Blue Mountain icewine takes some sting off heat

It’s mid-evening and still feeling like a blast furnace when you take a step out the door. That’s the perfect cue to begin a discussion on icewine, an ultraweet specialty that a few wineries in the region produce, including up at Blue Mountain Vineyards & Cellar in New Tripoli, Pa. The winery is a member of the Lehigh Valley Wine Trail.

Blue Mountain’s icewine was just bottled, and owner Vicki Greff said that the demand for their nectar has kept her ear glued to the receiver ever since. “We’ve had it less than a week, and I’ve already sold several cases just at our stores with people making reservations,” she said. “I spent the whole evening the other night at our Coventry Mall store just calling people that were on the list. ‘I want eight bottles, I want five bottles, I want three bottles.' It’s the kind of thing that it’s very, very popular and high in demand.”

Blue Mountain imports its juice from Canada. Greff said that her husband Joe, the winemaker, adds his own touch to the production on the icewine, which sells for $44.50 for a small bottle. “I’m not a sweet wine person,” Vicki said, “but our icewine is very special. My husband uses a certain yeast, it almost has a little bit of dryness in the finish. Like a lot of icewines are all honey. Ours has a lot of apricot in the finish, so when you have it the way I was telling you, it’s just excellent.”

She suggested a variation on what’s generally considered a dessert wine. “How I love it is not even with dessert,” she said. “You can have it as a dessert wine. Some people rave about it over ice cream, and it is very good over ice cream. I’ve heard of an ice wine martini, and I’ve also done desserts with it, done it with some sort of pear and put some Gorgonzola cheese in it, and then like walnuts on top and then bake it in the oven kind of thing. But how I love ice wine is very cold, in the proper glass, an aperitif, and I love it with a very strong blue cheese, bosc pears, very crisp, very cold, and I like to take walnuts and put some nutmeg and cinnamon and cayenne and put them in the oven with a little olive oil, and toss them in the olive oil and just bake them off a little bit, and then just chomp on that for dessert, and that is my dessert. I love it.

“And that’s actually [what we’ll serve with it] if we ever [have it for a tasting]. We can’t do the pears because they get all brown, but we do the walnuts and the blue cheese, and we’re kind of known for that.”

Certain about what would accompany the icewine, Vicki was less certain about whether they’ll even put the 2007 vintage out to be tasted. “The demand is so high and we go through it so fast that we’re not sure what we’re going to do yet, whether or not we’re going to taste it," she said. "We’re just kind of kicking it around, how much we’ve already run through just form people reserving it. The stores are already calling in for replenishment. So it’s like, ‘OK, maybe we won’t taste it.' We don’t want to be out before the word really gets out there. If we do, we’ll have to charge $3 a taste, but you know what, people will pay it. But that’s what we’re going to have to charge.”

Black Ankle pushes opening back a month or so

We've written at length about Black Ankle Vineyards in Mt. Airy, Md., a winery that has made a lot of news despite not even opening its doors to the public as yet. As one who checks as many Web sites as possible of wineries throughout the region, I noticed this note on the Black Ankle home page that I wanted to share with you:

"Our Tasting Room Construction is progressing steadily, but not quite as fast as we had hoped. Although we had hoped to be open by late July, our current best estimate for when we will be able to open our doors for sales and tastings, is mid-August. We will post opening days and hours here once we have them! If you would like to be notified by email when we open, and receive our occasional updates and news please join our Friends of Black Ankle email list."

Adding a bit of sweet to Sugarloaf Mountain

You’ll get some passionate back-and-forths about the wineries in Pennsylvania and Maryland and how they can’t be serious about making good wine if they produce anything sweet. So I felt like my conversation with Jim McKenna, one of the principles of Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard took a surprise turn when he said the young and award-winning winery was heading in that direction.

“We’ve come up with another thing an oddball kind of a thing,” McKennsa said a few days ago, after talking about their Cabernet Franc and a couple of their other enticing reds. “We’ve discovered at a lot of these [festivals] that we go to that the overwhelming majority of the people of the state of Maryland who go to a wine festival are interested I one thing – sweet. And sugar. Sweet slash sugar. You know, three out of five people come up and say, let me have your really best sweet wine. So, you know, here we’ve spent so much time trying to put out a first-class wine.

