Long
Island Wineries
While we love all that NYC
offers, every now and then, we think it
is worth it to jump in the car and enjoy
the area outside the city. Invariably,
when we are plotting one of these
escapes, we think of Long Island, and of
the great wineries concentrated on the
North Fork. Here is a alphabetical list
of places we've visited on these tours:
Bedell
Cellars
36225 Main Road (Route 25)
Cutchogue, NY
Phone: 631-734-7537
The Bedell Cellars group now includes
three vineyards (Bedell
Cellars, Corey Creek Vineyards and Wells
Road Vineyards),
two tasting rooms (at Bedell Cellars and
at Corey Creek), one winery, and a
commitment to world-class wines. Founder
Kip Bedell is often called "Mr.
Merlot" because of his belief that
Long Island's North Fork has the perfect
climate and soil for producing great
merlot wines.
Broadfields
Wine Cellars
275 Clearview Avenue
Southold, NY
Phone: 631-765-6403
Broadfields is an artisanal winery
exclusively producing handcrafted red
wines from estate-grown grapes. The
husband-and-wife owners are lifelong wine
lovers with a vineyard management
philosophy that emphasizes low crop
yields and hand-harvesting of the best
fruit at the last possible minute to
capture all the flavors of the season.
You'll find Broadfields wines available
for tastings and purchase at The Tasting Room.
Comtesse
Therese
Union Avenue & Route 105
Aquebogue, NY
Phone: 631-871-9194
Theresa Dilworth, one of the owners and
the chief winemaker at Comtesse Therese,
is an international tax attorney who
obviously knows a lot about good wine:
her relatively new winery won plenty of
awards and accolades right out of the
gate. But while her merlot is getting the
media's attention, it is her big, oakey
chardonnay that we fell in love with.
You'll find Comtesse Therese wines
available for tastings and purchase at The Tasting Room.
Corey Creek
Vineyards
45470 Main Road (Route 25)
Southold, NY
Phone: 631-765-4168
Now part of the Bedell Cellars group (see
above), Corey Creek remains a boutique
vineyard nestled next to the Corey Creek,
an inlet that feeds into Peconic Bay. You
can taste their wines at Bedell Cellars
or at their own tasting facility, which
has a lovely deck overlooking the
vineyards.
Laurel Lake
Vineyards
3165 Main Road (Route 25)
Laurel, NY
Phone: 631-298-1420
Laurel Lake Vineyards blends one of the
oldest vineyards on the North Fork with
one of the newest winery buildings. Their
emphasis is on light, drinkable wine at
affordable prices. Their colonial-style
building and adjoining wrap-around porch
is the setting for live music most
weekends during the summer.
Lenz
Main Road (Route 25)
Peconic, NY
Phone: 631-734-6010
Year after year we look forward to Lenz's
sophisticated, well-balanced wines. We
agree with the Lenz promotional materials
that declare Lenz produces
"outstanding food wines which is
what we think a great wine should aspire
to be."
The Old
Field
59600 Main Road (Route 25)
Southold, NY
Phone: 631-765-0004
The Old Field sits on farmland that has
been family-owned and operated for five
generations. Look out for the hens and
roosters that strut around the barnyard
as you make your way to their cozy
tasting room. Enjoy some of their Pinot
Noir jelly on the crackers you nibble
between tastings of their premium red and
sparkling wines.
Osprey's
Dominion Vineyards
44075 Main Road (Route 25)
Peconic, NY
Phone: 631-765-6188
Named after the majestic fish hawk that
graces the summer skies, Osprey's
Dominion Vineyards touts their products
as "wines that soar above the
ordinary." We agree. Their pleasant
tasting room/store is adorned with art
featuring their namesake bird. They also
have a nice outdoor area where they hold
music events throughout the summer.
