Abruzzo is 'main course' at Berwyn on Thursday

Still looking for something to do this Thursday night?

One choice is the next in the series of five-course wine dinners at Trattoria San Nicola Berwyn, 668 Lancaster Ave. This one will feature foods and wines from the Abruzzo region.

A call to the restaurant Monday afternoon found about 15 spots left to fill. Those who intend to register need to call 610.296.3141 and secure a spot by providing a credit card number. The restaurant accepts Visa and Mastercard only.

It’s a dinner series that has been ongoing for several years, each scheduled for a Thursday evening and pairing foods and wines from a region in Italy. The cost is $65 per person; tax and gratuity are not included. The ceiling usually is set at 90 guests.

The event will begin at 6:30 with Prosecco served at a welcome reception, with dinner to follow at 7. “Everyone really enjoys it,” a restaurant spokesperson said earlier. “Making new friends, finding out who your neighbors are. We usually get a lot returning guests and they will ask ‘Can we please sit with this other couple that we met last time?’”

The menu will include Goat Cheese Truffles with Roasted Peppers over a bed of arugula as a first course, followed by Penne Amatriciana and Pan Seared Halibut with Artichoke Hearts and Saffron Broth. A fourth course will feature Capreto Cacio e Uova: Lamb with Cheese and Egg Sauce. Room for dessert? How about Parrozzo, traditional Abruzzo almond cake served with homemade Toasted Almond Gelato?

And what might wow the crowds during the wine series has found itself back on the menu as a seasonal special and occasionally never comes off. “Sometimes that’s how things make their way onto our menu,” the spokesperson said.

Regional Wine Week, Day 7: Allegro Vineyards

A few snapshots of life at Allegro Vineyards, located in The Brogue, Pa.




This is the last of a series of stories on Pennsylvania wineries, covering an area from Gettysburg east to Philly and up to Allentown. It has been done in conjunction with Regional Wine Week, an idea that originally was going to feature stories on regional wines by a few wine writers around the country. Instead, it blossomed into a project that involves coverage of wines in 16 states and Canada and a spot on the Internet where you can read all the blogs and stories.

My goal has been to write about at least one winery on each the five Pennsylvania wine trails that I cover. Certainly, these six I wrote about are just a small percentage of the many that exist in eastern Pennsylvania and Maryland and the others that are in the process of opening their doors. You can go through my archives and read about 25 or 30 others.

A few that I’ve written about are located in and around where I live in central Pennsylvania. They aren’t so much part of a particular trail, but they are connected to a March event called Uncork York, where visitors pay a flat fee for a passport that gets them into all 11 wineries for a tasting during the month of March.

There’s no question that wine drinkers in York County and environs lean toward sweet. Just peruse the wine lists of Naylor Wine Cellars, Adams County Winery and Marburg Estate Winery to get a sense of what sells. Allegro Vineyards of The Brogue produces its own share of sweet, semi-sweet and spiced wines along with its share of dry offerings, anchored by its Bordeaux-blend Cadenza.

Like most of the wineries in these parts, you have to find them; generally few are off the exits of any major highways. Such is the case with Allegro, almost an hour’s drive north from Baltimore and 25 minutes or so south of York, requiring a few miles that will challenge your confidence if you’ve never been there before. But the trip is worth it.

The first vines, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon, were planted in 1973. Musician brothers John and Tim Crouch put up the winery building in 1980 and the tasting room opened a year later. Carl Helrich and Kris Miller, husband and wife, took over in 2000 with the goal of continuing the winery’s reputation of making delicious European-styled table wines that are reasonably priced.

They grow six varieties of grapes on five acres and maintain what would be comparatively a rustic feel to some of the newer wineries. It’s also distinguished by the fact that it holds no events other than to participate in Uncork. Carl said earlier this year that he decided to stop the food and wine pairing dinners they had hosted for several summers and focus on wine-making.