“And so last year we had a stomp, and this year we’re going to have it again,” he continued. “We had attendance of well over 1000 people, and I expect as many if not as twice as many this year, and when we bought grapes from Pennsylvania and Virginia, not [real] good grapes . . . but just use for people to stomp. Because then we had the grapes left over at the end of the day after we had the stomp, so we said, ‘Well, what are we going to do with these things [that weren't used in the stomp]?’ [My partner] said, ‘Why don’t we just make a Stomp wine . . . throw some sugar in it?’ And so we did, and we have it, and of course, people love it. You know, ‘Boy I really love that Stomp of yours,’ and so, we’re going to make more of it. I mean it sells; it even sells at the winery itself. People like it. You know, what are you going to do? [My wife] Lois and I went on a four-winery tour about a year and a half ago in Maryland, just to see. Bert Basignani, Mike Fiori, Rob Deford up at Boordy . . . and all four of them said, when we asked what sells, they said, ‘sweet,’ independently of the other. They all said that. ‘Sweet.’ Make it sweet and they will drink it and that should have wakened us. But it didn’t at the time.

But now that we have the Stomp going . . . so, as Rob Deford up at Boordy said, ‘Look, this pays the rent.’ Put out a lot of apple wine. You name it, orange wine, coyote wine, whatever crazy name you want to put on it, then sell it. And so we’re not going to be quite so snooty anymore. I mean, I’ve learned my lesson. Give them what they want. And then the people who really understand wine will continue to buy [our good stuff.]”

The event grapevine: July 18-20

FEATURED EVENT
Music in the Vineyards 2008
Nissley Vineyards & Winery Estate, Bainbridge, Pa.
Saturday, 7:30 to 10 p.m.
The Jazzberries, Big Band Swing
http://www.nissleywine.com/lawn_concerts.htm

Judy Nissley of Nissley Vineyards & Winery Estate covered a lot of the present and the past of her Music in the Vineyards series, which is breezing through its 26th season with the third of eight Saturday night concerts tonight.

This is a special year for the winery, reaching the big 3-0. Nissley spent a few minutes explaining how several venues she used to visit long before the winery came to fruition led to this highly successful concert series, which has drawn as many as 2,800 people on a single night.

“One of the inspirations for the concert series,” she said last week in an phone interview, “we started out with dancing, because years ago in Hershey they used to have something called the Starlight Ballroom, and when I was in college we would go there for a Saturday night date. They would get big bands that would come in and so that was my introduction to big bands, and it was always very nice. They didn’t serve anything alcoholic though, which is why we could go in underage. We were not 21, we were still in college.

“Years later, when I worked in Chicago, there is a place north of Chicago that has a music venue which is called Ravinia, and it’s big stage, that has a roof on it and is partially enclosed, and you could pay two different admission prices, one would be to sit in a seat inside and the other you could put a blanket on the ground outside. So friends of mine and I would get together and we would take a picnic . . . these elaborate things. In fact, one of my friends would write up a menu, really elaborate things, and she always put cardamom in the coffee. So every time I have cardamom now I think of this event.

“In any event when we started the winery, it wasn’t long before I looked at the situation and said that I would really like to do something similar to that in this area. We started just with the dancing concept, but it’s amazing that not that many people related to the dancing, they really related though to the concert concept, with dancing on the side. So if we don’t have dancing -- say we take away all the patios -- that would affect the way in which people would enjoy the event. But if we strictly built it as a dance, we would not get nearly as many people.”

PENNSYLVANIA WINERIES

Adams County Farm Winery, Ortanna: Free summer concert, Saturday, 1 to 5 p.m., bring a blanket, lawn chair or go early to get a seat at one of the picnic tables; http://www.adamscountywinery.com/events.htm

Blue Mountain Vineyards & Cellars, Lehigh Valley: Sangria Sunday wine tasting ($$), 2 to 5 p.m., http://www.bluemountainwine.com/

Chaddsford Winery, Chaddsford: Sangria Sunday ($$), noon to 5 p.m.; concert, Sunday, 2 to 5 p.m.; July Barrel Tastings and Sale of 2007 Futures ($$), Saturday, 7 p.m., with light supper to follow, http://www.chaddsford.com

