This quarter’s wine club selections include the 2019 Nutt Road Reserve Pinot Noir, The 2019 Pinot Noir, the 2019 Seneca East Riesling and the 2020 An Croí Dry Rosé with different quantities and wines included in our different Claddagh Club membership types and tiers.   My initial plan for the quarter held – all of the wines are drinking beautifully right now, and we can’t wait to share them with our club members starting this week! Here is a summary of our winemaking, tasting and pairing notes for this quarter’s selections:

2019 Nutt Road Vineyard Reserve Pinot Noir:

• Vineyard Notes & Winemaking:  The fruit in this wine hails from Nutt Road Vineyard on the West side of Seneca Lake. The vineyard is managed by Peter Martini, and he uses sustainable viticulture methods to manage the site.  The vineyard is gently sloping and features Honeoye silt loam soil. The grapes were hand-picked then gently de-stemmed and optically sorted using cameras to evaluate the color and texture of each berry, and select only those which met our standards for the best possible fruit. We hand-sorted the stems and selected ~50% for inclusion in the 14-day fermentation. Then, we gently gravity-flow transferred the wine into barrels for 12 months of aging in Francois Frêres French oak barrels.   We tasted this alongside the Paul’s Legacy Pinot Noir (club release in February 2021), and our classic 2019 Finger Lakes Pinot Noir.  The winemaking is the same on all 3 wines, and it was fun to taste the impact of the growing sites on each of the finished wines.
• Tasting Notes and Suggested Pairings: Ripe cherries and blackberries on the nose. On the palate, tart cherries emerge, along with red currants.  The finish is long and elegant with medium tannins.  We thought that a lamb paring was in order for this wine. We do a garlic studded leg of lamb where we coat the leg of lamb with salt, pepper, olive oil, and Herbs de Provence, and then make shallow cuts to the meat with even spacing and insert ~ 20-30 cloves of garlic.  We’ve made that recipe on the smoker, but it can also be done on the grill or in the oven.  For a vegetarian option – a tart topped with goat cheese, beets and fresh thyme would work nicely. 
• Production: 49 cases

2020 An Croí Dry Rosé

• Winemaking: An Croí means “The Heart” in Gaelic, and this dry rosé beautifully captures the essence of our flagship grape, Pinot Noir.  We hand-picked the Pinot Noir grapes, optically sorted them to select only the best fruit, and allowed the grapes to rest overnight to let flavors from the skins bleed into the juice. Using the saigneé technique, we drew the lightly colored juice off of the skins, then fermented the juice to dryness in stainless steel.
• Tasting Notes and Suggested Pairings:  This wine is a bit more pale in color than prior years, but just explodes with flavor.  Rose petals and strawberries on the nose, followed by a burst of fresh watermelon, raspberries, sour cherries and a hint of salinity on the palate, and a dry, refreshing finish.  When we think of Rosé – we think of casual spring and summer outdoor occasions shared with friends and family.  For us, this means barbeque and grilling over a campfire.  The weather is predicted to be in the 60s this week, so we are planning al fresco feast of barbequed chicken, cornbread, and broccoli slaw.
• Production: ~230 cases

2019 Seneca East Riesling

• Vineyard Notes and Winemaking:  This vineyard is located on gently sloping hillsides adjacent to some of the deepest parts of Seneca Lake’s East Side.  The depth of Seneca Lake provides temperature moderation which protects the vines from cold winter weather as well as spring and fall frosts. John Wagner, a 4th generation grower farms this gently sloping vineyard which rests on Lansing silt loam soil. We harvested the riesling grapes, then gently basket pressed the fruit, chilled the juice, and fermented it in stainless steel.  We stopped some batches before dryness in order to retain varietal character and vibrancy.
• Tasting Notes and Suggested Pairings:  This wine showed us some aromas of white peaches, pear blossoms, and pink grapefruit on the nose.  The palate is mouthwatering – delicious fresh ripe apricots and lemon curd are the primary notes.  The finish is quite long, and although this is a semi-dry Riesling the finish is dry, long, and tantalizing.   We thought that a seafood pairing would work nicely here… some basic pan-seared scallops in butter would be delicious on their own – the richness of the scallops would contrast nicely with the steely minerality of this wine.
• Production: 120 cases

2019 Pinot Noir:

• Winemaking Notes: This is our “classic” Pinot Noir made from grapes grown on several different Finger Lakes Vineyards. This year, 40 percent of the fruit was grown on our Estate Vineyard on Cayuga Lake, with the balance coming from Nutt Road and Elaine’s Vineyard on Seneca Lake, and Hobbit Hollow on Skaneateles Lake. We hand-picked then gently de-stemmed and optically sorted  them using cameras to evaluate the color and texture of each berry, and select only those which met our standards for the best possible fruit. Then we hand-sorted the stems and selected ~50% for inclusion in the 14 day fermentation. Finally, we gently gravity-flow transferred the wine into barrels for 12 months of aging in Francois Frêres French oak barrels.
• Tasting Notes and Suggested Pairings:  Notes of fresh raspberries on the nose.  Cherries, currants and savory umami notes emerge on the palate. The finish shows  medium-firm tannins and a beautiful, elegant, long finish.  Salmon continues to be our go-to for this wine – as it warms up, we are planning to enjoy a salmon niçoise salad with a rustic grainy mustard vinaigrette.
• Production: 484 cases

If you’re a wine club member, please join us for our virtual tasting of these wines at 6 p.m. EST on Thursday June 3rd! Susan will lead everyone through a live tasting of these wines on a member’s only zoom event (see your club email notification for registration details).  At the event, she will answer questions about the wine and offer suggestions for food pairings and drinking windows. 

If you’re not a wine club member, then why not join, while there’s still a chance to get the current allocation? 

We offer 3 membership tiers, Platinum, Gold and Silver. Within each tier, you choose between “Exclusively Red” – reds only, or “Eclectic” – a mix of reds, whites, rosé, and sparkling. Our Claddagh Club Schedule Page has the details on the wines included within each club tier for the current quarter, and the details on how to join.  

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