consulting firm for the wine industry. She was director of the Stony Brook University Center for Wine, Food, and Culture from 2004 to 2009, and is continuing to work as a writer on the subject of wine, viticulture, and winemaking for various publications, including her own blog, www.vinglorious.com.

Louisa has also written a well-received memoir, The Vineyard: The Pleasures and Perils of Creating an American Family Winery (Viking/Penguin, 2003), about the joys and challenges of running a family winery and vineyard. Earlier, in 1986, she had contributed an essay, “The History of Wine Grapes on Long Island,” to the Long Island Historical Journal. Most recently she wrote about the terroir of Long Island in an article for Edible East End, “The Dirt Below our Feet.”

Given those credentials and that experience, I cannot think of a better-qualified person to speak to about some of the issues bearing on the viniculture of Long Island. To meet Louisa is to encounter someone who is direct, forthcoming, very well-informed, and definitely opinionated. She is petite, bespectacled, and wears her silver hair long. She has no pretensions or airs, but she does not suffer fools. Given her high profile in Long Island, she frequently has requests from schoolchildren or their parents for an interview so that they can write a paper for school. Her response is simple: “When you’ve read my book, The Vineyard, get back to me and we can talk.” So far there have been no takers.

Fortunately for me, I had read The Vineyard, so that made getting my interview with Louisa that much easier.

Louisa initiated the conversation by making the point that there are two types of wineries in Long Island: those that cater to the tourist trade and those that focus on making quality wines. (Several do both, but most emphasize one or the other). Of the top quality wineries, she cited Bedell Cellars, Channing Daughters, Lenz Winery, Paumanok Vineyards, and Peconic Bay Vineyards. Given that all of the Long Island wineries depend on retail sales for a major part of their income and nearly all have tasting rooms for the wine tourists who are a significant part of their business, I inferred from what she said that some of these wineries seek to attract tourists and tourist groups with large tasting rooms, provide access for buses, and offer space for parties, weddings, and so on. While some of these are serious about their wines, such as McCall, The Old Field Vineyards, and Pellegrini, a handful is really focused on the tourist trade, perhaps to the detriment of the wines they make—good enough for the tourists, but certainly not world-class.

One way to judge a winery is by looking at their containers—the smaller the container, such as an oak cask (typically of 225 liters, the size of Bordeaux casks) the more serious is the winemaking, as it costs more time and work to manage. Large containers tend to be used for large-scale production and do not allow for the blending of batches for refining the way the wine tastes and smells the way that small ones do.

She also made clear that there is a fundamental difference between vineyards that seek to grow the highest quality fruit possible by practicing ‘green harvesting,’ which means removing bunches of fruit in the middle of the growing season—sometimes as much as third to a half of the developing crop, in order to improve the quality of the fruit that remains. The result, of course, is a smaller crop, but wines made from such fruit will be richer, more flavorful, more interesting. This will not be true of vineyards that primarily grow and sell their wine grapes to wineries. These vineyards seek to maximize their grape production, as they sell grapes by the ton and they would receive nearly the same price regardless of whether or not they practiced ‘green’ harvesting. In this case, quantity trumps quality.

I had a few prepared questions for Louisa, to wit:

When you started your vineyard there was no concept of ‘sustainable’ viticulture, although ‘organic’ and Biodynamic agriculture was already being practiced in some places. Was there a point at which you and Alex decided to move towards sustainable viniculture, and if so, how did you go about it?

“Ecology was very much a part of the vocabulary when we planted our vineyard, and we had stayed at an organic farm some years before. Still, it was fungicides that made it possible for us to plant V. vinifera vines in our vineyard. Historically, those who had attempted to grow these European wine grapes had failed because they had no tools to combat the fungi and other pests indigenous to North America. We recognized that techniques like grafting and amendments like copper sulfate and other fungicides developed after 1870 now made it possible to successfully grow these plants that previously had not survived here. We also perceived that cold-sensitive vinifera might survive on the North Fork of Long Island, due to the moderating effects of the Gulf Stream and Peconic Bay, when they had failed to survive in the more continental climates of other parts of the east coast.

