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2010 Red Wines: The Smiles Tell the Story

Long Island's "best red wines to date" promise intensity and ripe flavors.

Asked recently to describe the local 2010 red wine harvest with a single word, I blurted out "early" without giving it much thought. 

Harvest was early this year, after all. Most wineries were done picking 2-3 weeks earlier than average and over a month earlier than 2009.

After giving it some thought, I quickly relented when I realized that no single word can capture the quality of the 2010 growing season. Words like "outstanding," "amazing" and even "awesome," are flying around, but those all fall short and flat.

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Winemakers can be a hyperbolic when discussing their wines, but when I visited crush pads across the North Fork this harvest, the smiles on the faces of winery owners and winemakers alike told the entire story, even without a single word.

This was a unique, outstanding and potentially important, year for local wineries.

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The season started early, with bud break in early April "the earliest on record" according to veteran winemaker Rich Olsen-Harbich of Bedell Cellars. From there it was seven months of clear, sunny days with just enough rain sprinkled in to dodge drought conditions that can over-stress vines.

The much-celebrated 2007 vintage was a warm one too, but far different from 2010. Because the season started — and ended — earlier, the grapes retained much more natural acidity, with better pH levels than 2007.

Anthony Nappa, winemaker at Shinn Estate Vineyards described 2010, compared to 2007 saying "Just as ripe sugars and flavors but 2010 reds have better pH and more natural nutrition for fermentation. 2010 was a very hot growing season and a perfect ripening season."

Because of those pH levels, Nappa didn't need to add acid at crush and may not need to add any at all.

Perhaps the most unique part of 2010 is the fact that brix, a measure of sugar content, was at 'typical' levels early, but phenolic (flavor) ripeness lagged, meaning that if you picked based solely on sugar, you made a mistake.

"Flavor kicked in the last week or so of ripening around Columbus Day weekend," according Juan Micieli-Martinez, winemaker and general manager at Martha Clara Vineyards. Micieli-Martinez added that because ripeness came so early this year, he didn't make any sparkling wine.

More often than not, flavors and sugar levels mature closer together over the course a long, cool season, so this was something a bit new to local growers.

So what does it all mean? It means that local wine fans are in for a treat in 3-5 years when these wines start hitting the market.

All those sunny days mean increased UV exposure, which means lower levels of methoxypyrazines, the compounds that can give red wines underripe, bell pepper aromas and flavors. Even cabernet franc, notorious for its herbal, even vegetal flavors — even in warm years — may display little of that character.

And, because the flavors in the fruit are so ripe and intense, more winemakers are trying to extract more of it. Olsen-Harbich told me in an email that "Our maceration time for many lots is longer this year than in a less ripe year. We might hold some lots on the skins for as long as 50 days." Extended maceration is typically avoided in cooler years because it can lead to bitter, underripe flavors and character.

Even cabernet sauvignon, notoriously difficult to ripen on locally, came in ripe, mature and flavorful.

Olsen-Harbich, who has been making wine on Long Island longer than just about anyone summed up the season well, saying "I could not be happier with the quality of the 2010 vintage and in my 30 years I believe this year will make our best red wines to date."

Now we have to wait for the reds to finish fermenting before slipping into oak barrels to mature there for up to two years. They will then be bottled, perhaps age another year or more in bottle, and then be released.

Our patience will be rewarded.

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