West Side Wine

One of the main things I tout about West Side Wine and my selections is that I won’t buy any wine that I haven’t tasted and do not highly recommend. Think about it. How can anyone speak about what they sell without knowing it and believing in it? At least that’s how I have to do it. 
Anyway, sometimes there comes a time when I am forced to commit to a wine before it’s in bottle and available to taste. This is called, imaginatively, a “pre-buy.” The importer and/or the distributor needs to know how much of a wine to order, so they have to get a commitment, untasted. An iffy proposition for the buyer, but if you familiarize yourself with the prognostications on the vintage, it reduces the risk.
Rosés are always first offered on a pre-buy basis. The grapes are harvested in the fall, bottled sometime in the winter, and shipped right away in the early spring for the prime enjoyment season — the summer. So there’s no lead time. A crap shoot? It can be. But so far, 2007 is proving to be amazing. We were in southern France last August, and were witness to amazing weather and a superb growing season. And guess what? Everything I’ve tasted from the southern Rhone, Provence, the Languedoc have been outrageous. This weekend I tried the Domaine Lafond Tavel….to die for. Look for Tavel, or anything from that part of the world.  Also excellent vintages were had in Italy, certain parts of Spain (not Rioja), South America, Northern California, and, yes, our own Long Island.  
You can check out my rosé picks here: Wine Guy’s Picks
They’re all here, or will be very shortly, so start sipping the ’07 pink. It’s summer in a glass.

You know you’re staying in a special place when the check-in area is a tasting room. Shinn Estate Vineyards is just such a place. We arrived mid-afternoon with gorgeous sunshine, met by Barbara Shinn and two empty glasses. Before we had a chance to get the room key we were tasting through all of their lovely, hand-crafted, organic, biodynamic wines. They (Barbara and her husband David Page) are pioneers in the North Fork organic movement. And it’s not only their grapes that are organic, but all of their flowers,fruits and vegetables as well. Barbara was actually brewing up some compost tea when we got there, soon to be placed into their vineyard irrigation system. All of the wines were wonderful, and I immediately placed an order for a few cases.
The Shinn Estate Farmhouse has four meticulously appointed rooms and the price includes an unbelievable breakfast prepared by David, who owned and was the chef for Home and the Drover Tap Room, late of Greenwich Village. They sold both restaurants to devote their full time to the vineyard’s 22 acres, and the Farmhouse. If you would like to die, go to heaven and live to tell about it, treat yourself to a night there. If there’s a void in your life in need of filling, this place might do the trick. Drop-dead sunsets are included.

Tuesday was the day Ellen and I had dreading for almost a year. It was time for Cathy, the wonderful and gorgeous black lab we’ve been fostering for the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, to go in for her training.  It’s a great program, but there comes a time when they want their dog back. We were bereft, so we had to come up with something that would help us get through that final goodbye. The Guide Dog Foundation is in Smithtown, Long Island, which is just a short ride to the East End.  So why not keep on going after we dropped Cathy off and drown our sorrows in the beauty of the North Fork and their wonderful wines?  I remembered reading about Shinn Estate Vineyards in Mattituck having the only B&B on a vineyard site in Long Island.  Perfect!  The wines are excellent, the weather forecast was perfect, and they had one vacancy (there are only four rooms.) This would help ease the pain.  Done.  So we drove drove out to Smithtown for our “exit interview” and the handover.  We did all of the final official formalities and braced ourselves for a sad, tearful, gut-wrenching farewell.  But that wasn’t Cathy’s agenda.  All she could think about was getting into the room with the rest of the other puppies and going nuts, something that she is extremely good at.  She literally dragged our puppy advisor into the kennel, and never once looked back.  Clearly, any void in her life was about to be  to be filled.  We looked at each other, a little relieved that she was so happy and a little pissed that she was so happy.  But after we got over ourselves and our bruised egos we were relieved that she made it so much easier for us. And on top of it, now we had this amazing two day mini-vacay to look forward to.  It was our turn to fill our, not so big as we thought, void.  Bring on Shinn Estate Vineyards.

Up at Yankee Stadium today, for a day game with the Indians.  My pal Lou and I were enjoying a pre-game Rolling Rock at Stan’s when we witnessed something interesting — a whole new way to drink tequila shots.  New, that is, to us two geezers.  Apparently you can enjoy a tequila shot by having your girl friend lie down on top of the bar, place a lemon slice in her mouth, fill her navel (preferably an innie) with the tequila and a dash of salt, and then offer it up to you out of that container. Then you can proceed to enjoy the lemon slice while it’s still in her mouth. This ritual was repeated several times with several different women, and several male and female tasters. Huh! Who knew? Is there no end to the imaginative ways one can enjoy a beverage?  Normally I would say don’t try this at home, but in this case I think home is the perfect place. There’s always next year’s Cinco de Mayo.  Boy, am I old.  And you thought Yankee Stadium was only about baseball.  Ay caramba!