Category:Regional wine

International Eastern Wine competition results

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Paul Geisz II, Peter Bell, the Wine Curmudgeon, and Phil Ward. Do we look professional or what? The Wine Curmudgeon can ?t decide if the highlight of the the 34th annual competition was the quality of the regional wine we tasted, how many cheap wines won gold medals, or the picture of me in a lab coat.

Probably the first two.

I don ?t think there is any doubt that New York wine, and especially the rieslings, can hold its own with wine from any other region in the world. Yes, some of it is still ?regional ? ? inconsistent and too tasting room in style. But there is a solid tier of affordable, well-made wine that ?s worth writing about. I hope that the wine media in New York is paying attention, and doesn ?t automatically opt for California wine when there is New York wine available.

And the cheap wine? Oh my. One of the finalists for the competition ?s best red wine was a $10 merlot from a Central Coast winery, Five Rivers. It didn ?t win, but I liked it more than the wine that did win.

After the jump, some highlights from the competition.

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International Eastern Wine Competition update

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

The Wine Curmudgeon, dressed in a white lab coat and clipboard at the ready, has been judging wine for the past three days. I'm at the 34th annual International Eastern Wine Competition in Watkins Glen, New York.

The lab coat is one of the unique features of this event, which is affectionately known as Wine Camp. I'll write more about this next week (and there is even a picture of me in the lab coat that I'll post). We finished today with the best-of-the-best judging, in which the double gold medal wines face off against each other.

This has been much fun, despite all of the spitting. The other judges in my group (winemaker Peter Bell of Fox Run Vineyards in New York; Phil Ward, a distributor with New Jersey's Opici Wine Group; and restaurateur Paul Geisz II) have more than tolerated my quirks. Even let me convince them about the quality of a very dry rose that I liked more than they did.

We tasted some intriguing wines, including a bunch of what we thought were New York rieslings, and frontenacs, probably from the upper Midwest. Frontenac is a new grape variety bred to withstand winter, and it makes a cherry-ish red wine with soft tannins that still has a backbone.
Time to put the lab coat back on and resume spitting. More next week.

International Eastern Wine Competition

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

Wish me luck. The Wine Curmudgeon is judging this competition, one of the most prestigious in the U.S.,over the next three days.

Why do I need luck? The IEWC gets thousands and thousands of entries, which is a lot of spitting. Or, as one friend of mine said, ?After you ?ve judged this competition, you ?ll know you ?ve been judging a competition. ?

Which is not necessarily a bad thing. I ?ll get to taste regional wine, which I enjoy; get to taste wine made from grapes other than chardonnay, cabernet sauvignon and merlot, which I also enjoy; and get a chance to spread the word about DrinkLocalWine.com and our August conference, which I will really enjoy.

Texas crop update

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

And it ?s not good at all. Some of the state ?s best vineyards are reporting significant losses, thanks to a series of late winter freezes and thaws that followed in rapid succession.

Neal Newsom, whose Newsom Vineyards in west Texas supplies grapes for some of of the state ?s leading producers, says he may get as little as half a crop from his 95 acres — and his experience may be typical. Newsome says his grapes mostly made it through a first freeze at the end of March, but didn ?t survive a second freeze. Temperatures had climbed into the 70s and 80s between the two freezes, and buds started to appear. Then, when the second freeze occurred a couple of weeks after the first, the budding grapes were set up to die.

The problem, says Newsom, was not so much the second freeze, which hit 21 degrees around Easter weekend. It ?s not unusual to see a freeze that late in the year. Rather, it was the unseasonably warm temperatures between the freezes, which made the vines  bud earlier than usual.

This is the fourth consecutive year that west Texas will produce less than a full crop, thanks to bad weather. Reports from the rest of the state aren ?t good, either, including the Hill Country between Austin and San Antonio. Rick Naber at Flat Creek near Marble Falls told me he may have lost more than half his crop.

DrinkLocalWine.com: The conference

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

The conferece is Aug. 14-15 in Dallas. We ?re going to bring some of the best wine bloggers and writers in the country to Dallas in August for the first DrinkLocalWine.com conference. This will be the start of what co-founder Dave McIntyre and I hope will be an annual event that moves around the country to key regional wine states. And yes, it will be open to the public – ? seminars and a Texas Twitter wine tasting included.

The details are on our new and improved Web site – ? DrinkLocalWine.com, which includes a DLW blog, with links to some of the best regional wine writing in the country. We are also Twittering (may the wine gods protect the world) and we have a Facebook page. We ?re at 300 fans in just three days on Facebook, and I don ?t understand that at all. (I ?m not complaining – ? I just don ?t understand it.)

I ?ll have more on the conference as we get closer to the date. Everyone is welcome – ? we ?ll have registration information in six weeks or so. But we already have commitments from some of the top regional wine people in the country, including winemakers, growers, sommeliers, and writers, to speak.

And you know something? Even the Wine Curmudgeon is excited about this. And how often does that happen?

Red River Wine Festival

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

I saw the future of American wine two weekends ago. That ?s when what must have been 1,000 people attended the fifth annual Red River Wine Festival in Wichita Falls, Texas.

Wichita Falls, about 140 miles northwest of Dallas, is not what most people consider wine country, even for Texas. It ?s an old ranching and oil town on the Oklahoma border, and it ?s known for a bicycle race if it ?s known at all.

But all those people showed up at the city ?s agriculture center to sample wines from 50 Texas producers (the weekend after the dog trials and the weekend before the horse show). Even the Wine Curmudgeon was surprised – ? pleasantly, of course, but surprised nonetheless.

The best part about all this? Those 1,000 people weren ?t attracted by scores or snob appeal or famous names. They went because they were interested in wine, and wanted to see what it was like. Yes, some looked confused and many may not have been quite sure they were supposed to have fun. But they paid $20 a head to be there, and they were drinking wine. What else matters? That's something for the industry to consider as it continues to obfuscate and befuddle consumers instead of educating them.

A personal note: The Wine Curmudgeon spoke at the event ?s Friday night dinner, and it was great fun. The women at the city ?s Junior Senior Forum, which puts on the festival, do a terrific job. In fact, I ?ve been to more prestigious events that aren ?t as well run or organized. Much thanks for inviting me. And I'll wear a less nice tie next time.

Major DrinkLocalWine.com announcement coming soon

by Wine Curmudgeon Posted On

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We ?re not quite ready to reveal the details, but Dave McIntyre and I will soon have big-time news about expanding DrinkLocalWine.com, our effort to give American regional wine the respect it deserves. (And, yes, that involves upgrading the website for those of you who have asked.)

In this, it will be part of the increasing popularity and almost unprecedented growth in the regional wine business. In Texas alone, there are 177 wineries. In 2000, there were about 60. Younger wine drinkers, who aren ?t obsessed with scores and status the way the fossils of my generation are, see regional wine as fun and interesting. They don ?t find anything unusual about wine being made in Ohio, something that would scare the hell out of most baby boomer wine drinkers.

Or, as Dave always says, ? ?Wine Country ? isn’t just the West Coast anymore. ?

The poster to the left, by the way, comes from Fox Run Vineyards in New York ?s Finger Lakes region. It ?s a throwback to the Rosie the Riveter campaign from World War II, and has already been picked up by wineries in Virginia ? and even California.