From the Cellar—two exciting releases
by Staci Nugent

For our customers who have been patiently waiting for nearly a year — the 2005 Gewürztraminer has finally been released. This year's offering is brimming with orange peel, honeysuckle, nutmeg, and peach aromatics. This fragrant wine is finely flavored, full-bodied, crisp, and long on the finish. The 2005 Gewürztraminer is a unique and powerful wine. The growing season was warm and extended well into late summer, which led to extra ripe fruit, unusually high in sugar. This resulted in a truly exceptional wine with over 15 percent alcohol! We recommend you order the 2005 Gewürztraminer as soon as possible to ensure availability.

Another new release from the cellar is the 2004 Pinot Noir. This elegant wine enhances so many of your favorite dishes. With its vivid fruit flavor on the mouth, integrated tannins, and refreshing acidity, this is a Pinot that will balance with grilled meats, salmon, or even pasta with a cream sauce. The complex aromatics, including earth, oak, red cherry, and cloves, will pique your interest and further enhance your dining experience. Growing and cellaring the finicky Pinot Noir is considered a labor of love and we certainly concur with this sentiment. We do hope our customers enjoy the 2004 Pinot as much as we adore the challenge of producing it.

Vineyard Report
Our Customers often ask, “How can I purchase Lamoreaux Landing wines?”

They frequently ask while tasting wines at the winery, or they inquire by e-mail or telephone. It's an easy question to answer because the delivery methods are many. But first, some background. Our production of particular varieties varies somewhat from year-to-year. We're considered to be one of the medium size wineries of the Finger Lakes Region and we may, from time to time, have more of one variety than another. There has been incredible interest for our wine from retailers, and because our wine is quite national as well as international in its distribution, (garnering a surprising following from Sweden to Malaysia); it is increasingly difficult to allocate our production. Our Web and mailing list customers, as well as those who come to the winery, are a priority and, as always, we invite you to be a part of this growing group.

There is a significant amount of wine sold to distributors to provide for restaurants and wine shops in New York State. Not all of our wines are released to the distributor. Our NV Cabernet Franc and 05 Gewürztraminer were not released to them during this past summer. Likewise, our 04 Pinot Noir will only be available at the winery. We'll continue to alert you, on the Web site and with the Newsletter, to those wines that are available only at the winery.

If there's ever an occasion where you would like to ensure availability of a particular wine for an upcoming event, such as a wedding, just contact us and we'll hold an amount until you either pick up the wine at the winery or have us release the wine for shipment. Our goal is to continuously ensure your ease and ability to purchase and enjoy Lamoreaux Landing wine.

Mark J. Wagner, Owner

Wine Tasting is Subjective — Ahh, the Power of the Senses
by John Merrill

If you are tuned into the writings (and ravings) of wine writers, you will have noticed that emphasis on types of wines and vintages has taken on a whole new meaning. Noteworthy critics have often lambasted Finger Lakes red wines in general and, consequently, distribution of these wines became laborious for many wineries. Critics praised our Cabernet Franc varieties (especially the 01 and 02 vintages), and thus the demand was staggering. In marketing language, is this called 'hype'? Shouldn't the furthest thing from aesthetic judgment be the world of rating numbers?

And yet, in this wine world, we live and breathe with ratings and other offerings of the wine scribes. I am not distressed with wine writers; they educate us on those wines we do not know, and direct us to wines we might not normally try. Most importantly, they encourage consumption of wine — and that's a great thing. 'They' have introduced our T-23 un-oaked Cabernet Franc to many of our customers who might not have sampled a wine that varied from the traditional method of production. Their work can be tedious, requiring enormous concentration and focus, and suggesting exactness — yet criticism is anything but exact.Their opinion is, in a word, subjective.

I am, therefore, sometimes perplexed with the consumer who follows a critic's gospel with blinders on, with no desire to step from the writer's oft-narrow path. Tasting wine, enjoying wine, is so very subjective! One person's 95 rating is another's 85. I have been in many tastings with scores of extremely qualified wine professionals, tasting multifarious wines. And not once has there ever been a consensus that a particular wine was favored by all. Most often, I found the opposite to be true. Disparity of opinion in wine tastings is as usual as disparity of opinion on politics, or the disparity of opinion in a cheese tasting. As it should be!

A few weeks ago, principals of one of the major Southeastern United States wine distributors enjoyed a sampling of our wines. They courteously asked if they could taste some older vintages of our Cabernet Franc. Two hours later, having opened many vintages, the team disagreed on a favorite vintage, yet unanimously agreed on how appealing the '02 vintage was.

The moral of this story? Don't be overly influenced by the 'wine scribes.' Go your own path when exploring wine.

Tasting Notes: We do our best.
by John Merrill

I have frequently admitted to Mark that I suffer from writer's block. However, I haven't copped to my worst affliction: hitting the wall when it comes to helping write wine tasting notes, or even being able to verbalize them. At one time, I prided myself on my wine tasting notes. I could taste a wine and write notes that even years later I could return to and be confident that they not only reflected what I thought of the wine on that occasion, but accurately predicted what I thought that the wine would do over time. At some point I tired of writing notes (and later trying to decipher them) and began to rely more on my memory.

Writing tasting notes is very personal. When contributing to a newsletter, you have to tread a very thin line. You need to express yourself honestly while trying to convey a sense of excitement about the wines and communicate in a way that the reader, with very different expectations, will understand. Often Staci and Mark will write their notes and as I read them, I realize that the only problem is that my expectations are different than theirs. Staci does a terrific job writing about what the wine represents. She talks about flavors, aromas, and textures of the wine.

Mark thinks more about the personality of a wine; it's history, tradition, and the character of the vintage and the specific wine. When I think about a wine, it is against my less extensive background of tasting and my expectations. Together we, and others at Lamoreaux Landing work to describe each and every new wine that is released.

Food and Wine Pairing