Trip to Finger Lakes part IV - Thirsty Owl Wine Company

The next day, we drove out to Cayuga Lake and our first stop was the Thirsty Owl Wine Company. This was perhaps a more touristy operation than the places we'd visited the day before. Once again the formula was to taste six wines for a nominal charge.

We started with a Pinot Gris 2016 which G compared to an Alsatian pinot gris. It was fruity, light and elegant with notes of pineapple and melon.

Then we tried the Riesling 2014 which is made from grapes from a vineyard on the west side of Seneca Lake. My notes say "for NYC drinkers" so somebody must have made that observation, probably G. It had a lovely riesling nose with plenty of lime and was dry and classical. Looking at their website, it's the same price as the Pinot Gris, both $14.95 which seems eminently reasonable to me even considering the exchange rate at the moment.

The Gewurztraminer 2016 had a very classic gewurz nose but wasn't congruent on the palate. I enjoyed the Fujac hard cider which was dry and refreshing. I was amused by the term "hard cider" which made me think of tramps on park benches or possibly reminded me of my seventeen year old self, but apparently this is a language difference - cider in the US means apple juice, and hard cider means what we Brits would just call cider. This only came to light when I ordered a glass of cider at lunchtime! Never mind. One tries to learn from one's mistakes...

The Pinot Noir 2016 was a lovely pale colour and we found it surprisingly sophisticated. It's 100% pinot and aged in Hungarian oak. At $17.95 this would be a strong candidate for house red if I lived nearby. "This may be the only place in the world where you can get a good 18 dollar pinot," said G. It was pretty, light and gluggable, designed to be drunk young.

Finally, we tried the Cabernet Sauvignon Ice Wine 2013 which had an interesting nose. The woman doing the tasting mentioned quince. It was very sweet and reminded me of that membrillo paste you serve with manchego. It was fun but cost $39.95 and we didn't feel the need to buy it.

I have to say that when we walked into the winery and saw the displays of fluffy owls and so on, I didn't have high expectations of Thirsty Owl, but first impressions turned out to misleading. They don't appear to have any showstopping heavyweights in their range but the wines they are making are decent and good value to boot.

Trip to Finger Lakes part III - Domaine LeSeurre

Our next stop was Domaine LeSeurre, run by Céline and Sébastien Leseurre. As the name suggests, they are French and in fact there is a French flag waving outside the winery. We'd had one of their chardonnays before as mentioned here and been impressed with it, so I was looking forward to this visit. We chatted with the girl behind the counter who told us that Sébastien is from Champagne and Céline is from Toulouse, and they met in New Zealand.

First up was a dry riesling from 2014, which was a mere 12% alcohol. This is aged in stainless steel tanks and was actually dry, unlike some. It had good minerality and I found it elegant but the next wine, the 2015 riesling barrel select, was even better. This is aged in French barrels for 11 months, which is unusual for riesling, and was bigger and more concentrated.

Then we moved on to a couple of chardonnays. First the barrel select 2015 which is also aged for 11 months, and was very fine, more classic chardonnay. But the chardonnay barrel select "no 2" 2014 won hands down. It's aged for 22 months and only 24 cases were produced. This is the wine D shared with us in September and it still had the same limey quality and was altogether very fine.

Finally, we tried a couple of reds. Apparently the cabernet franc 2014 is from one particular vineyard, and this is the first year it was bottled separately. This was light and pretty, and generally rather lovely. It went down easily. G made another reference to a charcuterie plate. Then we tried the cabernet franc 2013 which was made from grapes from two different vineyards. This was bigger, spicier, and had a great finish.

Sébastien actually dropped by while we were having the tasting which was nice, although we missed our opportunity to ask him about clones, which is something we'd wondered about with the chardonnay. This winery opened relatively recently and I would certainly say they are one to watch, bringing a French approach to the Finger Lakes vineyards and producing serious, elegant wines.

The view from the winery wasn't too shabby either

Trip to Finger Lakes part II - McGregor Vineyard

We got back in the truck and drove back to Hammondsport for lunch. It was incredibly enjoyable being driven around by D in this awesome vehicle and every time I had to haul myself up into the back seat I felt very rugged and adventurous.

We ended up eating at the Village Tavern Restaurant & Inn which proved to be just the job.

The pulled pork sandwich can only be described as epic and was absolutely what we needed. I'm getting withdrawal symptoms just looking at the photo.

Then it was off to McGregor Vineyard for the second tasting of the day. This was a more conventional affair. We sat at one of the tables in the tasting room and had the opportunity to taste five wines from the list for a trivial fee, five or six dollars, I can't remember.