“The reason why I’m a winemaker is that I love great wine, and I think we can make great wine here,” he said by phone the other day. “I’ve tasted glimpses of great wine from this area, so I know it’s possible. We’ve just got to get a confluence of these parts to come together. We need to have the right vineyard site, the right root stock with the right variety with the right winemaker, the right vineyard manager with the right vintage. All come together and we can blow some minds with the wines we can make here.

“I remember talking to [viticulture extension educator for Penn State Cooperative Extension in Lancaster County] Mark Chien at one point and he made some offhand comment that the most interesting wines come from marginal climates. Whether or not that’s true or not, I don’t know. I think there’s a greater truth in that, and I think we’re definitely in a marginal climate for some of these varieties. If you taste California wines, well they taste like sunshine basically. The Pinot Noir tastes like Merlot, it tastes like Cabernet. There are subtle differences, and if you like big fruit bombs, that’s great. But here, you know, our palate is much greater, artistically speaking palate. We end up having a wine that one year will taste one way and one year will taste the other way, just because of the climate or what’s happening in the soil that year. That’s really much more of a naked kind of wine making.

“And . . . [on the East Coast] our lows are pretty low and our highs are pretty high, and I think we’re still trying to figure out how high our highs can get. It’s kind of like life, you know. If you have a life where everything is about the same, your highs aren’t very high. I have two kids, and there’s nothing like when one of the kids does something great. But like today [we had to] take one to the hospital to get stitches, so it’s pretty low then. But you can’t have one without the other, and the same thing goes for winemaking. If everything tastes the same all the time, is that really great tasting, and is that really what a great wine is? I think a great wine for us has got to be a great wine that’s just unique. It’s not going to be a fruit bomb, but it’s just going to blow your mind because of the complexity.”

Should you make out your way to this part of southern York County, try these two wines.

2005 Cadenza
Winemaker’s note: Our rare flagship red, true Bordeaux-style wine;aged two years in French oak barrels; bottled unfiltered and unfined

Carl Helrich: “I came to Allegro because of a desire to make great wine, and the potential to make a great wine in Pennsylvania. And John and Tim crouch had this wonderful history of Cadenzas here, which then was a Cabernet-based wine. . . . I love French Bordeauxs. I think they’re wonderful wines. We’re making our third Cadenza from the ’07 vintage. Our ’05 is out right now. The ’06 is in bottles, and we’ll release next year probably. And these are Merlot-based wines. I’m a firm believer that the future of our wine industry is in making a name for ourselves with variety. You look at Long Island is pushing their Merlots. Oregon has Pinot, Napa, of course has Cabernet and Chardonnay and stuff. Every region has its own variety. We’ve got to find ours. Some people say diversity is our strength, and it is in terms of keeping a lot of small wineries together. But if we’re going to be a viable wine industry with any kind of notoriety, which is the kind I want to be involved in . . . that’s why I’m here. I’m not here to make nice wine, you know, that I had a nice little life and made some nice wine. That’s not the point what I’m doing here. I want us to be on the map because I know we can do it. So these days, this is very premature, but at this point Merlot looks to be one of our grapes. Whether it’s THE grape or not, I don’t know, but that’s the one I’m thinking had the most promise for us on the red side.”

2005 Reserve Chardonnay
Winemaker’s notes: Rich, silky full-bodied Chardonnay; wild yeast-fermentedand barrel-aged in French oak for eleven months
Carl Helrich: “Here’s where I’m not best one [as far as what people are going to taste.] I’m a winemaker. I can’t control flavors and aromas. I don’t focus on them so much. I can tell you about things . . . but I’m looking more for balance. One of the keys for me in winemaking is balance. The flavors are purely secondary to what the wines feels like in your mouth and how you perceive it and if the wine is out of balance it doesn’t matter what the flavors are, you’re not going to like it. So, first I balance. We tend to harvest our Chard very late. Most times, in our good years that is, we’ll be picking it sometimes as late as the second week of October. We’ve got a field blend of seven clones, the original was planted in 1973, and there are a whole host of clones. Some are early ripeners, some later ripening. They have a whole host of flavors, they all contribute. We barrel ferment this wine in French oak barrels. And I’ve been using our native yeast population that we have here, too, which is kind of unique. I’m not sure if there’s anyone else in Pennsylvania using native yeasts for fermenting things, but we’re doing that with our Chardonnays.”

