Picked this up from a local shop in downtown manhattan for somewhere around $35, I snagged it because it was one of the only wines from NY state in the shop and the only one from Long Island.
This wine surprised me! Most of the wines I’ve had from Long Island have been Cabernet Francs or Pinot Noir, and neither of those have been particularly exciting to me, a little too thin flavor and texture on both for my tastes. This was a blend of Chardonnay and Viognier, on the nose it was quite aromatic with stone fruit and honeysuckle aromas, on the palate it had a light acidity with mentioned fruit and floral notes and light sparkle as well, very clean especially for no sulfur added and very light and very drinkable. Unfined and unfiltered, spontaneous yeast and very much a “natural” style wine. Decent amount of debris at bottom that I decanted out.
The Chardonnay is from Macari vineyards on north fork and not sure if the Viognier was estate grown, they did mention they purchased the Chardonnay from Macari due to not having enough Viogner (320 gallons of juice) to properly keep cool temperatures in the 600 gallon tank. And thus resulted in the blend they got.
I couldn’t find much about the producers, I believe it’s 2 women winemakers and someone named Scotty? Can’t seem to find a website but there is a little bit on instagram. Overall probably the best wine I’ve had from Long Island, to be fair it’s also the first not red wine I’ve tasted from there but it’s nice to see some good light natural wine coming out of somewhere not as known for it, definitely something to compete with the Rieslings from the finger lakes
by Minoiboisoy