Grape expectations in the vineyards

North Fork Wineries

By Barbara Shea | Staff Writer

At am art-filled chateau amid a sea of vineyards, a trio plays mellow jazz as fledgling enophiles intently swirl, sniff, sip (and sometimes spit) -- trying to fathom the difference between claret and merlot.

The scene could easily be in Bordeaux or Tuscany, but this is a totally Long Island experience -- albeit one of relatively recent vintage. The chateaux are 20th or 21st century rather than 16th, and their owners not 10th-generation vintners but an assortment of artists, doctors and other entrepreneurs (including one movie mogul, one former Ivy League professor and one genuine Italian prince). The wines they produce on the North Fork already have gained worldwide acclaim.

But best of all, "NoFo" -- as the area has been trendily dubbed -- even outshines Europe's venerable wine regions in one key respect: It's little more than an hour's drive from home.

By filling their tasting rooms with art, music, informative programs and food-and-wine events in the tradition of more seasoned vineyards in Northern California's Napa and Sonoma valleys, Long Island's stylish wineries have turned the East End into a year-round tourist destination. Since many are family affairs, they feature a variety of child-friendly seasonal activities (and all stock water or juice for visiting kids as well as designated drivers). Also, their shops sell not only grape products such as jams and jellies but imaginative and well-priced themed gifts from crystal goblets to the inevitable T-shirt asserting "Life is a Cabernet."

Sunny NoFo's ideal growing conditions (better than the foggier South Fork's) explain why wineries are popping up like champagne corks -- in converted potato barns as well as distinctive new buildings designed to maintain the area's rustic character. The historic villages and low-key beach communities remain. It's just that now the main crop at many farms is grapes -- some 2,000 acres of them all told since the first planting in 1973 by industry-founding Hargrave Vineyard (now Castello di Borghese-Hargrave).

At last count, 20 vineyards -- from Aquebogue's Paumanok (its name the early Indians' word for Long Island) to Greenport's Ternhaven Cellars ("Last Winery Before France") -- were open to the public along the roughly 20-mile North Fork Wine Trail. Most are on -- or just a quick jog off -- the two parallel east-west arteries: Routes 25 and 48 (the continuation of Sound Avenue east of Mattituck). But the wineries are as different as their award-winning wines -- which have been served from the White House to China.

As well as daily tastings, many offer frequent guided tours of the wine-making process. Palmer has created an interesting self-guided tour, complete with a trivia quiz. Others offer at least a picture-window view of stacked barrels or fermentation tanks. As well as indoor tasting rooms, most also have outdoor decks or terraces overlooking fields of vines. The typical profusions of flowers today are simply decorative but at one time in Bordeaux, fragile roses were planted at the head of each row to warn of advancing root-killing blights. One winery, Galluccio-Gristina, invites visitors to walk into its vineyard, but most people reportedly take a few steps, sample one bitter-skinned grape and quickly retreat to the tasting room.

The price of popularity is that many wineries charge visitors a few dollars to taste each vintage (refundable with a purchase). Fair enough, most say. Palate ready? For the most accurate assessment, sample light wines before heavy, white before red, and dry before sweet. By the way, you won't see an Old West spittoon on the floor, but most tasting rooms have a more refined looking -- if still inelegantly named -- "dump vase" on the bar for purists who don't want to consume all the wine they swish over their taste buds. Most visitors, however, hesitate to waste a drop.