Shinn Offers Free Tastings, Contests to Attract Locals

As winery tourism undergoes its usual seasonal decline, one North Fork producer is launching a program to attract locals to its tasting room.

on Oregon Road in Mattituck says it will offer free tastings to residents of Southold and Riverhead towns between Jan. 14 and Apr. 1 and offer them an opportunity to win a large format bottle or case of wine. The complimentary tastings are limited to one a month.

Tastings at Shinn normally cost from $2.50 each to $12.50 depending on the number and kinds of wines tasted.

The promotion is aimed at giving back to the year-round residents who support their local businesses, said winery co-owner David Page. 

"We need to help connect people to each other," he said. "We're always interested in having the local community be strong."

Page and his wife and winery co-owner, Barbara Shinn, supported local businesses when they operated their Home Restaurant in Manhattan's Greenwich Village, he said, noting, for example, that during a power blackout they fed local people for free at their eatery, which is still in operation under new ownership.

Local visitors to the Shinn tasting room will receive a short, fun quiz dealing with local trivia. Those who answer all the questions correctly will be entered into a monthly drawing for a magnum bottle (the equivalent of two 750 ml bottles) of Shinn Estate Merlot. A regular bottle retails for $25. There will also be a grand prize drawing at the end of the season for a 12-bottle case of Shinn Estate Merlot. Page said the quizzes are still being developed.

Page said locals probably won't have to present IDs to get the free tastings.

"We'll figure it out," he said.

Winter, particularly after New Year's Day, is a slow time for East End wineries, which primarily draw visitors from elsewhere on Long Island and from the tri-state region.

Nevertheless, Page said he sees many New York City residents trekking out to the North Fork all year long and noted that many tasting rooms, formerly closed during the winter months, now remain open, at least on weekends.

"It's certainly a great idea,"  Steve Bate, executive director of the , said of the Shinn promotion. He said he was not sure if any other winery had tried something similar.

Off-season tourism in recent years has received a boost from the Long Island Wine Council's fourth annual Jazz on Vine Long Island Winterfest, which begins Feb. 12. The fest, which runs through Mar. 20, features six weekends of jazz concerts at winery tasting rooms and other venues across the East End.

Bate said tasting room traffic has climbed 400 percent since the first year of the fest, though attendance was flat last year due to the unavailability of grant money to market the event.

Will other wineries follow Shinn Estate's lead? One, in Aquebogue, likely won't, said winemaker Kareem Massoud, noting that tastings essentially are free to visitors who buy three bottles of wine.