(For an intro on my rating scale/context on our taste profile, see this post)
Overall grade: B
Summary:
Our visit to this wine region was part of our trip to The Hamptons. If you want to know more about that, see here for the update.
The North Fork wine region has around 60 vineyards - we were only able to visit two of them while we were there, but we really enjoyed how pretty the area was. Lots of cute towns, picturesque vineyards, and fruit stands with good looking produce. Unfortunately, I was only able to give this region a “B” score because, while it was a delightful place to visit, the wine tasting experience was uneven. We also thought the wines were overpriced for the quality.
In order to pick the two vineyards we visited, we reviewed a couple of different lists of the top wineries in the region, cross referenced, and then picked two that sounded good, had grape varietals we were interested in, and that were located close-ish to each other. One of them was a good experience with totally acceptable wines, the other was…..a garbage experience with poor wines.
More about the region: Long Island has been known for a long time as a good place for all types of agricultural products. The wine industry was launched there about 50 years ago - I originally thought that meant it was a fairly old region for the US, but it turns out that the oldest wine region in the US is in New Mexico, it was first planted by Spanish monks in the early 1600s and is still active today (!). The North Fork Long Island AVA is located in Suffolk County and is surrounded by large bodies of water (Long Island Sound, Atlantic Ocean), which gives the region a cool, maritime climate that supports grape growing.
Wineries:
Ambience: 🏰 ⛲️ 🧀
Presentation: ‼️
We LOVED the tasting patio. It was very pretty, comfortable, and we enjoyed the people watching. While we were there, on a sunny weekend afternoon, there were at least two bachelorette parties and one large birthday party. There were multiple tasting menus to choose from and a short menu of snacks/sandwiches to enjoy while tasting. The staff person helping us gave us a lot of background on the wines, which we enjoyed.
MORE details, since we enjoyed the wines - Craig and I usually choose different flights and share, so we can try more wines. This was “my” flight:
The Rose - ✅ - was good! But it wasn’t pink, which was very weird to me.
Old Vines Chardonnay - 😐 - Only Ok
Gewurztraminer (say that 3 times fast) - 🧀 - good with food, otherwise only ok.
Old Vines Cab - $/🍷 - was good, but priced too high
Old Vines Merlot - 👍 - their flagship wine, but I actually liked the non-old vines Merlot better (😱).
Craig’s flight:
Sauvignon Blanc - ✅ - Craig liked this one a lot.
Chardonnay - ✅ - this one was better than the Old Vines one in my flight, and not oaky, so more to our taste.
Malbec - 😐 meh, but it was much better with cheese - I think I need to stop drinking these. I used to like them, really.
Estate Cab - 👍👍 - good, not quite as good as the old vines one.
Estate Merlot - $/🍷 - this one was way better than the old vines one, but a little pricey.
[not sure what happened with this menu photo. I swear, I was not yet drunk when I took it]
It was nice to try a broad selection of wines and fun to compare the “old vine” wines (explainer here) to the estate wines. Would definitely recommend this winery to you.
Ambience: ⛲️ 🎶
Presentation: ❌
As alluded to above, we did not enjoy this experience. There was music, but it was not great. There was wine, but it was not good. There was outside seating, but it was not comfortable.
We actually felt really bad about spending $30 on each flight - the flights were handed to us on a tray at the bar with no explanations/storytelling and then the wines were just really bad. I was excited to try the Cabernet Franc, but it was undrinkable.
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