Besides the usual French-American hybids like Seyval and Vidal Blanc, Hopkins has some surprisingly good vinifera varietals–the European wines. I’m sporting a glass of Beck’s Beer in the picture (this was lunch), but at dinner I had a Hopkins Cabernet Franc. Apparently Litchfield County, CT, favors these grapes, because it was, as I recall, full and pleasing, not the usual thin off-flavored red I’m accustomed to from most East Coast vineyards. The 2006 vintage is listed on their Web site at $20.95/btl, a good value. But just you try to find these in local shops. Nada. I’m recommending these wines in case you’re traveling to or through Western Connecticutt and want to make a stop. Now that’s a good idea for a vacation. In fact, wineries are found in lots of places around the country. At one time, I vowed to try a wine from every state. I don’t think I’ll make it, but I’ll report on as many different ones as I’ve had.

Schoonmaker treats everything from geographical regions (with some maps), to grape varietals, wine terms, a breakdown of growers within each delimited region and (less helpful in a printed encyclopedia), vintage charts. There are even tips on serving. So if you’re serving guests postprandial walnuts, you know to pour Port, sweet Madeira, or sherry at room temperature. For a beginner or wine connoisseur alike, this is one book to have at hand.

If anyone has the newest edition, I’d like to know what improvements it has.

Another day on the bikes, and another winery to break up the ride. Even though Hauser Estate Winery has  been around for less than a year, it’s already showing it means business. But its stylish tasting room on a ridge was a bear to pedal to.

The winery is at 410 Cashtown Road, in Biglerville, PA. When we saw it, our hearts sank. A narrow, gravel path wound a mile up the hillside toward the building. Alan’s bike managed to stay upright, but my recumbent simply couldn’t cope with the loose surface, so I walked–in cycling shoes.  

When we got to the “summit,” a spectacular view of the vineyards and the valley spread out below us. The wrap-around windows in the new tasting room take full advantage of the location, although at tens of thousands of dollars, the winery is not about to pave the road to help cyclists reach it.

Tasting here is $2 per person, and they poured a little more generously from the 9 selections offered: a sparkling peach wine, three hard ciders (from dry to sweeter), various varietals, and an apple wine. It was a very busy tasting room, which the young women pouring tried to control by timing the tastings every half hour. But you cannot time eager tasters. 

Our impressions: There was an unmistakable, and pervasive, undertone of dairy to everything on the list. Sometimes it was redolent of fresh silage, sometimes more cheesy. Perhaps Alan and I had been pedaling too long amid the surrounding cow pastures. The peach bubbly ($17.99/btl or $5/gls) was quite dry, and pleasant, but for that faint dairy-air. The pourer told us that the hard ciders, which were fizzy and foamy, were “carbonated.” I wondered why this would be necessary under natural fermentation. But we did not tour the wine-making operations to ask further questions. Among the better selections, the 2008 Chardonnay ($17.99/btl) was light and dry with a hint of butteriness that is characteristic of a secondary fermentation, when malic acid gives way to lactic acid (hmm, that dairy-ness?). But thankfully, it wasn’t heavily oaked, like many California Chardonnays. The Cabernet Franc Rose was also light and pleasant, but the 2007 Chambourcin ($14.99/btl, $6.00/gls), a French-American hybrid, was a bit gamey for my taste. Again, I think Pennsylvania does better with whites.

None of the varietal  wines were estate-bottled, since the vines here are only 3 years old, too young yet to produce a decent vintage. Other Pennsylvania vineyards supplied the fruit. But improvements are sure to come as the vintners have more control over the fruit.

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Every Memorial Day Weekend, my friend Alan and I take a three-day bike trip. This year, we settled on the Gettysburg region in south-central Pennsylvania. Along with great scenery, we discovered a small viticultural area in Adams County. Our first stop: the Adams County Winery.