Of the two whites which we tried, I liked the 2016 gewurztraminer reserve, which was very Alsatian in style with ginger, melon and pear. It was spicy and had a great finish, and we thought it would go well with Chinese food. It costs $25 and if I lived locally I'd consider buying it. The other white was a 2014 Muscat, which had nothing wrong with it but didn't really do much for us. 

Then we moved on to three red wines. First, a 2011 pinot noir reserve, which was a pale colour and had good fruit. It was relatively light with brisk acidity. We felt it might not have much of a future ahead of it, and $35 was possibly a bit steep. This was followed by a 2015 cabernet franc, which was perfectly fine, tight and well-balanced, but again I didn't find it particularly exciting.

We saved the best for last. The jewel in the crown at McGregors is the Black Russian Red which is made from a blend of grapes from Georgia - more about that here. We tried the 2013 which is a 36 month barrel reserve. This was powerful, complex and intense with a lot going on. It had black fruit and a great finish and was altogether a very superior bottle of wine. We thought it would be one to come back to in 10 years, and we know it's built to last as we had some older vintages with D. It costs $70 but it's worth it. This is really the one to go for at this particular winery and their pride in it is entirely justified.

Trip to Finger Lakes part I - Ravines Wine Cellars

G and I are back from our visit to the Finger Lakes, and we had an absolutely amazing time. We stayed with D who lives in the middle of nowhere with no internet or mobile phone signal, just lots of woods, peace and quiet. I can see why he likes it there so much.

We arrived on Tuesday evening and the next day, we drove out to the Finger Lakes for what turned out to be the first of three days of intensive wine tasting. Heaven! On our first day, we visited Keuka Lake and our first stop was Ravines Wine Cellars, which is run by Morten and Lisa Hallgren, who are friends of D. We were treated to a tour of the winery by Morten. This was on 20th Sept and they were in the middle of the harvest so it was very kind of him to make the time.

The winery was very impressive with its state of the art equipment and enormous stainless steel tanks, and we discovered that Morten had been to the wine school in Montpellier and spent a year at Cos d'Estournel. He's all about making wines for the long term.

Then we were treated to a tasting of eight wines and I can honestly say they were all excellent. The Finger Lakes are perhaps known best for their rieslings and we tried three of these.

The 2015 dry riesling had a lovely floral, limey nose and was zingy with good acidity, elegant and serious, with a great finish. I thought it would go very well with oily fish and at just 12.5% nothing to frighten the horses. The 2015 from the White Springs vineyard was richer, with peach and citrus and was very special, with a finish which lasted for minutes.

Then we got to try a 2007 riesling, which was very Germanic on the nose. Apparently 2007 was a warm vintage and this was close to its peak at 10 yars. It had a wonderful line of acidity down the middle, a great backbone, and showed that these wines are built to last.

Next up was a barrel-fermented chardonnay 2015 and Morten explained to us that he has a special technique with this, and 15% of the grapes went through a dehydration process. For me this had nuttiness and notes of toasted bread, almost brioche.

Then we moved on to cabernet franc. Morten told us they are trying to make the Finger Lakes synonymous with cabernet franc and put the area on the map. Apparently it's overtaken pinot noir as the leading red in the area, possibly because it's more forgiving. More on that later... The 2015 was certainly a great example of the genre, dark purple with lovely juicy fruit. G said it was crying out for goat's cheese, while Morten mentioned a charcuterie plate. It was lively and croquant now but could easily be put away for 5 years. I see Morten actually said it could be put away for 10 years!

After that, we had a cabernet blend from 2005. We subsequently found out that many wineries in the area make a blend like this and it's usually called "Meritage", some weird invented name which I'd never come across before. The example at Ravines was made from 50% cabernet franc, 30% cabernet sauvignon and 20% merlot. My notes read that it smelled divine and G said it was "wholly successful" as a claret substitute. It had a cedary thing going on, lovely fruit and elegance. Morten said that they couldn't pursue the newer, more luscious style in the Finger Lakes and he's not interested in competing with Chile or Australia. Not arguing with that. This wine still seemed very young, and I reckon you could keep it another 10 or maybe 20 years.

Next we had another chardonnay, from 2014, which was unoaked. This was from the Argetsinger vineyard. It had a gentle florality on the nose and I detected apricots and stone fruit on the palate. Again it had an amazing finish. It struck me as being a gastronomic wine and we brought a bottle back which we had at lunch on Sunday, when its elegance really struck me again and it reminded us of an Auxey-Duresses. It went brilliantly with smoked salmon and was generally very classy indeed.

