Announcing the New York Cork Report 2009 Wines of the Year

The white wine winners, including our 2009 New York State White Wine of the Year

By Lenn Thompson, Editor-in-Chief
Photos by Morgan Dawson Photography

As I mentioned earlier today, we tasted 54 wines (a shipping snafu meant that one didn't arrive in time) in 19 flights. For the most part, the wines really showed extremely well

 We blind tasted through each regional flight within a category (sparkling, white, red and dessert), voting on a winner in each. The winners, sorted by region are:

Chautauqua-Lake Erie White Wine: Vetter Vineyards NV Riesling

Finger Lakes Sparkling Wine: Dr. Konstantin Frank Vinifera Wine Cellars 1999 Prestige Cuvee
Finger Lakes White Wine: Billsboro Winery 2008 Riesling
Finger Lakes Red Wine: Heart & Hands Wine Company 2007 Barrel Reserve Pinot Noir
Finger Lakes Dessert Wine: Anthony Road Wine Company 2008 Riesling Berry Selection

Hudson River Region Sparkling Wine: Clinton Vineyards NV Jubilee
Hudson River Region White Wine: Millbrook Vineyards 2008 Tocai Friulano
Hudson River Region Red Wine: Millbrook Vineyards 2007 Block Five East Pinot Noir

Long Island Sparkling Wine: Sherwood House Vineyards 2004 Blanc de Blanc
Long Island White Wine: Paumanok Vineyards 2008 Chenin Blanc
Long Island Red Wine: Wolffer Estate Vineyards 2005 Christian's Cuvee Merlot
Long Island Dessert Wine: Paumanok Vineyards 2008 Late Harvest Riesling

Niagara Escarpment White Wine: Eveningside Vineyards 2008 Unoaked Chardonnay
Niagara Escarpment Red Wine: Freedom Run Winery 2008 Estate Pinot Noir
Niagara Escarpment Dessert Wine: Leonard Oakes Estate Winery 2008 Vidal Ice Wine 

After tasting each regional flight within a category, the winners from each region were then re-tasted together before any of the wines' identities were revealed. If the judges were unanimous in their voting in these "championship rounds" we also selected a New York State wine of the year within a category.

That happened once, with Billsboro Winery 2008 Riesling earning every judge's vote in the white wine championship flight, making it our 2009 White Wine of the Year for New York State.

Congratulations to all of the winners. Look for a few more posts about the tasting results, including a post from Evan on the Billsboro Winery 2008 Riesling later today and a post that I'm writing about the surprise of the tasting for me -- pinot noir winning three of the four regional flights.

Comments

[@nectarwine]

Excellent work, guys! I can't wait for my NY trip this summer so I can actually get my hands on some of these fine wines!

Josh

[Sasha]

Congrats to the winners -- and to the NYCR team! Looking forward to tasting my way through at least some of them.

[Carlo DeVito]

Congrats to all he winners and the folks at the NYCR. Great idea, and great execution. Great day for New York state wines! Congrats!

p.s. agree with 1WineDude
"unless "too many good wines" can be considered a hitch." You should be flogged immediately for that statement!

[Rowland]

very cool. how come no dessert wine or fruit wine catagory since every region in New York makes both fruit and dessert wines.

[Michael Gorton, Jr.]

Well done! Congrats on working through that. Would have loved to been a fly on the wall at that tasting.

Surprised, but not surprised.

Surprised at how well Pinot Noir did in all regions other than Long Island.

Not Suprised that a Riesling won as wine of the year.

All in all, I am glad you all participated and hope this is a trend that continues.

[steve g]

tremendous fun and great reading.

[Evan Dawson]

Steve g - Thanks!

Michael - This is the start of something rigorous and, we hope, special. We're already addressing what needs to change, and we'll be looking at ways of expanding participation. New York wines, and certainly the best New York wines, deserve a showcase.

Rowland - You saw that we evaluated dessert wines, right?

Carlo - Your passion is infectious and I hope it spreads across the Hudson Valley and beyond.

Sasha and Josh - The nice thing is that the selected wines are still largely available. The Billsboro 2008 Riesling is, for Riesling lovers, an absolute steal at $16. But I'd call the winery sooner than later, because there isn't a whole lot left of that one.

[Lenn Thompson]

Michael: It was interesting to everyone at that table that pinot noir fared so well. It bears further investigation, which I'm working on now. I can tell you this, I'd be happy to drink any of those pinots.

Rowland: We've already talked about making some changes to the categories. We might include a fruit wine category for next year, but the difficulty there is that none of the editors taste those with much regularly and down here on Long Island, I have very little access to them. We did cover dessert wines, but the primary issue there was that I didn't taste many HV ones in 2009 and Evan didn't taste many from the Chautauqua-Lake Erie region either. We hope to change that by expanding our reach in 2010.

Steve: This is going to be a yearly occurrence. As I mentioned in my post today, this has been a goal of mine for some time. Seeing how well it ran only reinforces my belief that a competition like this one not only works, but is worth honing with the goal of perfecting it (will we ever? probably not, but it's a great goal)

Carlo: Like Evan said already, we hope that this inspired more Hudson Valley wineries to get online and respond to emails :)

[Shannon Casey]

Alright, you have convinced me. The next time I am driving through New York, I am going to take a day and visit some of the wineries.

[David Moed]

Hi There
Sounds great fun - out of interest do you have data on the closures in each of the wines you tried please as I am doing some research in this area related to my business. If you do look at oiur web site please revisit it after the week-end too when it will all be updated!
David

[Hudson Valley Wine Goddess]

Great job NYCR! Congrats to all the winners! Cheers to NYS Wine!

Looking forward to 2010's Wines of the Year.

NYCR - Raising the profile on NYS Wines!

[1WineDude]

Nice to see the Paumanok Vineyards 2008 Chenin Blanc in there. I *really* dug that wine during our visit with TasteCamp East.

[steve g]

I was happy that Paumanok got their deserved props as well for that wine. That was the first bottle of wine we had on our last trip to the region as we sat and ate lunch. Plotting my purchasing strategy for the next few days, I figured I would poke around to all the vineyards and stop by on the way out. Then I got sidetracked and never returned. Arghh!

I don't know whether to what to think about a $100 red (Wolffers) getting the top spot for LI.

I am sure it is fabulous like most of their wines, but there are so many good reds of moderate price points from the region, I hope that recognition like this doesn't feed into what I think is an inaccurate perception that the region in general is overpriced.

The ability of the region to have pricing power may actually help the region overall in the end I guess.

[holyland tours]

Last year I flew to wain festival in Provence France, and i have tasted the Wolffer Estate Vineyards and it was divine! It has rich texture and chocolate end, absolutely fabulous.

[quail hill irvine]

We blind tasted through each regional flight within a category (sparkling, white, red and dessert), voting on a winner in each.