Days of Wine & Symposia (Part II)
As noted in Part I of this article, the Stony Brook Center for Wine, Food & Culture, along with the New York State Grape & Wine Foundation and the Long Island Wine Council, hosted a two-day Symposium on the Art of Balance: Cool Climate/Maritime Wines in a Global Context.
Building on the momentum established the previous day, Steve Clifton, of Brewer-Clifton and Palmina, launched into a discussion on terroir, which centered on the premise of owning the place that you are and celebrating that uniqueness and diversity. Coming from the Santa Rita Hills’ unusual climatic conditions of a cool climate with a nine month growing season, Steve explained how marked differences exist even within this relatively small AVA. Accordingly, it has taken the last 20 years to figure out which varieties will thrive in which areas. Poured wines included the 2007 Chardonnay from Brewer-Clifton and the 2006 Barbera of Palmina.
Shifting from Chardonnay to Sauvignon Blanc, the next presentation featured Pascal Jolivet from his eponymous winery in Sancerre, France. Pascal provided a look at how his definition of natural winemaking translates into the processes (or lack thereof) in the winery. In this vein, his white wines are not clarified nor are any enzymes added, relying completely on indigenous yeasts, as opposed to cultured yeasts, to ferment the juice. His Sauvage and Indigene wines, both from 2006, were poured for participants.
Providing a voice from the Long Island wine region, Lenz’s winemaker, Eric Fry, gave a humorous review of the history of the region, breaking up the time line into four distinct phases: pioneers, professionals, marketers and garagistes. Eric pointed to the diversity of the region, including the grape varieties, styles and nationalities/culture of the people involved. Despite this chaos, as he described it, he felt that there was a convergence of styles within the region as local winemakers taste each other’s wines and share their vinification practices with one another. Reflecting the diversity of wines produced in the region, five wines were tasted: Lenz Gewurztraminer 2007, Paumanok Chenin Blanc 2007, Channing Daughters Tocai Friuliano 2007, Palmer Riesling 2007 and Raphael Petit Verdot 2005.
The final presentation was given by Jacques Lurton whom, with his brother Francois, has wine projects in France, South America, Australia and Spain. Jacques addressed the Old World concept of viticulture, noting that there had been a natural selection of varieties developed over centuries and that most grapes in Europe seemed to be planted at their cool climate limit. He acknowledged that these varieties can thrive in more heat, but that this was really only discovered once the vines had been transported to the New World. Coming from a family entrenched in Bordeaux, Jacques also spent considerable time discussing the advantages to producing multi-variety wines, rather than single variety wines.
The Symposium culminated in another panel discussion, this one with Kurt Eckert of Polaner Selections, providing the industry perspective in terms of being able to sell these wines. While he suggested that winemakers need to keep the end user in mind when producing wines, Kurt countered this with the acknowledgement that with the right language, these wines could be successfully described and marketed to consumers.
