Good Food Revolution and the New York Wine and Grape Foundation present Taste NY…

Remember the world before the COVID-19 crisis? In March of this year the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, the LCBO, and a handful of boutique wine importing agencies launched an ambitious project to bring a showcase of some of the best wines of the Empire State to Ontario. The plan was to introduce local wine enthusiasts to treasures from Long Island, the Hudson Valley and the Finger Lakes through this promotion at the LCBO website, and make the wines available online… then COVID struck and like so many plans in March, things didn’t quite go as expected.

The good news is that the wines have been safely stored in the LCBO’s climate controlled warehouse and are still very much available. Regular GFR readers know we’ve been running a series with the NYWGF featuring the original eight New York State wines in the release, and they can all be browsed here. The other good news is that there is a ninth New York State wine that’s available through the LCBO that was added to the their online destination feature: the 2017 Paumanok Dry Riesling.

The 2017 Paumanok Dry Riesling is from the Long Island AVA, a region whose wines we rarely see in Ontario. The trouble with Long Island fine wines is that the restaurants and wine enthusiasts of New York City do their best to drink it all. The Paumanok offers an opportunity to taste a New York hospitality industry favourite from a small production winery founded in 1983. – Malcolm Jolley, September 2020

Jamie Drummond’s Notes on the 2017 Paumanok Dry Riesling

This North Fork of Long Island Riesling is a lovely taut example of this sub-region’s potential for the grape. This wine is somewhat linear and sequential in nature, exhibiting remarkable varietal typicity; this bottling simply screams RIESLING!, from that first sniff of fruit to the extended minerally finish.

The movingly expressive bouquet gives us crisp green apple, honeydew melon, pear, lemon/lime citrus, and wet pebbles, while the palate is bone-dry (4 g/L) and seriously zesty, with some snappy acidity that keeps one’s attention throughout. For me the main attractions were the underlying saline and mineral notes flowing from mid-palate through to the pleasurably persistent finish.

We don’t tend to see too many Long Island Rieslings in the market, and so to sample one of such crisp deliciousness and mineral complexity is a real treat.

Dry Riesling is always the boss when it comes to food pairings, but in this case this was especially enjoyed alongside a slightly spicy Thai Green Curry Chicken.

HOW TO GET THE WINE

The 2017 Paumanok Dry Riesling can be bought online at lcbo.com for shipment to home or a nearby store. There are also bottles of the wines at Select LCBO Vintages stores across the province, including in Toronto and the GTA, Ottawa, Kingston and even Thunder Bay. Click here to check which stores are stocking it. And the 2017 Paumanok Dry Riesling and all of the other eight Taste NY wines available in Ontario are featured and can be browsed at this special LCBO Discover The Wines of New York page.

Taste NY, launched by Governor Andrew M. Cuomo in 2013, highlights the quality, diversity, and economic impact of food and beverages grown, produced, or processed in New York State. Taste NY aims to create new opportunities for producers through events, retail locations, and partnerships.
The New York Wine & Grape Foundation is a Good Food Fighter. Please support the businesses and organizations that support Good Food Revolution.