Crossing Vineyards & Winery, Washington Crossing: “Summer Under the Stars” Outdoor Concert Series ($$), Friday, 7 p.m.; Wine Tasting for Singles ($$), Friday, 7 p.m., wine, cheese and music; Summerfest: Caribbean Jam ($$), Saturday, 5 to 9 p.m.; How Sweet It Is: Pairing Wine and Chocolate ($$), Sunday, 2 p.m., http://www.crossingvineyards.com/

Galen Glen Vineyard & Winery, Andreas: Sixth annual Winter Mountain Red Snow Cone Tour, Saturday and Sunday; the tractor and wagon tours leave at 1, 2, 3 and 4 p.m., http://www.galenglen.com/

Moon Dancer Vineyards & Winery, Wrightsville: Music Friday night and Saturday and Sunday afternoons; Summer Concert series Saturday night ($$); Paddle Dine Music & Wine ($$), co-sponsored by Moon Dancer and Shank’s Mare, includes kayak tour, light fare dinner and concert, http://www.moondancerwinery.com

Naylor Wine Cellars, Stewartstown: “Summer Sounds” outdoor concert series ($$), Saturday, 7 to 10 p.m., http://www.naylorwine.com

Paradocz Vineyards, Landenberg: Free concert, 5 to 9 p.m., http://www.paradocx.com/

Twin Brook Winery, Gap: Gazebo Concert series ($$), Saturday, 6:30 to 9:30 p.m., http://www.twinbrookwinery.com/

MARYLAND WINERIES

You can find events for this weekend at this link.

VIRGINIA WINERIES

You can find all the events for this weekend at this link.

($$) – Admission charge

A stop at Maryland's Sugarloaf Mountain

It was in passing that someone I was chatting with mentioned Sugarloaf Mountain Vineyard, in Dickerson, as one new Maryland winery that was getting it right. Jim McKenna, one of the partners involved in the winery that’s located in the northwest corner of Montgomery County, said in an interview last night that it was a visit to Col. John Buehler Sr. out in Napa Valley after a wedding in 2002 that served as their inspiration. According to the Buehler Vineyards Web site, it was in 1971 that Buehler, a 1934 West Point graduate who served 20 years in the Army Corps of Engineers and another 20 years as a Bechtel Corporation executive, decided to entire retirement with his wife Helen by buying a remote Napa Valley hillside property that had been the site of a "ghost winery" before prohibition. Like everything else he touched, it wound up as a wildly successful venture. McKenna explained the connection by noting that his wife had gone to school with Buehler’s daughter. One tour of the vineyard was enough to sell McKenna and partner Mike McGarry on doing the same in Maryland.

They broke ground in 2002 and three years later were up and running. Already they are touting a number of awards, including a double gold for their 2005 Cabernet Franc, Maryland, given out at the 2007 International Eastern Wine Competition.

“I think we’ve done pretty much everything right so far,” McKenna said. “You never know. But we’re plugging away.” He said they have planted 19,000 vines over 10 acres, which sits at 600 feet above sea level and is blessed by what he calls a “little gift from God,” a breeze from Sugarloaf Mountain that he said blows constantly, largely deterring pests and disease alike. They do about 4,500 cases annually; with aspirations of increasing that as they grow the vineyard to 20 or 25 acres. Their recent tie-in with the Kennedy Center Roof Terrace Restaurant, where they have become the first Maryland or local wineries to have their wines included on the wine list, should provide more momentum.

McKenna said that their Cab Franc, the double gold winner, has become their signature. “Ours is really unbelievably good,” he said, then sharing a story. “This is just small potatoes. A guy came out and bought a bunch of the Franc at one point . . . he was a member of the wine club, and he had a blind wine tasting over the Christmas holidays. He had our Cab Franc, and also contained in that tasting was an Opus One. That’s pretty big cheese. Robert Mondavi started it with the Rothschilds in 1979. They wanted to make it the definitive red from California. Whether they made it or not is an open question, but they sell it for a heckuva lot of money, and our little ol’ Cabernet Franc in that one little tasting beat it out. So it’s one little anecdote; it’s not definitive of anything, but it certainly made me feel pretty good when the guy came back and told me about it.”

