"The prefix is 516, the top of the dial…"

It’s unfortunate that “Long Island” aren’t words that trip off people’s tongues when the conversation turns to Bordeaux-style wines. The only US area that has managed to get itself into repeated pissing contests with the famed French wine region, in fact, is California. It’s the stuff of contests, books and Hollywood movies, and nowhere do you hear anybody name dropping “North Fork”, which is a sin that does a disservice not only to the wine makers in this region, but to US wine drinkers that are looking for great local wine. And with a growing season that’s about as similar to California’s as it is to Mexico’s, it’s a shame more wine drinkers don’t know that they can get US-made, Bordeaux-style blended wines that aren’t over extracted, over oaked or high octane.

Meritage wines (rhymes with heritage, not with pinotage so don’t mispronounce it or the wine police come and spank you) are the US equivalent of Bordeaux blends, which usually contain a combo of cabernet sauvignon, merlot, cabernet franc, petite verdot and/or malbec. Plenty of states in the US make meritage wines, but the big Kahuna is, of course, California. After that, most people think of Washington state, but what most don’t know is that there are just as many wineries in Washington that are part of the Meritage Association as there are in New York and even in Virginia. We can thank a combination of problems for this, including the fact that you just don’t find many New York wines on restaurant wine lists, and the fact that they don’t exactly line store shelves, either. Having to play Cinderella to the all-powerful step sister known as California just plain sucks, and if ever a wine region was deserving of a fairy godmother and a wand, it’s Long Island.

Not long ago, I had the opportunity to taste through a ton of Long Island wine at Brooklyn Uncorked. There were plenty of crisp chardonnays, boatloads of earthy cab francs and endless offerings of the ubiquitous merlot, but I went there with a singular focus—meritage wines. Why? Because US wine drinkers tend to gaze at the Pacific coast hypnotically, and someone needs to smack them out of there revelry and spin them in a 180. I adore smacking.

Long Island wines are the Rodney Dangerfields of the wine world—no respect—despite the fact that they tend to be better food partners than their west coast rivals…leaner, lower in alcohol and higher in acidity. The meritages are no exception, and their capacity to age is what really woke me up. Most clear cut example? Osprey’s Dominion. Tasting through several vintages of their “Flight” meritage made me understand just how much aging capacity there was for these wines. Are they delicious now? Sure. Will they be better in another 4-5 years? My money’s on that horse. I tasted back to their 2000 bottling and not only was it still kicking, it had plenty more leg room. Some vintages were fruitier, others earthier or floral, but all were in it for the long haul, and that fact is what many American wine drinkers are missing, though it’s not entirely their fault.

While wineries like Osprey’s Dominion, Macari Vineyards, Bedell Cellars and others are cranking out quality Bordeaux-style wines, the Long Island Wine Council seems to be sleeping on the job. People won’t ever start demanding LI wines if they don’t know how good they are, and how the hell will they ever know how good they are if marketing and PR for the region are inept? Will it take someone like Osprey challenging CA wine makers to a taste off? And even if they did, to what end would it be if the hallowed pages of WS and WE don’t talk about it? Every year I watch tourists wash over the streets of Manhattan to go visit the Empire State Building, MoMA, Times Square and the Statue of Liberty, and the overwhelming majority don’t think to include winery tours in their scheduled merriment…Not because they aren’t wine geeks, but because they have no idea there’s anything worth tasting east of the Mississippi.

Tagged as: Long Island Wine, Meritage