Finally, we tried this 2013 late harvest vignoles. This is a botrytised wine and they only make it when the conditions are right. It had a lovely nose of apricot jam and an amazing gooey, velvety texture. It had great acidity to balance the sweetness and again the finish was extraordinary. "Good god" said G. Morten told us that their chef was enjoying himself making things to go with it. I wanted some blue cheese right there and then. If I tell you that we bought two halves to bring back with us, that gives some indication of how fabulous this wine was.

This was a really impressive tasting and enormous thanks to Morten for taking time off to show us the range. I just wish we could get them in the UK...

Lunch at mine, Sunday 10th Sept

Last Sunday, I hosted lunch at my place with D and G. We kicked off with this Combe d'Eve 2010 which is a Cote de Beaune white from the biodynamic winemaker Emmanuel Giboulot. I had just got it out of storage a couple of days earlier and was eager to try it.

It was still very fresh and had excellent grip along with citrus and florality. The finish went on for minutes, and I detected notes of lemon zest and maybe even lemon syllabub, getting fancy here!

It was drinking very well now and G and I had another bottle on Tuesday so I don't think it will be hanging about for long. On Sunday we drank it as an aperitif and also with the portion of watercress soup which remained after the blender decided to shoot it all over the kitchen. However, I think in future I'll be drinking it with fish.

G's cooking, on the other hand, was impeccable and this was a stunning piece of brill, which barely fitted into the roasting tray!

With that, we had this Meursault 1990 from Abel Garnier which we first tried back at Easter. Once again, it was a specatcular deep gold colour and very gastronomic. Obviously it was fully mature, and we had a slight wobble wondering if it was all right, but we hung in there and were rewarded for our patience. As on previous occasions, it had a certain mushroomy quality, and was rich and mouthfilling.

With the cheese course, which consisted of far too much goat's cheese in my opinion, which reminds me, not sure why G is taking so long to set up his Odyssey de Chevre blog - we had this 2002 Clos Des Papes Chateauneuf from Paul Avril, provided by G who picked up a couple of bottles recently.

My god. I put my nose in the glass and made some unbecoming guttural noises much to D's amusement. It was extraordinary, drinking perfectly now, big, rich and delicious and extremely decadent. I always thought I was a Northern Rhone fan but this wine made me reassess that completely. There was some debate about whether the fruit was red or black but the balance and structure were perfect and the finish was amazing. G tells me that this vintage isn't highly regarded but as is so often the case, it seems it just needed time to come round and means bon rapport qualité prix for us!

We finished off with the most expensive strawberries in history along with this half of Aigle Blanc Vouvray 1989 which was a very enjoyable middleweight sweetie. It had notes of nectarine and apricot and D spotted some mint on the finish. G got this for a song some time ago, which was particularly pleasing!

We finished off with coffee, marc and chocolates, and looked at D's recent bin label acquisitions. I hope to see them in situ when we go to visit him in the Finger Lakes next week. Hopefully there will be a full report when we get back, bears willing...

SPNS dinner, 6th Sept

On Wednesday night, it was over to the Savile Club, fuelled by the Atomic Blonde soundtrack. I was transporting precious cargo across London, not a wristwatch containing secret codenames, but this 2014 pink fizz from Domaine Alice Beaufort which had been stashed in the boardroom fridge all afternoon to keep it away from the prying eyes of my colleagues.

I first tried this at a wine tasting held by the Burgundy Portfolio at Highbury Library and maybe the fact that it was my birthday that night had something to do with it but it was love at first taste. It's made from pinot noir grown just outside Champagne, but the winemaker, Quentin Beaufort, comes from a family which makes Champagne so he knows what he's doing.

What did the assembled company think? Notes of wild or tinned strawberries were detected and there was a reference to Eton Mess. Dangerously drinkable was the general verdict. "Easy to have too much" said P. Say what? There was some debate about whether it would age further. ACC is convinced that it will, but I only have three bottles left, one of which is in the fridge, so I don't give much for its chances.

We moved upstairs to the dining room and straight onto a pair of whites. First was this 2014 Chardonnay Barrel Select no. 02 from Domaine LeSeurre in the Finger Lakes, provided by D. This was a revelation. I would never have guessed it was chardonnay. For me, it had notes of lime and it reminded me of a really elegant riesling. It had an amazing finish and was highly regarded by everyone.

As you can see from the above, the winemakers at this domaine are French. I hope we get to go there in a couple of weeks' time. ACC said that maybe it was a different clone of chardonnay from the one which we're more used to, which might explain why it flummoxed us.

