Long Island's Vines

Fall is in full swing here on Long Island, with fall festivals a plenty every weekend from now through Halloween.  Unfortunately, the traffic is proof of that.  Pumpkin pickers and folks looking to get lost in a corn maze flock to the east end – hence the reason why we buy our pumpkins at our neighborhood farm stand and wait until after Halloween to reclaim our favorite east end haunts.  Once the ghoulies, goonies and gremlins make themselves scarce after Halloween, spend some relaxing weekends in November touring some of the vineyards.

As you take the leisurely drive east toward Long Island’s north fork, the idyllic scenery is peppered with beckoning farm stands bursting with colorful bounty and flora.  Interspersed among those farm stands you will pass acres of lush grape vines, standing like soldiers at attention as they await their deployment to the winemaking facilities that are so abundant in this area.

New York State is the third largest wine-producing region in the United States.  Long Island’s seaside climate and soil quality provide favorable conditions for growing and producing wine.  Since the establishment of Long Island’s first vineyard in 1973, the east end winegrowing region continues to expand nearly forty years later, boasting over fifty wineries to sip from.  While a vast array of varietals and blends are produced, Long Island’s most respectable achievements gravitate toward Bordeaux blends such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet Franc.  Most of the east end wineries are located on the north fork, many of them along the two main roads of Sound Avenue (County Rout 48) and Route 25. 

To visit the oldest winery, which was founded in 1973 by the Hargrave family and sold in 1999 to an Italian prince by the name of Marco Borghese, you will find Castello di Borghese nestled on Sound Avenue in Cutchogue.  For a reservation and modest fee, their ‘Winemaker’s Walk’ will take you on a guided stroll along the vineyard, a tour of the wine-production facility and barrel rooms and concludes with a tasting of several of their wines.  This popular touring option is available on Saturdays from November through May, and on Thursdays and Sundays from June through October, all tours commencing at 1 p.m.  If you opt for a more spontaneous sampling venture, the tasting room is open daily from May through December and on Thursday through Monday from January through April.  Their velvety smooth Meritage is exceptional and their Pinot Noir is the star of their winning lineup.

Occupying over five hundred acres, Pindar is the largest wine producer on Long Island.  Still under the original ownership of Dr. Damianos, Pindar was established in 1979.  This winery is located in Peconic on Route 25.   Pindar Vineyards prides themselves on their efforts toward sustainable agricultural practices and use of renewable energy, opting for organic composting over chemical fertilizers and pesticides.  In the closing months of 2011, a 100-kilowatt wind turbine was erected onsite and now supplies most of the energy used in the winery’s operations.  The vineyard grows seventy varieties of grapes, which are then crafted into a host of varietals and proprietary blends.  Pindar’s most notable award-winning blend is called Mythology, which I first enjoyed in 1997 and the 2007 Mythology is equally sensational. For white wine aficionados, the Sunflower Chardonnay and the Johannisberg Riesling have reaped favorable accolades, from myself included.  Pindar’s tasting room is open daily all year; complimentary tours are given at 2 p.m. from Memorial Day weekend through Labor Day weekend.  Be prepared for crowds, as the longevity of the winery and the variety of different wines make Pindar the island’s most popular winery.

My favorite winery on Long Island is Roanoke Vineyards, located on Sound Avenue in Riverhead, is owned by Richard Pisacano, who has been tending vines and producing world class wines on Long Island for over thirty years.  The mission at Roanoake is to create limited production artisanal wines of premium superb quality.  Winemaker Roman Roth has created three unique and exquisite blends: Blend One, a Cabernet Sauvignon base blended with Cabernet Franc; Blend 2, which is absolute red perfection, showcases Cabernet Franc as the headliner, blended with Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon.  Marco Tulio is the other blend in which the three aforementioned grapes come together in perfect harmony. Their staff is very outgoing, knowledgeable and eager to answer questions.  Roanoke’s tasting room is open daily.

Other notable wineries include Macari Vineyards in Mattituck, whose Merlot and Rose are both personal favorites of mine, and Osprey’s Dominion in Peconic, where an all-encompassing variety of wines are offered.  As you explore the area, fifty other wineries await your visit.   You will be able to purchase bottles of their wines, and many also offer decanters, stemware, corkscrews and other wine paraphernalia in their shops.  Some offer the opportunity to join their wine clubs, benefits of which may include discounts off of purchases made in their shops as well as receipt of featured bottles of wine on a monthly basis.  Many wineries feature live music performances and art displays at their facilities, check the winery’s website for dates.  The scenic ambience of their grounds have also made Long Island wineries highly sought-after venues for weddings that are sure to be elegant and sophisticated.

