Congratulations to Michael Migliore, Whitecliff Vineyard: New York State Grape Grower of the Year Award

I first met Michael at the Hudson Valley Wine Festival in 2003.  Our booths were right next to each other.  Living in the Hudson Valley my entire life, a wine enthusiast, I actually never heard of Whitecliff Vineyards.  Tasting his wine at the festival I was pleasantly surprised on how good it was.  This was 2003 a friendship was formed and his vintages have only gotten better with each passing year.

This month Michael received the New York State Wine & Grape Foundations 2015 Grower of the Year award.  This is the first time a wine grower from the Hudson Valley has won the award.

Michael's award recognizes his work on Whitecliff's 26-acre home vineyard, but also more widely in the Hudson Valley. At Whitecliff he has worked over more than three decades to establish a vineyard on former dairy land. Through tireless experimentation he has found grape varieties that survive the cold, and also produce high quality wine. Noteworthy successes are Traminette, a cold-hardy hybrid developed at Cornell for which Whitecliff has received multiple gold medals at the prestigious San Francisco International Wine Competition. Also Gamay Noir, a grape commonly associated with the Beaujolais region of France, has been a success at the Gardiner Vineyard:  Whitecliff just received a coveted 90 point rating for its Gamay in the December issue of Wine Enthusiast magazine.

Michael is President of the Hudson Valley Wine & Grape Association.  He has set out over many years to promote broader planting of wine grapes by farmers in the Valley. Also, he has acted on the belief that more estate-grown grapes will contribute to the Valley's reputation as a serious wine region. In this regard he consults on establishment of new vineyards and along the way, has helped both apple growers and a grass-fed beef farmer to add acreage of grapes.

Congratulations to Michael!  Your hard work and dedication is a contributing factor in transforming the Hudson Valley wine region to what is is today and will be in the future.

TasteCamp - Hudson Valley

The view from Millbrook's tasting room

This past weekend was the yearly event TasteCamp which is held in a wine region on the Eastern side of the United States every year.  I was thrilled when it was announced that they had chosen the Hudson Valley and the date was Columbus Day Weekend, the busiest weekend of the year.  

The organizers The New York Cork Report's Lenn Thompson and Drink Local's Michael Michael Wangbickler chose this weekend and at first I thought, the busiest weekend of the year, but then it truly highlighted the best, the Hudson Valley during harvest.

I attended the events on Friday and could only attend Saturday evenings dinner at Tousey. I will go into detail later about each winery and the new things I learned. In the meantime, here are some pictures of the weekend.

The gathering began at Noon in the vineyard at Millbrook Vineyards & Winery

Chardonnay grapes from Long Island at Millbrook

Processing the Chardonnay

Michael & Carlo tasting selections from Millbrook

Tasting Clinton Vineyards sparkling and Seyval



Kristop Brown, winemaker at Robibero Family Vineyards addressing the group

 

Robibero selections for tasting.

Bad Seed Cider at the grand tasting at Robibero

Benmarl selections at the grand tasting at Robibero

Clearview Vineyards at the grand tasting at Robibero

Frank from Clearview pouring Tiffany from Robibero a tasting

Dinner selections at Whitecliff Vineyards

Beautiful table arrangements at Tousey for dinner

The bloggers gather at Tousey

Tousey's Scarlet Tiger label (wait till you hear the story behind this!)

Bottled just for us

Great presentation of lamb for dinner

Remy and Katie having a great time

Evan presenting Carlo a gift of appreciation

Getting carried away and having fun

Many wines were tasted, new friendships formed and old friends visiting!

Cablevision Special on Hudson Valley Wineries with Hudson Valley Wine Goddess

Last month I spent the day with Kimberly Hart from Cablevision to produce a special on Hudson Valley Wineries that aired on July 4, 2012. In this video I take you to Whitecliff Vineyard & Winery where we learn about their new geo-thermal winery, Millbrook Vineyards & Winery and we learn about the flagship winery of the Hudson Valley and Benmarl Winery, the oldest vineyard in the United States. Follow me on my journey through the Hudson Valley.
 

Deep in the Cellar - 2008 Whitecliff Pinot Noir

Another one from the cellar. I am quite amazed on how the Whitecliff wines hold up with age.  As I go through my cellar I have quite a few of older vintage Hudson Valley selections.  I am looking forward to sharing them with you as they are uncovered.

We opened this Pinot Noir as an appetizer on Superbowl Sunday.  Aromas of oak and raspberry filled the glass with hints of vanilla.

Soft tannins were felt on your palate as flavors of ripe plum and red cherry danced on your tongue.  Hints of spice rounded out the finish in an elegant way. 

If you have any of this Pinot Noir hanging around now would be the time to open it.  We felt it was at its peak. The flavors really stood out, it had a great soft mouth feel and was very enjoyable.

Hidden - 2003 Whitecliff Vineyards Sky Island

What I found in the freezer paired with what I found in the wine cellar. Yes it was a great dinner to be.  Those wonderful steaks with a 2003 Whitecliff Sky Island.

Honestly I wasn't sure about the wine.  I found this deep in the wine cellar and questioned whether it had aged out.  There was only one way to tell - open the bottle.

Whitecliff's Sky Island is their Bordeaux Blend type of wine.  This was made with 60% Cabernet Sauvignon, 20% Merlot and 20% Cabernet Franc.  Since I wasn't sure what to expect, I had no expectations, but did have some wandering doubts of this 8 year old wine.  Once opened and tasted, WOW, this wine really held up well.  I was impressed!  I don't think it would have lasted another year or two, so I am glad I found it when I did..

The nose was a cigar box at first with some black cherry and big bold mushroom. The texture wasn't big and bold, but medium to thin.  There were flavors of black cherry and dark fruit on the palate with a hint of mint.  The wine finished with a sour cherry lingering on your palate.

I will say it went great with my steak.  It's nice to see that a Hudson Valley wine aged fairly well.  I guess I had my doubts, but was pleasantly surprised once again by winemaker Michael Migliore.

Testing Grapes for Harvest

Seyval Grapes

This past weekend I was over at Whitecliff Vineyards Winery and we were testing Cayuga and their estate Seyval to see if they were close to harvest parameters.  It's this time of year you play the wait and see game.  Wait to get the sugars up and see if the weather will cooperate.

Michael has already picked the sampling of Cayuga and he sent Paul and I to take samples of the Seyval from the North and South sides of the vineyard. Armed with two ziplock baggies we headed into the vineyard.  We weren't taking entire clusters, but just cutting off samplings of clusters here and there.

When we returned to the winery we crushed the grapes in the ziplock bags with our hands.  This is to get a sampling of the juice and seeds.  The juice was then poured into beakers, just like chemistry class.

From this juice we test the brix level which translates to sugar level of the grape, the ph and total acidity.  The ideal parameters for picking Seyval are brix at 22, ph of 3.3 and 9 g/l of acidity.

Well....this test turned out that the brix were 16.2, ph was 2.9 and acidity was 10.05 g/l.  But this isn't the only test that is done.  Next we tested the seeds.  

We are looking a number of things when looking at the seeds.   We look for the color of the seed, hardness of the shell, the nuttiness of the seed when chewed and whether or not if the meet of the grape starts to separate from the seed.  In this case the Seyval grape seed still had a bit of green in it, was a little nutty, and the shell was hard, but not as hard as it could be.  

The conclusion....is it's best to let the grapes hang for another 10 days or so.  Hopefully the weather will cooperate.