The other white was this Bourgogne Chardonnay 2013 from Domaine Albert Joly, provided by ACC. Funnily enough the 2012 has been my house white lately, so this was particularly interesting for me. The 2012 is definitely playing at village Puligny level, and has that strict thing going on which we love about this domaine, but the 2013 was fuller, richer and more powerful. G said it was less serious than the LeSeurre but that wasn't a criticism!

I took a photo so that we could compare the colour of the two wines. G remarked that normally you'd expect the New World wine to be the one on the left. Not this time!

With our main courses we moved on to the reds. P had brought along this Nuits-St-Georges 1999 from Jaffelin and enjoyed telling us how little it had cost him back in the day. It was classic old school NSG, drinking very nicely now with resolved tannins. Sometimes I find NSG a bit challenging but this went down just fine. It even got a "Wow" from D which isn't something we see very often!

G, on the other hand, had brought along a dodgy Croatian red made by the waiter in a restaurant where he dined while on holiday recently. Apparently "moje corno" means "my red". It was 15% and first impressions were that it was weird, certainly the nose was a bit strange. I got a lot of black cherry. It did have an extraordinary finish and reminded D of an old zinfandel. Generally I would have to say the reaction wasn't enthusiastic, but it was certainly unusual and very much in the spirit of the SPNS.

G redeemed himself with a bonus wine, a bottle of "Very Old East India Madeira" bottled by Berry Bros in 1959. Apparently it was a leaky bottle which is why he brought it along. The leakiness didn't prove to be a problem. For me it had lots of toffee and caramel which made sense when it was revealed that it was a Malmsey. "Absolutely splendid" said G and nobody in their right mind would argue with that. A pleasure to drink. More leaky bottles please!

Thanks everyone for another great evening.

Lunch at mine, Sunday 6th August

Last Sunday, the boys came round for lunch at my place. Supplies had been procured the previous day, as witnessed by my brother and sister-in-law who bumped into me carrying about 50 kg of food back along Goodge Street, and the pork was in the oven by 7.30 a.m. Fortunately we seem to be into autumn in London now so it wasn't unbearably hot. I'm sure the neighbours enjoyed the smells emanating into the corridor!

We started with a fizz brought by ACC, which was this Vin Petillant Naturel made by Romain Chapuis.

We loved the label, and the wine too. It was very refreshing and we wondered if the grape was muscat, because it was quite grapey. It turned out it was gewurztraminer! I would never have guessed.

Not what we were expecting

I got up to sort out the smoked salmon and left G to decant the next wine, a white Corton 2008 from Domaine Parent. As G began to pour it into the decanter, we all got a shock. It was red! And yet clearly in a bottle with the white label - the gold trim rather than the red. Not sure what happened there. G and I drank it the next day and we'll never know what it actually was, but felt that it wasn't a Corton as it was lacking that wild quality, so probably a Pommard with some age on. It had big shoulders and was fully mature. No hardship.

Fortunately, past experience has shown it's always a good idea to have a backup white, and I was very glad I'd taken the precaution of putting this Chablis 1er cru Montmains 2010 from La Maison Romane in the fridge. It was stunning as usual, rich and bigger than your average Chablis.

I'd remembered that I had this magnum of Moulin a Vent 2009 from Trichard tucked away and given that Beaujolais has a great affinity with pork, decided this would be a good opportunity to drink it. The four years or so it had spent in the wardrobe had done it no harm at all. I chilled it slightly, and it positively whizzed round the table. It was magical, with a heavenly perfume, very smooth and drinking perfectly now.

Rare sighting of a green vegetable!

With the cheese course, we had another wine from La Maison Romane (in fact the Oroncio sub-brand) - a Chateauneuf du Pape La Primaute 2007. G picked this up from a shop in Beaune on our recent visit. We'd never come across it before and I have a feeling it was the last bottle in the shop. It was splendid, the Platonic ideal of Chateauneuf with ripe Grenache fruit, juicy and sweet. For once, the bottle admitted to 14.5% as opposed to Oronce's usual 12.5%.

The Baron goes in for some cheese

We finished off with coffee, some lovely artisinal chocolates brought by the Baron, and a couple of digestifs - this Calvados which I picked up in Beaune, and a Marc de Bourgogne "hors d'age" from Pierre Fenals which recently landed and is available from the Burgundy Portfolio. The Baron gave us a wonderful reading of Arabella Fotherington-Tomas's school song from the Compleet Molesworth, and our Sunday afternoon was complete. Thanks to all!