Greetings from the Long Island Wine Council
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Despite the lackluster national economy, Long Island Wine Country has been a most popular destination. You, our clientele, have made that a reality, especially through your visits to the vineyards and wineries. Since January, through the winter Jazz Fest in February and March, April barrel tastings, May “Rosé Month” promotions and Memorial Day weekend, you've come in record numbers to “your wine country.”
Throughout the summer, whether it's your first visit to Long Island Wine Country or you're on a first-name basis with a number of the owners, you are invited to seek out wineries with action, such as live music, or find others with quiet, pastoral settings to soothe life's happenings. Pack a picnic or grab some deli sandwiches and uncork a Long Island wine at your winery grounds of preference.
The wines of your wine country have been gaining more and more recognition as they are sought after for upscale events in western Long Island and New York City — especially Manhattan, the world's most challenging wine-consuming arena. It's interesting to note that the Long Island wine region is the largest vinifera-grape (Cabernet, Merlot, Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Sauvignon Blanc and many others) winegrowing region in the Northern Hemisphere between California and Europe, with some 3,000 acres under vines. Small by world standards, but in the backyard of the world's most significant wine-consuming market.
With this in mind, the Wine Council has secured major State funding through the New York Wine and Grape Foundation and has begun the “New York City Marketing Initiative” — where David meets Goliath — for your Long Island wines. Already, a number of Long Island wines are available in New York City's daily Green Markets, a diverse array of farmers' markets with many locations throughout the city.
A public relations firm is now arranging Long Island wine tastings for the wine trade at various major events and for individual restaurants and major retailers. It's amazing to see first-hand the surprise and delight on the faces and in the voices of Manhattanites when they learn for the first time that they have a “local” choice of excellent wines.
At a major international wine symposium on cool maritime wine regions held on Long Island last August, all the international panelists, when asked what Long Island could do differently and perhaps better, answered, “Pick just one wine grape for your Long Island wine region.” In these panelists' home countries, they are allowed to grow only one or two varieties of wine grapes by law. Long Island's lone member of the panel proceeded to pour five different, excellently made white wines — none a Chardonnay — grown and produced on Long Island. He replied to their unanimous suggestion, “If we can do all of these so well, why should Long Island limit itself to only one wine?”
The diversity of wines produced in your wine country makes it unique among the world's wine regions. At least one wine made from each of the more than 20 different varieties of wine grapes grown here has garnered critical acclaim, whether from the traditional critics and wine bloggers, and now even wine Twitterers and their tweets. Your assignment, should you chose to accept it, is to hunt down and find what you enjoy the most. You have more than 40 wineries and hundreds of wines of many vintages to uncover. Leave no cork undisgorged.
Again, welcome, and enjoy the lazy, hazy days of summer in your wine country.
Christian F. Baiz III,
president
Long Island Wine Council