Long Island Wine Trail

If Jay Gatsby were real and still dreaming of Daisy, watching the green light across the water of Long Island Sound, today he could do so while sipping locally grown wines by the score. Expanding rapidly since the 1970s, the Long Island Wine Trail now consists of over fifty wineries, most small and offering unique tasting experiences.

Technically, the Long Island Wine Trail is two separate trails: the North Fork Wine Trail and Hamptons or South Fork Wine Trail. Each has top tasting choices, with North Fork offering the largest collection of fine wineries.

Baiting Hollow Farm Vineyard is one strong North Fork highlight. It’s the place to try a rich Cabernet Sauvignon, a layered Merlot, and sweet Riesling grapes. Wine lovers can support more than just stellar vintages here, as the vineyard’s owners are involved in the rescue of horses, with a selection of the winery’s output dedicated to helping.

Bedell Cellars is a thirty-year winery proud to be the purveyor of wine served at President Obama’s 2013 election. Established some thirty years ago, Bedell specializes in sustainable, green wine making and grape growing practices. The winery produces labels such as Taste, Gallery, Muse and Corey Creek Vineyards, with tastings offered daily in a former potato barn on site.

Named for Long Island’s Orient Point Lighthouse, Coffee Pot Cellars produces small batch premium wine. The artisanal wines produced here include Meritage, Merlot, and a buttery Chardonnay. Not far away, at Jason’s Vineyard, oenophiles enjoy the Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot; Semillon and Syrah are the specialities at Jamesport Vineyards, which also produces a stellar speciality wine in its semi glace or ice wine. The winery’s 2009 Reisling features stone fruit notes, a flowery honeysuckle, and a dry finish.

North Fork is also home to Lieb Cellars, which includes a hard, dry sparkling cider in its line-up of red and white small batch wines. Each July, Lieb hosts the Annual Oyster Fest – nothing goes better with a fresh oyster than a blanc de blanc sparkling wine from the premiere Reserve Line or the more moderate Bridge Lane label crafted here. The winery’s 2013 Reserve Pinot Blanc
is dubbed their signature wine, with 2013 vintage redolent of rose petals and lemon grass, green apple and star fruit.

The family-owned Macari Vineyard created their first Cabernet Franc blend rose in 2013, but the winery has been a North Fork staple since 1955. Winemaker Kelly Urbanik’s 2012 Chardonnay Estate took the Double Gold in 2014’s New York Wine & Food Classic. This is a bright Chardonnay with strong notes of green apple, lemon, lime, and peach, steel fermented.

Visitors to the Martha Clara Vineyards will discover Robert Entenmann of the Entenmann’s bakery dynasty owns this cheerful winery, but there are no donuts or coffee cakes here. Instead, there are wines to taste that include a 2011 Viognier and a 2010 Syrah.

Eco-minded wine aficionados will be happy that Jamesport Vineyards uses sustainable farming practices, sponsors shellfish garden restoration, and offers free tastings and discounts to patrons returning Jamesport wine bottles for recycling. Their premium estate wines include Sauvignon Blanc, Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, and their stunningly rich signature Bordeaux red blend combining Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, and Cabernet Franc to create the
Mélange de Trois.

While there are far fewer wineries on the South Fork of Long Island than the North, there are a cluster of stellar producers including Charming Daughters, which utilizes wild yeasts along with commercial yeast, producing unique flavors and varieties such as Teroldego and Lagrein.

Wolffer Estate offers South Fork events such as Candlelight Friday tastings for a romantic way to sample their vibrant 2014 Trebbiano, a 2013 Sauvignon Blanc that’s both crisp and fruity, and layered reds such as the 2011 Cassango Cabernet Sauvignon that includes some Merlot from the oldest vines in the vineyard.

Gatsby or no Gatsby, the allure of Long Island and it’s wine trails remains high.