“We even planted some Pinot Noir and Sauvignon Blanc on their own roots, because the sandy soils of Long Island made it difficult for root pests (like Phylloxera) to establish themselves. Nevertheless, we really didn’t want to use sprays except to the extent necessary. Although we did use herbicides at times, when weeds became excessive, we always tried to control them mechanically (which usually meant hand-hoeing and weed pulling in areas that the side-hoe on the tractor could not reach). Late sprays before harvest can affect fermentation, so we did not use fungicides after mid-August. The fact of the matter is that wrestling wine to the ground is very, very complex.

“We embraced the estate approach from the very beginning—in other words, our wines would be made only from the grapes that came from our vineyard, as is the case with Bordeaux chateau. In later years, we did purchase some fruit for our second label, Chardonette, in order to be able to offer a less-expensive, entry-level wine.

“Our wines were made with no residual sugars; malolactic fermentation was complete in all our wines, and we applied minimum sulfites—none at crush time—because we did not want to destroy the indigenous microflora. The natural acid in wine, at a pH lower than 4.0, makes it impossible for bacteria harmful to people to survive, but some sulfites were needed during aging to protect the wines from yeast or bacteria that harm wine by creating vinegar or off-odors, especially after the malolactic fermentation, when the pH would rise to a less protective level, as high as 3.7 in Pinot Noir especially.

“I am interested in biodynamic techniques but have never practiced them. There are pros and cons to every agricultural practice. Recently, I visited a biodynamically-farmed vineyard in Champagne that was using horses to work the fields. The idea was to avoid the hardpan that can develop after running a tractor over the vineyards many times and compacting the soil, as the hardpan that results is virtually impenetrable and can harm the nourishment of the vines. However, the vintner who showed me the horses commented that, while using horses was good for the soil, it was not good for the horses—the soils were so dry that the horse could go lame. That, then, is not really a good option for sustainability.

“With respect to Biodynamic sprays I should point out that these need DEC [Department of Environmental Conservation] approval, as does anything that is applied to crops. All must have a seal of approval and licensing from the DEC. DEC guidelines are not always clear and are subject to change without notice. Because the DEC is funded by fines levied against farmers in violation of their guidelines, it behooves its inspectors to find violations and levy what can be very heavy fines. It’s a real problem, and it has to be fixed by providing financing for it by New York State. In my memoir, I describe an untoward incident we had with the DEC that illustrates how this agency has, in the course of implementing laws intended to protect the environment, veered off course in a way that persecutes unwitting and well-intentioned farmers like ourselves.”

Looking back on how you went about establishing Hargrave Vineyards in 1973, how would you start up differently as a pioneer, given what you know now? For example, would you plant Pinot Noir again, or something else? What about preparation of the soil?

First, Louisa said, “I’d start with a south-facing slope, and then I’d use compost with biodynamic elements to maintain the vineyard.” “You said ‘biodynamic’ but did you mean ‘organic?’” “No, I said ‘biodynamic,’ meaning that the soil amendments would reflect the concept of the farm as a unified system of life forces, cycling between times of birth, growth, fruition, decay, and rebirth.”

We had discussed Biodynamics at some length, and Louisa said that she agreed with other viniculturalists, like Sam McCullough and Kareem Massoud, who think that some aspects of Biodynamics may actually work, though it may not need all the mystical components to be effective. While she does believe that there can be something that could be called “energy” in wine, perhaps due to the level of acidity—it has to do with what makes the wine appealing, or exciting, or perhaps there’s something else to which people respond when they drink it. Whether or not there is some kind of cosmic energy that comes from the planets and the stars, or that has to do with affinities between horns and earth or anything like that. It may very well be that the biota that is in the compost teas is really healthy for the vines. [As an aside, I would like to note that that this has not been borne out in any scientific tests that I know of, but it’s clear that even viticulturalists who would not seek to enter the Demeter program for Biodynamic Certification are open to the possibility that the compost teas have some efficacious attributes.]

Louisa further remarked that, “although growing and making wine from Pinot Noir proved to be most challenging, I would do it again. I learned more from my efforts to ripen this “heartbreak grape” and to tame its hard tannins than from any other variety. Success with it is not assured, but when it comes, it makes extraordinarily wonderful wine on Long Island.

Do you think that the Cornell VineBalance program has made a real difference in the vinicultural practices in LI? It doesn’t have many actual members—about six, I believe.