Wycombe cancels Sunday picking

The public harvest scheduled for tomorrow at Wycombe Vineyards in Furlong, Pa., has been cancelled. They were out picking this morning in absolutely spectacular weather.

Actually, you couldn't ask for a better stretch of days for ripening across the region. Sunny, mild afternoond and cool nights. Despite some rough patches at times this summer, this wrap-up to the growing season can't help but give some extra bounce to this vintage.

Regional Wine Week, Day 6: Crossing Vineyards

Raising a glass to celebrate five years in business are Crossing Vineyards and Winery owners, from left: Christine Carroll; Tom Carroll Jr., the winery’s vintner; and Tom Carroll Sr.


They’ll be cutting sheet cake in a couple of hours at Crossing Vineyards & Winery, about an hour’s drive out of downtown Philly. It will be a cake with a modest numbers of candles – five – at a winery that already has developed a rich legacy among Bucks County wineries.

It’s one of eight wineries on the trail, one with all of them closer in proximity than any other area in the state outside of Erie. A few date back into the 1960s, Buckingham Valley comes to mind, and slowly others have staked their claim. One of those is Crossing, and it’s as much distinguished itself by what it offers educationally as the wine it puts on the shelves.

Christine Carroll noted that reaching this milepost is a big hurdle if you believe in the idea that the first five years of any business is the "acid test." She and husband Tom Sr. were off on the road again yesterday, the start of another busy weekend that will include the festivities at the winery and, oh yeah, all the work that accompanies harvest time. What has set Crossing Vineyards apart, she said, “is from the very, very beginning, before we planted Vine 1 in the ground, we had a one word mission statement and that was quality. . . . our goal was always to create as fine an East Coast winery as we could. We were well-capitalized, we purchased the finest equipment available. Every decision we have made, from Day 1, has been on quality, and those were difficult at time because some were expensive decisions.”

One of those priorities has been to embrace a “green” initiative; to that end they recently installed the first phase of a state-of-the-art solar energy system that ultimately will use solar power to supply 100 percent of the vineyard’s energy needs.

At the root of the business, of course, is the wide variety of wine; 20 at this count, an equal mix of red, white and specialty. Christine noted that their line “leans toward dry vinifera. We do have some sweets. You now, many people who are not experienced wine drinkers come to drink wine and their palate [is more geared toward sweet wines than dry vinifera]. We don’t want to lose those people. Our feeling is that we are going to come out to meet you. Maybe we can teach you about wine or maybe your palate will always enjoy sweet wines. Or maybe it won’t. Really, we just try to empower people. It’s why we charge for tastings, because we educate them as they taste. We want to meet them where they are and we want to open them up to a whole wonderful world of [wine and everything that accompanies it.]”

If you get a chance to stop, try these two wines:

2006 Cabernet Franc

Winemarker’s notes: This dry, full-bodied Cabernet Franc has a deep, garnet color and jammy, cherry-berry taste. Barrel aging adds to the complexity of the finish and brings out luscious, lingering accents of blackberry, bell pepper and toasty oak.
Christine Carroll: “We do what we call bench trials. Bring in six different blends, then all try them and make notes. And when we did the bench trial on this one, we all picked the same thing. We knew we had something special. We submitted it to the Critics Challenge in San Diego. Judging was the end of May. We won a gold medal for that wine. [See Challenge notes here]. To us, a gold medal in a California competition is significant.” Not generally released yet, she said they plan to release it very shortly.

2006 Late Harvest Vidal Blanc

Winemaker’s notes: This elegant dessert wine is rich and sweet with hints of honey, candied orange zests and apricots and a long, luxurious finish.
Christine Carroll: “This is maybe the finest wine we’ve ever made. . . . We let the whole block hang through November and into December. It was a warm December; it was warmer in December 2006 than it was Easter 2006. Once we saw the extended forecast we decided to pull the plug [and let the grapes hang]. Turned out unbelievably wonderful.
We won an award in the Finger Lakes for it, won awards [for it] all over the place. It’s a wonderful wine, the best one we currently have for sale.”