Among the winery’s other reds are Cab Sauvignon, Merlot, and a couple of blends, one called Circe that’s named after the sorcerer from Greek mythology, and Comus, named after … well … some old farmer who used to live down the road. It’s a road that’s named after that farmer, and has since been used on one of Sugarloaf Mountain’s red blends. “We started with five, six, maybe seven wines,” McKenna said. “I don’t think we exactly landed on a number. We know we wanted two whites, a Chardonnay and a Pinot Grigio, and we weren’t interested in . . . well, I suppose we would be interested in a Sauvignon Blanc, but it doesn’t grow very well here, and so we weren’t going to try and fight the elements. I think what happened is that the Cab franc is a little like, in a very miniature sort of a way, it’s a little bit like Malbec when Malbec was taken from France and plunked down in the ground in Argentina. It took off like wild fire. And, I mean, a lot of people think it’s an Argentinian wine by origin -- which it isn’t -- but there’s so much of it and it does so well coming from there that you hardly ever see Malbec from anyplace else but Argentina.

“And so a similar thing has happened with us and Cab Franc. I mean, it just adores it here,” he added. “I don’t know why, but it does, and so, that’s going to be our flagship. And the Pinot Grigio has been super. We sold out in the first year; we sold out in six weeks. We had really misunderstood what the market was going to bring. It was gone in a heartbeat. People would come back and say, ‘I really like that Grigio, can I have another bottle of it?’ And I’d say ‘No, it’s gone.’ And that was in no time at all. And the second year we made a lot more and that sold out in advance. So we’re going to make more this year; and the Chardonnay has been doing well and winning competitions. So we’ve been doing very well.”

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Business drying up? Not at these wineries

After the New York Wine & Grape Foundation reported in its most recent e-newsletter that it was seeing a trend toward an overall drop in business because of the economy, I posed the question to several owners of wineries in my coverage area. Two owners who have been good friends to this blog, Lee Miller of Chaddsford Winery in chaddsford, Pa., and Carl Helrich of Allegro Vineyards in The Brogue, Pa., chimed in with what they've seen.

Miller: "We have actually seen INCREASES in traffic and sales this summer. Seems people coming to the Brandywine Valley are going the "staycation" route -- instead of going to Europe where the gas is $14 a gallon (and I know it firsthand as we just returned from 3 weeks in Spain) AND the Euro is worth $1.65 -- they are staying home, traveling less and doing more local things - which is really to our benefit. Our Memorial Day Weekend Brandywine River Blues Fest was the best ever in terms of both attendees and sales, and our recent Fourth of July Big Bang BBQ Weekend was also jam-packed and broke last year's sales record. Another thing I've heard people talking about around here is the "one tank trip" -- and again that's in our favor when people look around their own area instead of driving to further away areas. They are discovering the local wines and regional wine touring!"

Helrich: "Here's what I've seen. Even though our December sales were down over our projections, we've set records for sales on four of he past six months. This doesn't make any sense, because our winery (one of our main slaes locations) is in the middle of nowhere and requires driving a pretty good distance. I do think our sales per customer are up as well, which could explain us at least keeping even with years past, but not the growth in sales I have seen. I attribute it to the fact that in bad economies people stop going out for their entertainment. They don't stop their alcohol consumption -- it just moves closer to home. It would be interesting to see if DUIs are down these months . . . that might be an indicator of changing behaviors.That's all I've got. Cheers!"

New York wineries noticing a drop in visits

This note from the weekly New York Wine & Grape Foundation newsletter. It's a topic I'll try to explore throughout the week in our neck of the vineyards:

GAS PRICES got you down? Then go to Europe where gas is about $9 a gallon, and that’s not including the extra you’d pay if you first have to exchange dollars for Euros, which would bring it to $14. (Fortunately, I took the tube and didn’t have to drive anywhere.) So $4 sounds pretty cheap, but unfortunately it still seems to be taking a toll on wine country tourism, both in number of visitors and purchases. About a month ago, visitor counts seemed pretty even with last year, and purchases actually up—so the people who came intended to buy—but more recently that seems to have eroded, just like the economy in general. We don’t have any formal survey or statistics, just anecdotal information from conversations, but it seems pretty consistent.