The farm winery in Orrtanna is 8 miles west of Gettysburg, off Route 30, and the tasting rooms are open every day from 10 to 6. The vineyards sweep up against the foothills of the South Mountains in a very picturesque setting. Operating since 1978, the winery’s tasting rooms are in a large barn, where Alan and I stopped for a free sampling of 8 wines of our choice. All the wines’ fanciful names are trademarked by Hiwassee Acres LLC, and it was hard to judge just what was in them without advice from the pourer. We tasted from dry to sweet, white to red. My hunch that the whites would be more attractive than the reds was borne out in the flight of tastings. Our favorite was the very first, “Stray Cat Strut” ($13.98/btl), which was a relatively dry French American hybrid, the Vidal Blanc. These are always simple, fruity, charming whites, even when dry. We were told that a customer favorite, “Tears of Gettysburg,” was a white blend of hybrids and Niagara. Far too sweet for me, and the Niagara added a native foxy flavor slightly reminiscent of high octane petroleum. “Sunoco 93,” I said. The only other one that was somewhat attractive to me was “Ruby Rose” ($11.98/btl), whose grape (or grapes) was not identified, and I don’t remember what it was. The full red “Seducente” ($17.98/btl) was an oddity. The pourer confided to us that it was made with the little-known, and little-grown, Limberger grape, which sounds so much like a certain cheese that no wonder they want to call it something more seductive. In any case, it was a somewhat thin, flinty drink. Alan and I looked at each other and said “Iron filings.”

Alas, the winery produced only a very limited bottling of “John’s Old-Barrel Chardonnay,” ($24.98/btl), which sounded very attractive, but not available for tasting. You’ll have to take their word for it that it’s worth the price. In my impression, these were typical Pennsylvania wines, fruity, somewhat foxy tasting with the labrusca varietals blended in. The winery imports 60% of the grapes it vints from other PA vineyards, and grows the rest.

Sonoma and Napa are the two big wine valleys in California. But an up-and-coming Central Coast region is starting to get some notice–Paso Robles

My wife and I took a brief detour from a longer trip in California in 2005, spending an afternoon exploring some of the byways of Paso Robles and just a few of its wineries. Unlike the wine-thoroufare that winds around the Napa Valley (with all its tourist traffic), the roads to Paso Robles wineries branch off and away from the main drag, Route 101, which the town straddles. It’s due east of San Simeon, the Hearst estate, which is on the coast highway. The land is rolling and open, with nice vistas. It’s sun-baked, being a bit inland, but there was always a cool, stiff breeze, presumably from the ocean.

We visited three wineries in the time we had: Jan Kris, a small estate with a very nice Cabernet Sauvignon; Meridian Vineyards, where we also tried a Cabernet Sauvignon; and Eberle, where we sampled, among other things, a rather potent (16% alcohol!) Zinfandel from 35-year-old vines in the Remo Belli Vineyard. (I say “we” but my wife can’t drink fermented beverages, so it’s just I.)

My impression is that Paso Robles wines tend to be meatier than counterpart varietals from Napa or Sonoma. They’re fuller and deeper, but with perhaps less subtlety. I haveordered them in restaurants back in New Jersey when I can, to see whether my vacation impressions have held up. It’s definitely red wine country. Some larger wineries have staked out land here. But the charm is in the smaller, less-well-known operations, where you can order things you won’t find on our shelves.

And the small town (you may have seen it on TV during the infamous trial of Scott Peterson) has a number of sophisticated restaurants. But it’s not overcrowded. If you’re in California, and you happen to be traveling between San Francisco and LA, it’s well worth a stop.

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My interest in wine started when I was an editor at Penn State’s Agricultural Communications office in the mid-1970s (it’s now called something else, as different media have taken over). I was given the task of editing a revised edition of a slick book, Winemaking as a Hobby, written by Jim Eakin and Donald Ace. They happened to be dairy science professors, but they were serious wine people and had the chemistry to pursue it. Wine is, after all, an agricultural product that starts in the field, just as milk does.

The book was blessedly simple, with very basic sections: “Preparing the fruit,” “Adding Sugar,” Adding Water (amelioration),” “Adding Sulfur Dioxide,” “Adding Yeast,” etc. Then it went on to fermentation and balancing, aging and bottling. For White Wine, all of that was covered in 8 pages. With a few beautiful photographs.

I have two editions of the book. I don’t know if it’s still available from the Penn State Agricultural Extension Service, but I’ve had several books on winemaking since then. Each of them has been more serious and technical than the next. None of them, however, matches the simple elegance and friendliness of this unpretentious guide from two milk specialists. It gave me the courage to try winemaking myself.

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