In between wineries, be sure to explore other gems that the east end of Long Island has to offer, from the farm stands and bake shops to the goat cheese farm and you-pick orchards along the way; not to mention a host of epicurean havens at which to pause for lunch.   By the time you turn around to make the return trek home, you will likely have picked up all of the makings of a perfect, Long Island grown dinner, starting with the perfect wine.

Something tells me that I will not get away with posting a blog sans a recipe.  Here’s a recipe for chicken Dijon, which does in fact include wine in the ingredient list.

Chicken Dijon

Ingredients:

2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

8 chicken pieces, on the bone, skin left on (thighs, legs, breasts or combo)

4 garlic cloves, minced

2 onions, thinly sliced

½ tablespoon fresh rosemary, finely chopped

½ tablespoon fresh sage, finely chopped

½ tablespoon fresh oregano, finely chopped

1 ½ cups white wine*

2 large leeks, thoroughly washed, halved lengthwise, thinly sliced crosswise

2 tablespoons Dijon mustard (I like Maille)

¾ cup heavy cream

3 tablespoons fresh parsley, chopped

Heat the oil in a large skillet over medium-high heat.  Sprinkle the chicken pieces generously with salt and pepper.  Brown the chicken pieces on both sides in the skillet, about 7 minutes per side.  Transfer the chicken to a plate.  Add the onions to the skillet and sauté until translucent, then add the garlic and sauté another 2 minutes.  Stir in the rosemary, sage and oregano.  Add the wine, the chicken and any juices that accumulated from the chicken.  Cover, reduce heat and simmer for about 30 minutes.  Stir in the leeks, cover once again and simmer for another 5-10 minutes, or until juices from the chicken run clear when pierced with a knife.  Transfer the chicken to a deep serving platter.  Stir the mustard and the cream into the skillet mixture.  Once combined, bring to a boil, reduce heat and simmer uncovered for 5 minutes.  Pour the sauce over the chicken.  Sprinkle with the parsley.  Serves four.

* Note: we have all spied the bottles in the supermarket that bear the atrocity of a label that reads “Cooking Wine.”  It comes in red, white, Marsala and even Sherry.  They are usually displayed near the vinegars.  Don’t even think about it!  These concoctions are NOT wine, they don’t taste like wine, they’re loaded with sodium and they will ruin your dish!  I cannot stress this enough.  The rule is simple: if it isn’t good enough to drink from a glass, it is not good enough for the pot either.  Use the same wine that you might drink; if you only need a small amount, open a nice bottle, measure out the required amount and then allocate the remainder to the evening’s wine glasses.  Alternately, you can keep a larger bottle of upper mid-level wine on hand just for cooking and save the best wines for sipping. 

Food for Thought

When one of Brian’s Facebook friends queried whether or not we enjoy wine, Brian naturally voiced his preference for craft beer.  Lest the polling individual believes that we are a stereotypical ‘beer, he said; wine, she said’ couple, let me say this: why can’t I have both?!  As it happens, I do enjoy both very much.  I will admit that wine is my preference, and there simply is not a beer worthy of accompanying an authentic Italian meal, in my humble opinion.  Then again, beer seems the only appropriate pairing for Indian fare.  That said, I love dark, creamy stouts.  I am also enjoying the season’s extensive lineup of pumpkin ales. 

Craft breweries are popping up everywhere.  On Long Island alone we have Southampton Public House, Port Jeff Brewery, Blue Point Brewery, Greenport Harbor Brewing Company and Long Ireland in Riverhead.  Brewing restaurants include Brick House Brewery in Patchogue, John Harvard in Lake Grove and Black Forest Brew House in Farmingdale.  A little further west we have Brooklyn Brewery, and Ommegang Brewery is producing world class Belgian style brews upstate in Cooperstown.

Several of these breweries have produced pumpkin ales.  It seems that every craft beer maker is jumping on the pumpkin ale bandwagon.  Of the two best pumpkin ales that I have imbibed, one hails from Greenport Harbor Brewing Company.  They called it Leaf Pile and the flavor was perfect for a fall refresher.  The number one rated pumpkin ale comes not from New York, but from Delaware: Dogfish Head’s Punkin never disappoints, year after year.  When you relax around the fire pit at your fall barbecues, enjoy some of the many wines and beers that Long Island has to offer.  For those who like neither, there are plenty of other autumn harvest libations to enjoy, including hard apple ciders, apple martinis and cranberry martinis.

