Fork and Cork

I have been excited to attend Fork and Cork since I heard about it last year. Unfortunately I did not turn twenty one in time for the festival so I had to wait until this year in order to attend and go to the tastings. It was everything that I had hoped for. The weather was perfect, not too hot but also not too cold. There were so many different wineries offering tastings as well as food vendors and the music and atmosphere were all very fun. To the right you can see  a view of the festivities and below is one of the cooking demonstrations as well as one of the wine tastings.

We got there right around noon when the festival began but the line for people who bought tickets ahead of time was crazy long. So we had to stand in line for a little while but we still made it in and got to make our way to the tastings. The first winery booth we stopped at, Vincent's Vineyard was actually my favorite of the day. Out of the seven wines we tasted, there were four which I really really enjoyed and the other three were also quite good, just not my preference.  Another booth which stuck out to me was featuring three different types of mead which we mad a point to go to since not many in our group had tasted mead before.  

Traminette- Gewurztraminer & Seyval - $14

Winery: "A Gewurztraminer hybrid with a fresh fruity aroma and floral-spicy flavors. This table wine is a semi sweet palate pleaser. Good with fruit and cheese or just sipping."

Me: This wine is indeed quite good. There were definitely floral hints on the nose and the spiciness hit you in the mid-palate. The spiciness was not overwhelming though and provided some excitement to the wine. 

Shepherd's Red-  Chambourcin - $15

Winery: "A full bodied, mildly oaked, sweet red wine that has a mild floral nose. Pairs nicely with Italian foods, spicy barbeque and summer sausage."

Me: Many sweet red wines I have tried go a little overboard on the sweet aspect. This one, however had a nice balance of fruity flavors with the sweetness. It was another one of my favorites of the day.

Ambrosia- Steuben - $16

Winery: "Made from the Stuben grape, this crisp sweet red ruby wine has hints of honey. Its characteristics will compliment many meals or make a great porch wine."

Me: This wine will please the palates of those wine drinkers who prefer sweeter wines. Similarly to the shepherd's red though, the sweetness was not overpowering and was quite refreshing.

Shepherd's White - Chardonel & Vidal - $14
Winery: "A pale yellow sweet table wine made from blend of Chardonel grapes produces a fresh fruity aroma. A perfect complement to seafood and pasta."
Me: This was the wine we chose to pair with lunch so everyone chipped in to buy a bottle. It was fruity and refreshing since it was mid afternoon and quite warm by the time we were getting lunch. It was fruity with hints of peaches and flowers. For lunch I got pulled pork and chips from the Bull & Bones booth which tasted delicious. I put sweet and tangy sauce on top of my sandwich which did not pair very well with the wine since it had a bit too much spiciness to go together well. However with the right sauce on the sandwich, I'm sure the wine would have tasted much better.

 A later winery tent we visited was the Hill Top Berry Farm and Winery. This was the tent which was tasting mead which I was very excited to try along with their wines. I am only going to review two of the mead choices from this winery since they stuck out quite distinctly.

Hunter's Moon - $22
Winery: "Our Spiced Pumpkin Mead is just the trick to treat your taste buds! Slightly sweet with pumpkin pie spices, this is a great holiday wine and delicious all the time!"
Me: This was probably my favorite drink of the day. I had never tasted anything quite like it and I generally really like pumpkin flavors anyways so I was very excited when I saw this on the tasting list. It was very sweet and tasted like pumpkins and fall. There was such a perfect mix of spices which created a delicious taste. I would love to drink this on a chilly autumn evening.

Dragon's Breath- $22
Winery: "Unique sipping wine made from hickory smoked hot peppers and honey. Slight heat with lots of flavor, this will be your new favorite cook out wine."
Me: Oh My Goodness was this spicy. The aroma of the mead was definitely reminiscent of hot peppers and basically anything spicy. After tasting it, the spiciness remained in your mouth for quite some time. I wish this had not been the last item on the tasting menu because the taste stayed in my mouth until we made it to the next tent and tried the next wine. I am not a big fan of spicy things so this was definitely not something I would want to try again.

There was one winery, Horton Cellars, which was doing a tasting with sixteen wines. Unfortunately, this meant that they went through all of their wines incredibly quickly so it was difficult to really taste and appreciate them. There were two which stuck out to me and I did have time to jot a few quick notes down.

2012 Rkatsiteli - Off-Dry Georgian/Russian Variety - $15
Winery: "Still very rare in the U.S. but one of our most popular wines, Rkatsiteli produces an aromatic white wine redolent of orange zest and honeysuckle.  A very rare wine for the wine afficionado.  Just say R-Kats!"
Me: Personally, I thought that this wine smelled like cheese. I suppose there were also some floral hints so it smelled like flowery cheese. I do not believe it was a type of wine which I have tried before but it tasted a lot different and better than it smelled.

