Balanced, depth, earthy, tannic, mellow, long, big, berry, finish and of course grapy. These, among other adjectives were heard throughout the lower concourse of the Javits center yesterday in NYC. Thanks to a friend volunteering at the second annual NY Wine Expo, Lisa had an extra ticket to give to me for this big, commercial and very bustling wine tasting event. Unlike the SF Bay area, wine events in NY are very much in the minority here, however, with the expanding grape fields of the North Fork Long Island and Hudson Valley regions of the state just starting to build a base and reputation for wines, here’s to more of these type of events.
The expo featured over 170 different wineries and distributors pouring hundreds of different wines, a few food purveyors, art dealers and lifestyle media outlets. I was rather unimpressed with the limited presence of NY wineries, I would have thought that being held in NY, they would have dominated the booths.
The event is held for three days, including seminars and product/cooking demos. Only being there for one day and a few hours I did get a chance to check out Martin Yan’s demo. He claimed that his knives and materials for the demo did not make it through the travel restrictions and so I sat through half of his discussion on how to use various Chinese ingredients effectively. Did you know there are 105 different flavor profiles of soy sauce?
There were some average wines and a few good ones, however, realistically after 40 or so, my pallet was destroyed and everything just melded together. I met John L. Morace owner of Podere San Luigi vineyards located just south of San Gimignano in Tuscany. I tasted several of his wines including a 1998 SuperTuscan made from 85% Sangiovese and 15% Cabernet Sauvignon, a 2001 100% Sangiovese and a 2000 Aprelis, all which were good. Cotes du Rhone had some excellent offerings as did the South Africans.
Here’s a list of some of the ones I remember tasting and liking enough to mention here.
- Cotes du Rhone: Belleruche, Parallele 45 and Vidal-Fleury were all good
- “A Passion For Portugal“
- Moscatel de Favaito aperitif was excellent from Portugal as well
- Italian Wines: Podere San Luigi
- South Africa Wines
- Viansa Italian Village Wines [Sonoma, CA]: Thalia Sangiovese 2005 with berry notes and teh 2005 Prindelo which is a blend of Primitivo and Zinfandel
- California Central Coast: Michael David Wines specifically the Earthquake Petite Sirah
- Greek Wines from Hellas Import: Katogi Red & Strofila Xinomavro and the 2003 Katogi Purple Earth
- Australian Wines: Hillinger ‘Eveline’ Pinot Noir 2005 was nice as was the Anton Bauer Cuvee 11 Wagram 2005 which is a blend
- Tamari РTorront̩s was good; and the Mi Terru̱o Reserva Malbec 2007 from Argentina excellent from what I remember
- I also had some Blue Moon and Magner’s Irish Cider at the hall as well
- Cigars from Rocco Gaetano D’Angelo
- Hummus from Tribe
I spent about 4 hours wondering up and down the isles trying only the red offerings, with only one day to taste I had to limit to wines I prefer to drink regularly. The busiest booth was actually the cheese stand which I tried to wait in line for twice, both times forgoing the food for more berry goodness.
Time Out NY, Yelp, Jet Blue, Wine Spectator, D’Angelo cigars, Tribe hummas, some artists, Wine-Searcher.com, a few other food stands, TheWineHub.com , and a terribly produced lifestyles magazine called “Upscale” were all non wine booths at the show. Even with all the wine pour, these extra offerings didn’t impress me enough to want to pay $95, the full price for this event. If that was a two day cost, that might be more palettable.
I appreciate greatly the opportunity to go to this event and thought I’d share some of the photos and education I’ve picked up from the event regarding wine & food pairings. If I get another discounted opportunity to go, I would.
Beyond the oldest rule of offering red with meat or white with fish or fowl, there are some general guidelines that might be useful when selecting wine to enhance a meal.
~ Select a light-bodied wine to pair with lighter food, and a fuller-bodied wine to go with heartier, more flavorful dishes.
~ Consider how the food is prepared (grilled, roasted, or field, etc.) and what type of sauce or spice is used.
~ For every food action, there is a wine reaction.
~ Sweet foods can be offset by an off-dry (slightly sweet) wine
~ High acid foods go well with wines higher in acid (Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Grigio, Pinot Noir or White Zinfandel)
~ Bitter and astringent foods can accentuate a wine’s bitterness but can be complimented with a full flavored fruity wine (Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot)
~ Big tannic red wines will go best with classic grilled steak or lamb chops as the fat in the meat will tone down the tannin (bitterness) in the wine.
The full gallery of photos from the event is here.
I picked up tickets last week for the 
Event venues signed with services like TM and Live Nation to expand their promotional reach, and sell out their events. In the internet age, these shows are primarily artist driven not venue driven, so the need for additional promotion through a national ticket service provides marginal benefit to them and they are loosing the processing fees by giving this up to TM. 
Last Saturday we headed out to Brooklyn for the opening party for Nunu Chocolates in Brooklyn. I was introduced to Andy and Justine Pringle’s fine nuggets of dark caramel salted goodness via friends during Christmas and picked up a few boxes for family-friends at their Union Square holiday booth.