Toys In the Kitchen!

Toys!  If you savor wines and look forward to uncorking a bottle each evening that was perfectly matched to your entrée, I recommend investing in the Metrokane Rabbit.  I love my rabbit.  Brian presented me with one as a gift one Easter and it has seen plenty of use ever since.  This device makes quick and easy work out of uncorking all of your wines.  No gourmet kitchen or bar should be without one.

Ingredient of the Month: Vinegar

From vin, meaning wine, we get vinegar.  Whether choosing a bottle of red or a bottle of white, vinegar adds a zip of flavor to any dish, from salads to desserts.  Myth number one: vinegar, it’s not just for salad dressing anymore!  Myth number two: while wine vinegar may be the most prevalent, vinegar can be produced from a host of other mediums, not just wine.

Allowing high quality wine to aerate slowly over a period of weeks or even months produces the best wine vinegar.  This oxygen exposure promotes the growth of acetobacters, the bacteria that converts the alcohol in the wine to acetic acid.  While the word vinegar elicits thoughts of wine, it can actually be made from anything that contains sugar.  One prominent example of this would be apple cider vinegar.

Vinegar has been utilized for centuries, once used both as a flavor enhancer and a preservative agent.  During the Middle Ages, seafaring crews seeking refreshment decided to bore holes in the casks that they were transporting, in a quest to imbibe a clandestine sampling of the wine.  Sounds a lot like the work of underage partying teenagers, does it not?  Once the casks were bored into, however, oxygen began its work and the wine would sour, thus the cargo became vinegar.

There are two general guidelines when selecting wine vinegar.  First, the longer the wine was allowed to aerate naturally, the better the vinegar will be.  Second, vinegar made from a particular wine, such as Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon or Champagne are going to taste better than generically-labeled ‘red wine vinegar’ or ‘white wine vinegar.’

Vinegar is also produced from rice wine, which is widely used in Asian cuisine, beer, raisins, fruit wines, such as raspberry wine, sherry, malt and palm.  I thought I had bragging rights on the inventory of seven to nine different vinegars that grace my kitchen cabinet until an acquaintance topped that number by leaps and bounds.

Balsamic vinegar is made specifically with the concentrated juice of the Trebbiano grape variety.  The aged vinegar is traditionally crafted in the Reggio Emilia region of Italy.  The best quality balsamic vinegars have been aged in several successive wooden casks for approximately 12-25 years.  Those aged for a minimum of 12 years bear the ‘aceto balsamico tradizionale’ label.  These exquisite, dark brown, mildly sweet nectars fall under the Protected Designation of Origin status. 

Balsamic vinegar offers the palate a perfect harmony of acidic and sweet.  Remember balking at the reference to desserts in the introductory paragraph to this post?  One of the most popular dessert uses for balsamic vinegar is to macerate strawberries in it, and then pour the strawberries over vanilla ice cream and finish with a sprinkle of freshly cracked black pepper.  The result is a complex symphony of flavors to keep your taste buds excited.

After cooking meats, fish or poultry in a skillet, vinegars are perfect for deglazing the pan and then drizzling over the meat.  When reduced with fruits, such as figs or cherries, balsamic vinegar adds a facet of flavor that renders the reduction perfect for glazing duck, pork roasts, pork chops or steaks.  A splash of balsamic vinegar adds the perfect finishing touch to caramelized roasted vegetables.  Naturally, we must not omit the extensive use of vinegars in the making of salad dressings.  Below, I have shared two of my vinaigrette recipes that I use extensively.