“The VineBalance program only has a few members because participation requires detailed record-keeping and a lot of paperwork, which are time-consuming and costly. This doesn’t mean that VineBalance isn’t important to the rest of the vineyards. It provides all kinds of guidance. Vineyard managers can and do take courses on sustainable viniculture, including pesticide use, which requires certification. Cornell provides many seminars and brings experts from other regions here to discuss many aspects of viticulture, including organic interventions and sustainable practices. So VineBalance, under the direction of Alice Wise at the Cornell Agricultural Extension station in Riverhead, does play a significant role in the viniculture of Long Island.”

Louisa concluded our conversation by saying, “Agriculture in Long Island must be kept alive, even if eventually grapes may have to give way to cabbages. That’s fine, as long as the farms remain.”

With that remark, Louisa speaks in a way that is characteristic of her and her deep commitment not only to growing wine, but sustaining agriculture. The East End is a beautiful area, and the North Fork still retains a quality of the bucolic and rural thanks to its working farms and vineyards. The Hargraves sold development rights to their vineyard to the Suffolk County Land Trust years ago. That is also part of her commitment. Long Island owes her many thanks for all that she’s done and continues to do.

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this:

The Criteria

About the Assessments

The Sixty-two Websites (as of 11 June 2013)

Anthony Nappa Wines / Winemakers Studio: (3.9 out of 5)

Baiting Hollow Farm Vineyards: (3.6 out of 5)

Bedell Cellars: (5.0 out of 5)

Bouké Wines: (4.2 4.6 out of 5)

Brooklyn Oenology (3.7 out of 5)

Brooklyn Winery (4.2 out of 5)

Castello di Borghese: (2.2 2.6 out of 5)

Channing Daughters: (4.8 out of 5)

Clovis Point: (3.2 3.7 out of 5)

Coffee Pot Cellars: (4.2 out of 5)

Croteaux Rosé Vineyards (3.0 out of 5)

Diliberto Winery: (2.3 out of 5)

Duckwalk Vineyards / Duckwalk North: (3.4 out of 5)

Grapes of Roth by Wölffer Estate: (4.4 out of 5)

Harbes Farm & Vineyard: (3.2 out of 5)

Harmony Vineyards (1.8 2.2 out of 5)

Influence Wines (4.3 out of 5)

Jamesport Vineyards (4.3 4.6 out of 5)

Jason’s Vineyard (2.8 out of 5)

Kontokosta Winery (under construction)

Laurel Lake Vineyard: (3.0 out of 5)

Lenz Winery: (3.3 3.4 out of 5)

Lieb Cellars / Bridge Lane Wines: (4.0 out of 5)

Macari Vineyards: (4.0 4.4 out of 5)

Martha Clara Vineyards (3.5 3.9 out of 5)

Mattebella Vineyards (3.3 3.6 out of 5)

McCall Vineyards (3.7 out of 5)

Medolla Vineyards (2.0 2.2 out of 5)

Old Field Vineyards (2.5 2.8 out of 5)

Onabay Vineyards (3.5 out of 5)

One Woman’s Wines: (2.0 2.1 out of 5)

Osprey’s Dominion: (1.8/5)

Palmer Vineyards: (3.0 1.0 out of 5)

Paumanok Vineyards: (4.6 out of 5)

Pellegrini Vineyards (4.2 4.3 out of 5)

Pindar Vineyards (3.2 out of 5)

Pugliese Vineyards (1.7 out of 5)

Queens County Farm Museum Vineyard (1.8 out of 5)

Raphael Wine (4.1 out of 5 points)

Red Fern Cellars (1.8 out of 5)

Red Hook Winery (1.4 out of 5)

Roanoke Vineyard (4.4 out of 5) [updated 11-16-13]

Sannino-Bella Vita Vineyard (2.5 3.4 out of 5 points)

Scarola Vineyards (3.6 3.9 points out of 5)

Sherwood House Vineyards (3.6 points out of 5)

Shinn Estate: (3.7 4.1 out of 5)

Southold Farm + Cellar:

Sparkling Pointe: Méthode Champenoise (3.7 3.9 out of 5)

Suhru Wines (4.6 out of 5)

T’Jara Vineyards (4.1 out of 5)

Vineyard 48

Waters Crest (2.0 points out of 5)

Winemakers Studio

Wölffer Estate (4.7 4.9 out of 5)

Share this:

Like this:

Share this:

Like this: