Tag Archives: Robin Epperson McCarthy

Updates to Wines of Long Island, 3rd ed.

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

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 I knew that my book would be out-of-date the day it was published.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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Viniculture in Long Island–part III: Brooklyn Oenology and Saltbird Cellars

Brooklyn Oenology

Brooklyn Oenology Winery (pron. ‘EN-ology’, or simply ‘BOE’), started as a locally-focused winery based in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, founded in 2006 by winemaker Alie Shaper. BOE’s intention is to bridge the creative culinary, agricultural, and art worlds by crafting regional wines from New York State grapes, primarily from the Finger Lakes and Long Island, and by displaying the work of New York City artists on the bottle labels.

Alie’s own trajectory into the wine world was rather inadvertent. An engineering student at Cornell University, in her Senior year she enrolled in a course on beverages at the famous Hotel Management School. She thought that this would be an easy, relaxing course, but it led to her becoming hooked on wine. A second course at the School about the wines of New York State was another revelation for her. Nevertheless, she earned an engineering degree and went to work in Silicon Valley. It wasn’t long before she decided this wasn’t the life she wanted to lead so she quit and took some time figuring out what she wanted to do. She answered a help-wanted ad for the tasting room at Rivendell Winery, in New Paltz, NY. While there she developed a database for tracking their wines. When the owners, Robert Ransom and Susan Wine, opened a New York State-only wine store in Manhattan called Vintage NY, she went to work there. It would be the model for BOE.

In 2000 Alie went to live in Long Island and walked into a newly-opened wine bar-cum-restaurant run by Tom Schaudel and offered her services as a wine steward. Well, they hadn’t thought about that and hired her immediately. She became responsible for the wine lists of all three Long Island restaurants. Next she joined Southern Wines and Spirits, the largest wholesaler/distributor in the country. In 2005 she moved to Brooklyn, where “lightning struck” and she realized what she really wanted to do.

However, there was a “small problem.”   She had wide experience and a solid education but had never done production work in a winery. In 2006 she sent résumés to wineries out West, but only applied for a position at a single producer in the East: Premium Wine Group. She had long admired Russell Hearn’s winemaking and, fortunately for her, with degrees in science and engineering, she was hired as a technical lab assistant, working with Robin Epperson McCarthy, then the lab head. She took samples of every batch of wine, bring them to the lab, and smell, taste, and analyze all of them. This and work in the cellar gave her the experience she needed.

After two seasons at PWG, she purchased two batches of wine for sale, blended them, and bottled them with the BOE label. Now she had 500 cases of two wines, a Chardonnay and a Merlot, and she decided, given her shoestring budget, to start wholesale, given that she still couldn’t afford a space. This was what she calls “phase one.”

Setting up her new business proved to be more challenging than she expected, particularly because the State Liquor Authority (SLA) suffered from a serious case of the “slows.”  She was issued three temporary licenses in a row before she finally got a full permit. As she couldn’t sell wine without an active license, it hampered her work significantly and affected her cash flow.

She got on her feet and moved on to “phase two.” She found a space in a commercial building, opening for business in 2010 as the BOE Tasting Room and Gallery. It featured regular shows of label artists’ works, wine-pairing events, classes, private parties, and more.

Unfortunately, the Brooklyn tasting room was closed at the end of November 2016 due to rising rents. BOE will continue to make wine at PWG from purchased fruit and the line of wines will remain intact, but a new tasting room has now been opened in Peconic. The wines continue to be offered to wine club members as well as on line at the BOE Website. They are also sold in over 150 stores and restaurants around NYC, Washington DC, Virginia, and beyond.

“Phase three,” the last of her long-term plan, was to build her own winemaking facility on whatever new premises she finds. That would require a large capital investment that, for now, is a long way off. Meanwhile, she also serves as consulting winemaker for Croteaux Vineyard and phase three has been put off for the time being. Instead, Alie has entered into a partnership with a long-time friend and former PWG colleague, Robin Epperson-McCarthy, of Saltbird Cellars, to open a shared tasting room, Peconic Bay Cellar Door. All of which is to say that BOE is no longer in Brooklyn, but it had a mighty good run there.

The February 2016 issue of Wine Enthusiast listed BOE as one of the top urban wineries in the country. In the March 2016 issue of WA, BOE’s 2014 As If ‘Serendipity’—a Chardonnay, Viognier, Sauvignon Blanc blend—was awarded 90 points, with the comment that it was “beautifully focused.”  She worked on this blend until she got it “just right.” The Viognier, a variety she loves, is only 30% of the blend, but it stands out.  Wine Enthusiast loved the 2013 Broken Land White (Finger Lakes) made with extended skin contact and awarded 90 points.

There are 13 wines under the BOE label, four wines under the Shindig brand (a collaborative effort with Andrew Stover, who’s in the DC area), as well her new ‘As If’ label, which was launched in June 2016. This is her small-batch, high-end, signature series, a celebration of the success that BOE has enjoyed so far.

Website: Brooklyn Oenology

Saltbird Cellars

From the Website: “We are committed (in the lunatic sense) to making very calculated wines in the rebel way. This label represents the culmination of years of trans-equatorial wine wanderings. We apply learned methods from this and other cool climate regions to make unique wines that honor the distinctive maritime terroir in which they are grown– here in this place, at this time”

It all started in 2003 when Robin Epperson-McCarthy was studying for a future in medicine and the rent was due. So, through word of mouth among the Peconic Bay Sailing circuit she heard of a job that could utilize her science training, was interesting, and paid lots of overtime. That turned into working 6 days a week and 10-hour days in the PWG wine lab in the course of a harvest. That one vintage turned into 12 years of global wine trotting; she never completed her medical studies

In 2007, which was one of Long Island’s standout vintages, there was an abundance of quality fruit and Robin decided to try making just one ton of Chardonnay into wine using skills recently acquired in New Zealand and Tasmania. This stainless-steel Chardonnay was the start of something. Most was sold to a close friend for a superior Chardonnay blend, but before the blend was made a few bottles made their way to the tables of family and friends.

2014 proved to be another outstanding vintage and again Robin decided this would be the year to make just one label sourcing Sauvignon Blanc from some of the best vineyard masters. In the hunt for fruit she found not one but two blocks of vines that encompassed all that North Fork of Long Island Sauvignon Blanc could be. Then she found Chardonnay planted in a unique clay deposit that could not be left without a destiny. Then came a block of inky black Merlot and a block of sensual Cabernet Sauvignon. One original variety has now been accompanied by four others, so it now offers a barrel-fermented Sauv Blanc (Migratus), a rosé (Cabernet Frank/Syrah) and a red blend of Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon called Harbinger.

As the Website says, “Saltbird Cellars collection of wines are bred purely from passion and the freedom to follow your (in)sane ideas.”

Website: Saltbird Cellars

As of August 2017 Saltbird and Brooklyn Oenology have teamed up to share a tasting room:

Peconic Cellar Door

Opened in August 2017, this is a joint venture by Alie Shaper of BOE and What If wines, and Robin Epperson-McCarthy of Saltbird Cellars. Both are small producers who purchase their fruit from local vineyards and make their wines at PWG, but each has her own distinctive style, or better put, styles of wine. They joined forces to open a shared tasting room, with both a bar and a table for six.

Cellar Door is the Australian term for tasting room (Alie’s boyfriend is from Australia), and the 600 sq. ft. space is an old storefront with a minimalist décor but inviting ambience.

Address: 2885 Peconic Lane, Peconic, NY 11958

Owners:  Alie Shaper and Robin Epperson-McCarthy

Phone: 631 488 0046

Website: peconiccellardoor.com