Every now and then you have to leave the city. Yes, it can be difficult to know that where you going may not have a Whole Foods in a five mile radius, there may be no bodega selling beer at 5am and chances are the cheese selection may be limited to cheddar and swiss, however, as Gothamist discovered on our weekend wine tour of the Hudson Valley, there is a world of alcohol out there just waiting to be drunk.
Since we had never traveled to the Hudson Valley, we selected which wineries to visit based on a quick google search and chatting up the locals once we got there. Our game plan was to visit: Rivendell Winery, Adair Vineyards and Millbrook Vineyards and Winery.
Rivendell Winery: We were quite excited to visit Rivendell since it is under the same ownership of one of our favorite wine shops in city, Vintage New York. The winery offered tastings of wines from all over New York, including Long Island, Hudson Valley and the Finger Lakes. Since we were in the Hudson Valley we decided to stick with the Rivendell wines. Overall, we were disappointed with their wines - they lacked acidity and were unbalanced. However there was one wine that pleasantly surprised us: the Rivendell Dry Riesling, $15.99. This wine had great peach and apricot notes. This winery is worth a visit, but perhaps you may want to stick to the Long Island wines.
Adair Vineyards: When we pulled up to Adair Vineyards, we thought we might have made a wrong turn into someone’s family reunion. There was a group of people gathered on the lawn in front of a modest red barn. They were dancing to music, eating BBQ and relaxing on lawn furniture. Turns out, we arrived during their Cajun Festival. Who’s so lucky? We are. We stopped in the red barn to do a free tasting of Adair wines. These wines were quite different, just like the winery. All the wines are made from local grapes like: Seyval, Frontenac and Marchal Foch. While they tended to be a little heavy and lacked complexity they were unique and full of personality.
Millbrook Vineyards and Winery: Millbrook was hands down our favorite winery of the trip. The tasting house perched on top of the hill was breathtaking and the wines were mouthwatering. When you arrive you can purchase two tasting options: the regular tasting for $6 and the reserve tasting for $12. We did both and tasted many fabulous wines. From the regular tasting our two favorites were the 2004 Tocai Fruilano, $13.49, a great white wine for summer that had wonderful fruit and floral notes and the Hunt Country Red, $13.49, which is a blend of Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Syrah and Cabernet Franc. The Reserve tasting featured an estate bottled Chardonnay and three Pinot Noirs from land that they own in California (yeah, it’s kind of cheating but they were so good).
The trip was perfect, well almost; we couldn’t get a dinner reservation at the Culinary Institute of America. Apparently we were not the only ones leaving the city. It’s times like this we wish you would just stay home.