My fellow Long Island foodies, I must now recommend to you an intriguing and enjoyable shopping excursion.  The Crushed Olive is the mecca of oils and vinegars.  Of the two locations that I have frequented, the store in Huntington has the most extensive variety.  The stores are set up with metal casks of oils and vinegars.  Each cask has a dispensing spigot.  It is there for a reason, as you will note when you spy the dishes of bread cubes and miniature dispensing cups.  Sampling is strongly encouraged!  There are over two-dozen vinegars to choose from and an equally vast array of oils.   In addition to an 18-year aged traditional balsamic vinegar, flavored balsamics available include apple, black cherry, cranberry pear, tangerine, strawberry, raspberry, fig and even dark chocolate and espresso, just to prattle off a few.  Extra-virgin olive oil is offered, as well as olive oils infused with such flavors as blood orange, lavender, Tuscan herb, harissa, wild mushroom and sage, etc.  As we paid for our purchases on our last visit, freshly baked brownies were beckoning shoppers to taste them.  I was immediately in heaven as I savored one of the most classic flavor combinations of chocolate and orange, made possible by substituting the called-for vegetable oil with blood orange olive oil instead.  The flavor was sublime.  Black and white truffle oils are also available for purchase, as well as French walnut oil, almond oil and roasted sesame oil.  This is a flavorful and fun shopping experience, with shops located in Huntington, Stony Brook and in Sayville.  Their wares are perfect for amping up the flavor of salads.  The black cherry vinegar and the strawberry vinegar add a touch of summer to green salads, while nothing says fall more than the apple vinegar. 

Vinegars are excellent flavor enhancers in culinary projects, such as in my recipes for Braised Fennel with Apple Balsamic Vinegar and Brussels Sprouts with Bacon and Hazelnuts.

For traditional vinegar uses, here are two vinaigrettes that I make regularly for salads.

Balsamic Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

½ cup excellent quality extra-virgin olive oil

¼ cup quality balsamic vinegar

1 teaspoon salt

½ teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper

2 garlic cloves, minced

1 tablespoon finely minced Italian herbs (such as parsley, oregano, basil)

Whisk all ingredients together until well blended. 

This is excellent for any Italian salad, including a tomato and fresh mozzarella salad Caprese.  It also works nicely for coating vegetables that are destined for the roasting pan, and for marinating a steak.  It’s perfect for my roast pepper salad:

Roast Pepper Salad

Ingredients:

Balsamic vinaigrette (above recipe)

3 large red bell peppers

3 large yellow bell peppers

Preheat oven to 500-degrees.  Place whole peppers directly on a metal cookie sheet and place in the oven for 30 minutes.  Remove from the oven and immediately cover the whole sheet with foil, tucking the foil under the sheet all around the edges.  Allow the peppers to rest for at least a half hour, or longer until cool enough to handle comfortably.  Remove the foil.  Now the skin should peel right off.  As you peel the peppers, tear the peppers into strips and place the strips into a bowl.  Once all of the peppers have been peeled, toss the peppers with half of the vinaigrette.  Serve either chilled or at room temperature.

Champagne-Dijon Vinaigrette

Ingredients:

½ cup extra virgin olive oil

2 tablespoons champagne vinegar

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1 garlic clove, minced

1 teaspoon sea salt

½ teaspoon fresh cracked black pepper

Whisk all ingredients together until well blended.

This dressing works well for almost any salad, from colorful summer heirloom tomato salad platter to a tossed garden vegetable salad to a French salade Nicoise platter.  Here’s a nice salad to kick off a fall dinner, perfect when figs are in season.

Salad Greens with Endives, Figs, Walnuts & Cheese

Ingredients:

Champagne-Dijon Vinaigrette (above recipe)

6 cups mixed salad greens

4 Belgian endives, halved lengthwise, layers separated

8 fresh figs, halved vertically

1 cup crumbled goat cheese, Stilton, Roquefort or Gorgonzola cheese

½ cup shelled walnuts

Combine the salad greens and endives.  Arrange mixture among four salad plates.  Divide the cheese among the four plates and sprinkle over each salad.  Arrange four fig halves over each salad.  Sprinkle walnuts on top of each salad; then drizzle each salad with the vinaigrette.

Food for Thought

Just because the temperatures are descending, that doesn’t mean you don’t get to enjoy a really good salad anymore.  While the scorcher days of summer are conducive to dining on chilled main dish salads, fall gives rise to reclaiming the salad course as a satisfying opening act to any dinner.  After we have savored the last of the summer tomatoes, peaches and peppers, there is now a whole new palette for creating the perfect autumn salad.  Start with the background of mixed salad greens, perhaps with some endives and/or radicchio tossed in.  Add to the greens a quality cheese.  That can be crumbled goat cheese, any crumbled blue, such as Gorgonzola or Roquefort, or even thin slices of a Brie or Camembert.  Next, choose an autumnal fruit to add to the plate.  Choices include apples, pears, figs and dried cranberries.  Now for some crunch and healthy fats, toss in some walnuts, hazelnuts or pecans.  Finally, a drizzle of one of the above vinaigrettes will provide that finishing touch.