Paumanok
Vineyards
1074 Main Road (Route 25)
Aquebogue, NY
Phone: 631-722-8800
Walt Whitman featured the North Fork
region often in his poetry, describing
the caressing winds of the Atlantic, the
"healthy air and soil" and the
beauty of the "Isle of the salty
shore and breeze and brine." His
love of the earth and his use of the
Indian name, Paumanok, for Long Island
("Starting from fish-shape Paumanok,
where I was born") provide fitting
inspiration for Paumanok Vineyards, where
the owners believe in "growing the
wine" with an emphasis on the
intense care and development of the vines
in the fields. The result is
award-winning wines that are helping put
Long Island on the wine-lovers' map. The
winery is a renovated turn-of-the-century
barn surrounded by a spacious deck that
overlooks the vineyards.
Peconic Bay
Winery
31320 Main Road (Route 25)
Cutchogue, NY 11935
Phone: 631-734-7361
The General Manager of Peconic Bay once
said, "We want to stay small so that
there is enough time to taste every
single barrel and segregate the higher
quality lots from the rest." His
philosophy is evident in Peconic Bay's
consistent production of award-winning
and critically acclaimed wines. Tastings
are done in a Dutch Colonial-style barn
that also houses a pretty assortment of
wine-related gift items.
Pellegrini
Vineyards
23005 Main Road (Route 25)
Cutchogue, NY
Phone: 631-734-4111
The first thing you'll notice about
Pellegrini is the clean lines and crisp
design of its winery building and its
label, testament to Bob Pellegrini's
graphic design background. Although you
may be tempted to go straight to the
tastings, don't miss the chance to follow
their self-guided tour around their
production center to learn about their
winemaking philosophy. Your new knowledge
will pay off in an appreciation of their
elegant wines.
Pindar
Vineyards
Main Road (Route 25)
Peconic, NY
Phone: 631-734-6200
Enjoy Pindar for what it is: the producer
of commercial (rather than artisanal)
wine and the host of some really fun
events.
Pugliese
Vineyards
Main Road (Route 25)
Cutchogue, NY
Phone: 631-734-4057
Pugliese is small and friendly with
beautiful bottles hand-painted by one of
the owners. We are especially fond of
their ports and dessert wines.
Raphael
39390 Main Road (Route 25)
Peconic, NY
Phone: 631-765-1100
We love Raphael's glitzy,
Mediterranean-styled winery: the tasty
room is magnificent (it would be fun to
host a special catered event here) and
the store offers a dizzying array of
wine-related products in addition to
bottles of Raphael wine. Perhaps with all
this splendor, it is no surprise that we
are always seduced into buying more
bottles of their wine than we really
should, given the prices here in relation
to other area vineyards. Unfortunately,
we invariably get the wine home and
wonder why we liked it so much.
Ternhaven
Cellars
331 Front Street
Greenport, NY 11944
Phone: 631-477-8737
As the most easterly winery on the North
Fork, Ternhaven proclaims that they are
the "last winery before
France." By even the standards of
Long Island producers, Ternhaven is tiny
(their production goal is 600 to 700
cases a year) and their location in a
former gas station/garage hardly seems to
have the pedigree of all the 100-year old
barns they compete with, but their wine
is well considered and worth the extra
miles.
Wolffer
Estate
139 Sagg Road
Sagaponack, NY 11962
Phone: 631-537-5106
Wölffer Estate calls themselves "an
American winery in the classic European
tradition." You'll see the European
influences in the Tuscan-style building
and the imported French oak barrels. The
American influences are reflected in the
emphasis on merlot and chardonnay wines.
Directions
To visit the North Fork wineries, take
the last exit off the Long Island
Expressway (#73) to County Road 58, which
becomes Route 25 (Main Road). Green
"Wine Trail" road signs will
guide you to the wineries.
To visit the South Fork
wineries (the Hamptons Wine Trail), take
the Long Island Expressway to exit #70,
then drive south along County Road 111,
which connects with Route 27 East.
Continue, following the winery signs.
To avoid backtracking, you
can travel from one Fork to the other
using the ferry boats which link
Greenport, Shelter Island and Sag Harbor.
You'll use Route 114, no matter which
direction you are coming from.
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