NY Wine director plugs Regional Wine Week

This item appeared among the entries in the New York Wine & Grape Foundation's weekly e-letter, which is written by longtime director Jim Trezise (whom I owe a debt of gratitude for his time on the phone a couple of weeks ago):

"New York Wine and Grape Foundation's REGIONAL WINE WEEK is a great new concept among many wine writers like Sandra Silfven of the Detroit News (who urged readers to visit Michigan and Ohio wineries) and Dave McIntyre of the Washington Post (Maryland and Virginia), along with many others who are encouraging consumers to discover the great wines right from their own backyard. Wine is now produced in all 50 states, and in most cases the industries are growing rapidly and increasing in quality.

A great example is North Carolina, where I judged this week, which still produces some wonderfully floral muscadine wines but also some other stunners like the Governor’s Cup winner (Cabernet Franc from Childress, where former Long Islander Mark Friszlowski is winemaker), a Riesling from Shelton, and a Nebbiolo Rosé from Iron Gate that amazingly had over 4% residual sugar but tasted dry because of the acid balance. Margo Metzger does a great job running the competition and the overall North Carolina program, and it’s inspiring to see the progress. Despite recent growth in consumption, the U.S. is still a long way from being a serious wine consuming country, so having good local products is vitally important to the industry’s future everywhere."

Birthday party all set at Crossing Vineyards

Since I'll be posting on Crossing Vineyards in a bit, figured I'd get tis up in case folks are looking for a destination this weekend.

Crossing Vineyards and Winery in Washington Crossing, Pa. has a lot to celebrate when it marks its fifth birthday tomorrow and Sunday with an open house, live music and a chance to win a private wine tasting for eight and a VIP tour.

The celebration, which will be held from 1 to 6 p.m. (live music 1-5 p.m.), both days at the winery, 1853 Wrightstown Road, will cap five years of achievement and growth for Crossing, which opened two new ventures this summer and, in the past year, expanded its summer concert series, added 18 medals to its trophy case, was listed in an international wine guide, featured in US Airways Magazine, and installed a solar energy system.

In June, Crossing opened a second retail location at the Marketplace at East Falls in Philadelphia and the following month launched “Crossing Vineyards Wine and Cheese Shop,” one of only six retail outlets selected for “Project Sunrise,” a $208 million, 300,000 square-foot gaming and entertainment complex at Pocono Downs in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.

Also this summer, the winery expanded its “Summer Under the Stars” outdoor concert series to 13 performances, adding newcomers like Opera New Jersey to old favorites which brought jazz, pop, classical music and Irish dance to the 200-year-old estate.

Awards in national and international wine competitions this past year brought Crossing’s five-year total to 68, including “Best of Class – Top Gold” in the 2006 Starwine International Wine Competition for its ’05 Chardonnay. The reputation of Crossing’s award-winning wines and its setting on 20 acres situated less than a mile from where Washington crossed the Delaware, earned the winery a spot on The Style Network’s popular destination wedding series “Married Away” and in US Airways Magazine’s September edition as a “must see” attraction in Bucks County. Tom Stevenson's 2008 Annual Wine Report, a well-respected international guide to the wines of the world, ranked Crossing Vineyards and Winery number five on its top 10 list of new, up-and-coming East Coast producers.

The decision of winery owners Tom and Christine Carroll and their son, Tom Jr. to “Go Green” marked another milestone in Crossing’s brief history. Wanting to protect the environment by reducing fossil fuel consumption, the family installed phase one of a state-of-the-art solar energy system and hopes eventually to use solar power to supply 100 percent of the vineyard’s energy needs.

Crossing continues to expand the offerings of its “Wine Institute,” which presents educational programs and workshops. In conjunction with a new series on “French Wine for Beginners,” the Carrolls in May hosted a private tour of The Rhône Valley and Provence. This fall, Philadelphia wine writer and blogger Collin Flatt joins the Wine Institute faculty, which includes Crossing’s French sommelier Eric Cavatore, and Marika Vida Arnold, sommelier at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Philadelphia.

