LENNDEVOURS

Arrowhead Spring Vineyards Joins the Trail

By Niagara Escarpment Correspondent Bryan Calandrelli

The Niagara Escarpment AVA added another winery this weekend as Arrowhead Spring Vineyards opened it doors to hundreds of chocolate-eating, wine-drinking visitors during the "Be Mine with Wine" trail event.

The Niagara Escarpment itself provides a spectacular backdrop for vineyards in this area which is quickly making Cambria, NY a wine destination thanks to the six wineries located within a few miles of one another. Temperatures in the single digits and wind chills flirting with minus twenty below didn't stop the hordes of tasters, myself included, from checking out the view from the newest winery and more importantly, tasting the wines.

After winding down an ice-covered driveway that makes you appreciate an AWD vehicle, I popped in with my fiancee. We were greeted by the husband and wife team of Duncan and Robin Ross, who stood proudly behind a tasting table and in front of several large windows that offer a spectacular view that stretches all the way to Lake Ontario: several miles of rural farmland, vineyards, and farm houses. The ambience at Arrowhead Spring is friendly but serious, with Duncan and Robin's wines on full display - several of which were flanked with medals they've won since they started making wine at home many few years ago.

The first wine we tried was a 2006 Riesling with grapes sourced from the Finger Lakes Region. True to form with shale-stone influenced flavors, this wine could have easily been mistaken for one of the established and acclaimed wineries of the Finger Lakes. With a slight effervescence, this crisp, clean young white wine is quite pleasing.

The two red wines that are available to taste are made with grapes sourced from California and elsewhere New York State. The "Apogee" is made in a Super Tuscan style with sangiovese,  cabernet franc and merlot. The Arrowhead Red is a familiar Bordeaux-inspired, multi-state blend. Both reds are full bodied, well balanced and extremely smooth with 22 months in French oak. I picked up the Apogee blend as it seemed to have a bigger punch, with more character and complexity.

In what I think is a compliment,  you'd never guess that these red are partly made from California grapes, as they don't have any one overpowering quality that dumbs them down to fruit bomb status. Also mentioned as "coming soon" on the menu was a Vidal Ice wine and a chardonnay.

Later that night, when I had a few hours to contemplate another weekend where the success of the wine trail here is getting more and more tangible, I was trying to remember what I thought of the newest winery on the trail's offerings. While I don't have any one big specific tasting note on these wines, I feel that both reds had a seamlessness that points to meticulous sorting of grapes and blending of wines in the cellar. In a region that doesn't really have one big red grape, like merlot on Long Island for example, the careful blending of varietals is going to be the only way to compete with warmer regions that can consistently ripen grapes like cabernet sauvignon to where they resemble what people are used to drinking. From what I tasted this weekend, Arrowhead Spring Vineyards seems like they have the right idea. E

Even though their vines were barely old enough to walk this past summer, they did produce a fair amount of fruit due to the hot and dry growing season of 2007. So hopefully it won't be too long before we get to try some estate grown samples from the new winery on the block, and by block I mean that huge limestone shelf we call the Niagara Escarpment.

And for all you other wine geeks out there, you might want to know that they planted syrah (in addition to merlot, cab sauv, cab franc, chardonnay, and an experimental row of malbec). I know, I know. Syrah is a warm weather grape... but don't mention that to a handful of wineries in Ontario, or the few wineries in the Finger Lakes that are gambling on it.

And please don't bother Duncan and Robin with your questions as to whether they can ripen the star of the Cote-Rotie. It may just make one hell of a spicy sexy fruity red here in the future. That is, if we keep having these growing seasons a la 2007. And you thought pinot noir was a stretch up here.

Cornell University Workbook Helps New York and Northeastern Growers Go Green

We all know, green/sustainable/biodynamic/organic vineyard management is one of the hottest topics in the wine world these days. But how can the uninitiated get on the road to greenness?

Cornell University and the Cornell Cooperative Extension have just released a new workbook to help grape growers in New York and the Northeast.

The 125-page self-teaching workbook, "New York Guide to Sustainable Viticulture Practices," offers guidance in evaluating and adopting the best management practices for minimizing environmental impacts, reducing economic risks and protecting worker health and safety.

Topics include: soil management to reduce erosion, runoff and leaching; use of integrated pest management practices for insect, disease and weed management; nutrient management, with a particular focus on nitrogen use; pesticide management and spray technology; and cultural practices used in viticulture.

It is available in both print ($30) and a free online versions.

Now We've Got the Niagara Escarpment Covered Too

The LENNDEVOURS team just keeps growing of late.

I'm happy to report that Bryan Calandrelli has joined the squad as our Niagara Escarpment correspondent. Of course, Bryan isn't a newcomer to blogs by any means.

Many of you will recognize him from his two wine blogs Water Into Wino and Niagara Escarpment.net,

Bryan moved to the Niagara Escarpment earlier this year from New York City, where he and his fiancee spent an almost unreasonable amount of time driving back and forth from the East End of Long Island on wine-tasting jaunts. When he doesn't have his nose deep in a wine glass, Bryan is a camera operator/director of photography for network and cable television
shows.

And, he's hitting the ground running here on LENNDEVOURS, offering this mini-report from the Escarpment:

With Schulze Vineyards and Winery kicking off the fall harvest with a machine harvested crop of juicy Niagara grapes, my first foray into farm work went straight to my shoulder and neck. My job was to frantically rake grapes from the middle of the bladder press to the edges as owner Martin Schulze pushed them off the harvester. There are only a few seconds between
a full press or an overflow of grapes onto the ground -- and after a fifteen
tons of grapes, it's hard not to feel it. After two days of work and almost 3000 gallons of Niagara pressed (just minutes after picking), the sparkling wine I chugged during the process numbed any long term physical damage I might have brought upon myself.

A few days later, a burning sensation in my lower back signaled the first vinifera grape harvest here on the Niagara Wine Trail. The unusually hot summer of 2007 has worked its magic on several young vines around here, and I went to Freedom Run Winery to help out at its first pinot noir harvest. But the excitement of wearing my barely used work boots and brandishing my own pruning shears was soon melted by record high temperatures in the Niagara Region. Physical discomfort nothwithstanding, the young pinot noir vines were picture perfect, with tight dark clusters of grapes. The only problem was that the vines are very low to the ground and crouching is the method of choice for reaching the clusters. Back pain tends to sneak up on you and I can only compare it to someone running a hot iron down my back. At the same time, Schulze Vineyards and Winery were harvesting their merlot
crop.

When I lived in NYC, my iPod went a long way to making any subway ride tolerable, and my naivete convinced me that hard labor in a vineyard would be enjoyable with the right soundtrack. Well...I was wrong. But the growing season here has been awesome thanks to such a warm year, and it's a good feeling to know that my hard work will help produce some memorable wines. In
the meantime, I'm waiting to hear back from a few other wineries to get an update on their harvests, but there's no doubt that things are ramping up -- and you can feel the excitement in the unseasonably warm air.