Blanco XOCO - Rkatiteli, Vidal Blanc & Chocolate Essence - $16
Winery: "Sweet chocolaty white wine made with Rkatsiteli, Vidal Blanc & Chocolate essence.  Chocolate covered cherries gone wild!"
Me: I did not get too much of a cherry flavor as the winery suggests. I did get straight up Tootsie Roll in the nose and in the taste. And of course once I realized that was what I was smelling, there was nothing else I could smell with this wine.


Lexington Valley Vineyard had three wines available for tasting but I am going to go into more depth with the last one since it stuck out to me quite a bit.

2012 Norton- $16
Winery: "Tired of wimpy red wines?  This original Virginia varietal has a great taste with black cherry flavors and complimentary tannins for a truly satisfying glass of real wine.  Try Norton with chocolate, wow!  Also pairs with a juicy steak, lamb, game meats and sharp cheddar."
Me: This was probably my least favorite wine of the day. It smelled like a mix of sherry and mold to me and didn't taste much better than it smelled. There may have been some cherry flavors but my palate was overwhelmed by a taste it did not like at all to try to find other, more pleasing, flavors.

All in all, I had a wonderful time at fork and cork and I am looking forward to trying more meads in the future since I got a chance to try some here before committing to a whole bottle. I hope you've enjoyed reading my blog!

   

Brewery Visit - Genesee Brewing Company

I had the opportunity to go home to Rochester New York last weekend. If you are unfamiliar with the upstate New York area, Rochester is located between Buffalo and Syracuse right along Lake Ontario with the Genesee River running through the center. Right along the river is the Genesee Brewing Company. The photo above shows the view from the balcony off of the Restaurant which is attached to the brewery. On the left you can see High Falls and on the right are mainly buildings which were associated with Kodak when it was in it's prime. My parents, my older brother, his girlfriend and I went to the restaurant for dinner and while we were waiting for our table to be ready, we walked around the gift shop and did a quick tour. 

      

 

Above you can see some of the displays which were set up in the main shop and tour area. The top row shows the various packaging which has been associated with Genesee beer over the years with the top left showing all of the bottles and the top left showing the cans. The top center picture shows my brother, Timmy, looking at a display which detailed the history of the brewery. The picture on the wall shows some of the workers standing with barrels of beer from during the early years. The Genesee Brewery opened in 1878 and then again in 1932 after prohibition was repealed. It is currently the 6th largest brewery in the United States by production. The bottom row shows more of the production process which occurs at the brewery. The bottom left and bottom middle pictures show the various tanks which beer is made in. The brewery uses a small batch system and uses a Newlands steam-fired 20-barrel brewing system at the main production plant in Rochester. The bottom right photo shows our tour guide explaining the ingredients which go into beer production. There are also bottles on display of all the current types of beer which are produced. The bottling facility can package 900 bottles of been per minute!

 

 Here I am in from of a giant Genesee Beer can! Which is actually a photobooth inside. 

 After our quick tour and run through the gift shop, we headed upstairs to the Brew House Restaurant. It is relatively new so my parents had never been there either. It was very cool with a giant 41' bar along the back wall which was made from salvaged from Cyrus and Cedar open tanks which were over 100 years old. The atmosphere was great with fun music and a lot of people. There was a lot of Genesee merchandise and posters around and the walls were mainly brick. During the summer, the balcony which overlooks the river and the rooftop terrace would be fantastic for hanging out on. Unfortunately, it was quite cold when we were there so we preferred to stay inside

 
 To go with dinner I ordered a beer sampler which consisted of four beers and also tried two other beers which my parents ordered. I also ordered the "Genesee Meatloaf" which was topped with a glaze made of the Honey Brown beer with a side of mashed potatoes and mixed vegetables. The food was quite good, but the beer was, in general, not something I would normally gravitate toward.

I am not very good at tasting beers and being able to talk about them in an well-educated manner. I am much more familiar with wine and the flavors associated with that than beer. I also don't particularly like beers in general so my tasting notes were not very descriptive.