For more, visit www.crossingvineyards.com or call 215.493.6500, ext. 19.

Regional Wine Week, Day 6: Pinnacle Ridge

Photos courtesy of winetrailtraveler.com

Before we forge ahead, let’s step back a moment. Regional Wine Week is an idea created by a couple of wine writers to acknowledge that winemaking exists in this country outside the West Coast and to bring exposure to a few of those great wines being produced.

I’m one of almost 20 writers and bloggers across the country who are producing original content this week. You can find the collection of stories at www.Drinklocalwine.com.

Meanwhile, the tack I’ve taken with my contribution is to focus on at least one winery from the five wine trails in Pennsylvania that I cover. I can do the ol’ kill two birds with one store by recognizing Pinnacle Ridge Winery outside Kutztown, about 95 minutes or so northwest of Philly and west of the Lehigh Valley. Its location makes it perfect to sit along two wine trails: the Lehigh Valley and Berks County. Indeed, the winery will be particularly busy these next two weekends because of its commitments to both wine trails. This weekend is an Artisan Cheese & Wine Pairing event that the Berks County wineries have planned; next week is the Lehigh Valley trail’s Chambourcin Weekend.

Brad Knapp and wife Christy Allen run the show here. As documented at Wine Trail Traveler.com, who was kind enough to send me the photos that accompany this posting, Knapp “bought this land in 1990 and planted the vineyards in 1993. In 1995, he opened the winery to the public. He currently produces between nine and ten thousand gallons of wine (about 4,000) cases). Rather than increasing the quantity of wine, Brad wants to put his emphasis in the quality of his wine. Although Brad’s background is in chemistry, he approaches wine as an art. He believes that a winemakeer’s most important tool is his palette. His wife . . . designs the colorful, eye-catching wine labels.”

Knapp told me the other night that his winery is a cross between ‘doing what I want to do and doing what needs to be done. There’s certain things that I like to drink, wines that I enjoy . . . and they’re a passion and really a focal point. I’m also a person who has a business and has to run a business and I try to make every person who walks through our door happy. It’s just good business to do that..

“In my opinion,” he added, “where we are here in our location, you know, the reality is that we’re a destination but there are enough people that live in this area that we get all kinds of people who walk through this door who otherwise might not walk through a winery door in the middle of Washington state, for instance, or Oregon. Those wineries the people who go there make a real effort to go there. People that are touring in those areas are all about wine, where as in this are we’re more populated, so we get a pretty different demographic walking through our door, much broader. There’s a need to have wines on our portfolio that anybody who walks in off the street will find something they like. So we feel the need to have a wide range of products, but then there are those that are my passion, and those are very traditional in general.

Should you poke your head in, here are two wines you need to sample.

2005 BRUT ROSE

Winemaker’s notes: Double gold at 2008 Finger Lakes International, gold medal at 2008 PA Wine Association competition. This dry rose sparkling is made from 100 percent Pinot Noir via traditional Methode Champenoise. Shows beautiful bubbles and pink color; perfect with appetizers.

Brad Knapp: “I love sparkling wine, and it’s definitely one thing that sets us apart. This is kind of a prime example of business vs. what I want. I wish it was the only sparkling that I felt I need to make, frankly, but that’s not the way it works out. I don’t sell a lot of it, in reality. It’s gotten good critical reviews, does well in competition. It’s just a nice wine.”

2007 PINOT NOIR

Winemaker’s notes: This barrel-aged, dry red is soft and velvety and displays beautiful cherry fruit. We think Pinot Noir is one of the most fruit-friendly reds.

Brad Knapp: “We’re more attuned to Pinot Noir, getting behind it more. And, nationally, it’s getting there. You’re right, the movie [Sideways] certainly changed things for Pinot Noir. It increased the attention dramatically. We’ve been learning how to make it better and better. We’re getting to release our ’07 at the end of this month.”