larry07041

To compare the Finger Lakes to France is well ... My first trip to taste in the Finger Lakes was in 1977 and I had the please to spend an entire day with Dr. Frank. I did not have enough cash with me to buy wine so he gave me two cases and told me to send a check when I got home. I have been back over ten times since then. Yes there are occasionally very good rieslings that are produced there, but world class ones are the exception not the rule. You say one of the problems with finger lakes wines is that there is a lot of crap being made there. In this regard they can join every winemaking region on the planet. The point was not to compare the Finger Lakes to France but to make the point that the reputation of France is established, and that people taste a wine and either like it or not, but not liking a wine from a region without a solid reputation will taint the entire region. While it is true that world-class wines from the Finger Lakes are not easy to find, they are not rare up there. It's just that because they don't sell, you can't usually find good ones locally, and what you usually can find (such as Bully Hill) is crap. (Apologies to those who like them.) 90% of French wine too is crap. But the other 10% is the best in the world. Nothing compares to the top wines of Bordeaux and Burgundy and the Northern Rhone. And you will pay top $$ for them. But if you only want to spend $10-$20 for wine, you can find some gems in the Finger Lakes. And not just Riesling. There is top quality Cabernet Franc there, including Red Newt, Hazlitt, Shalestone. And Atwater Estates makes a remarkable Cabernet Sauvignon for $20. How their grapes ripen fully is a mystery to me, but in 2001 it sure did and it is glorious. And Atwater also makes a splendid Pinot Noir for less than $20. Individual wines are worth seeking out, even if the region as a whole doesn't cut it. With 70 wineries, it may be a small percentage who make really good wine (perhaps 12 out of those 70), but as people recognize the quality that it can produce, that percentage (we can only hope) will change.

Who in the world wrote that? I think a few folks in Washington state may disagree. The article (part of a report on wineries outside California) was written by Doug Frost, and published in the San Francisco Chronicle on Thursday, July 24, 2003. Washington State does produce good Rieslings and of course they may disagree, but this was one person's opinion and if you haven't been to the Finger Lakes recently or tasted some of the good producers' products, you might wish to sample them. There are several problems with the image of the Finger Lakes wines, and one of them is that there is so much crap being produced there, that frequently the good producers don't get a chance to get their products sampled. A taste or two of the poor quality wines that are available in abundance can turn people off from trying others. If you have several French wines that you don't like, you would say these are French wines I don't like. But a few tastes of New York wines that you don't like will eliminate the entire category from consideration. And because the good wines are not produced in quantity, it is hard to find them outside the Finger Lakes. Some wine shops will ship, and one of the best selections is Northside in Ithaca, NY. Incidentally, several years ago, the Los Angeles Times published an article on Finger Lakes Rieslings and they pretty much said the same thing as this San Francisco Chronicle piece. Wiemer, Fox Run, Dr. Frank, Red Newt, Standing Stone, Shalestone, Silver Thread, Atwater Estates, Lafayette-Renau, Hosmer all produce excellent wines including a remarkably supple and lush Cabernet Sauvignon from Atwater.

Interesting article in the San Francisco Chronicle. They wrote about non-California wines and this is what they said about the Finger Lakes of NY: "New York today is a hotbed of great wine. America's best Rieslings are grown around the Finger Lakes, and Long Island has Cabernet Franc and Merlot that can be inconsistent yet frequently compelling. But the Finger Lakes provide a valuable moderating influence in upstate New York, crucially ameliorating the harsh winter conditions. The most exciting achievement here concerns the Rieslings. Finger Lakes producers such as Swedish Hill in Romulus ($11) and Fox Run in Penn Yan ($10), Lakewood in Watkins Glen ($11) and Standing Stone ($12), Red Newt ($12), Chateau Lafayette Reneau ($12 to $15), the last three all located in Hector, are making Rieslings with better balance and complexity than anything California has been able to consistently produce. And the winery that started it all, Dr. Konstantin Frank in Hammondsport, continues to make trendsetting Riesling ($12 to $25) as well as solid Gewurztraminer ($19) and Merlot ($20)."

The menu and wine list sound great. Sounds like it's definitely worth a trek over to 11th avenue.

You might also try Morrell's. They have a storage facility in Manhattan, which could be more (or less) convenient for you.