From left to right in the picture, the beers shown are the Dundee Kolsch-Style Ale, Genesee Beer, Dundee Summer Shandy, and The Original Honey Brown Lager. The Kolsch-Sytle Ale had a very bizarre taste but I couldn't place what it was. The Genesee Beer was the generic beer which is made by the brewery. It is the cheap beer of choice for college kids in the north. I was not a big fan of this beer it was just cheap crappy beer. The Summer Shandy was definitely the best beer of the night in my opinion. It was mixed with lemonade which gave it a very light summery taste. The finish was a bit over lemony for me which is something which I think for many of the other lemonade style beers. The honey brown beer was another one which had a funny taste for me. It was not my favorite but it definitely tasted better after tasting it with the meatloaf though. My parents ordered two other beers which I had not tried: Dundee IPA and Dundee Pale Bock Lager. The IPA tasted like any generic IPA with a lot of hoppiness which I don't like. I didn't expect to particularly enjoy this beer and I was not surprised. The Pale Bock was very carbonated, much more so than any other beer I tasted that night. It tasted much like a generic beer to me though. Below are my parents sitting with our beer.
 

Overall I had a great time and would very much like to go back to the Brew House over the summer when I could go out on the balcony or up on the roof. The view of the city is very pretty.

Dinner - Palisades - April 23

  

On April 23rd, five of my friends and I went to the Palisades restaurant to celebrate the end of the semester as well as get in our last food and wine dinner. I went before and the food was delicious and the wine paired excellently. I was excited to go back and try new dishes. We were seated relatively quickly despite the restaurant being quite full. A few people got appetizers to eat before the main dish with wine and food pairs.

  

The first course consisted of roasted corn and black bean tamales with poblano queso. The tamale looked a bit odd but ended up being my favorite course of the meal. It tasted especially delicious when a forkful was dipped in queso. Unfortunately I was not a very big fan of the wine pairing with the dish. A sauvignon blanc from Touraine France was supposed to be sipped with the tomale but together, the spiciness in the food was brought out a bit too much for my taste. The wine itself was fairly good, with hints of peaches and pairs with a slight hint of cat urine aromas on the nose. Wolters Pilsener from Germany was also served during this course and did pair much better with the food. It was a light and bubbly beer but still a fairly typical beer for me.

The second course was a shrimp ceviche with lime cilantro and avocado. The lime in the dish was slightly overpowering so you couldn't taste much of the avocado. Avocado is one of my favorite foods so that was disappointing. Served with this dish were a Mokoroa from Spain as well the Aleworks Brewing Company White Ale from Williamsburg, VA. The wine was quite bubbly but once again I was not a fan of the pairing. Together the food and wine were overpoweringly sour. The white ale was pretty good by itself and once again paired better with the food than the wine. There was a bit of a hoppiniess in the finish of the wine but it wasn't overwhelming.


The third course probably was the one my friends and I talked about the most. The menu said that it would be a cactus pear ice cream with chipoltle white chocolate and candied lime. We all imagined it would be a small scoop of ice cream with some white chocolate and candied lime garnishes. What we got was a bubble gum pink shot sized smoothie with some lime specks on top. It was definitely an experience to try. It tasted a bit like spicy bubble gum with a limey aftertaste. It was paired with a Historias wine from Argentina. It was a dessert wine which smelled very strongly of caramel but had a very strong alcohol taste. I was not a fan at all so I did not particularly like it with the ice cream smoothie either. The beer pairing was Pacific Pear Fox Barrel Cider from California. It was a SUPER PEAR beer. Upon tasting, it was very bubbly up front but once the bubbles settled down the strong pear flavors emerged.

Below are the descriptions for the wines and beers which was provided by the Palisades Restaurants. 

Although I did not have as good an experience at the palisades this time around, I would definitely go back to try other food. They had a bit of a new menu this time which I felt like they were trying to experiment too much for my taste. I would love to go back and try some of their other entrees instead of doing the Wines Around the World with a Hop. Below you can see our very crowded table with six plates as well as 18 wines, 18 beers and 6 waters.

Winery Visit: Chateau Morrisette

Tristan, Ginny, Peter, Katie, Dillon, Robin and Doug standing in front of the Chateau Morrisette sign ready for a fun tour and the tasting of delicious wines!

Our first activity upon arrival at the winery was to go on a tour. On the tour we learned about the actual building as well as the wine making process. Since many of us are civil engineers we were fascinated by the wooden trusses supporting the roof which can be seen in the picture below. The tour guide told us how most of their building is made out of recycled wood which I thought was very neat. The shop and tasting room had a very nice log cabiny feel to them. After learning about the building in general, we them proceeded outside to the de-stemming and crushing area. Although a majority of the grapes are not harvested onsite, all wine production is completed on site. There are two machines used for crushing: one for white grapes and one for red. After being crushed, the juice from the grapes is moved inside the facility where it will be processed, fermented, aged and bottled. Unfortunately, we were not able to go into the bottling area since they were bottling wine that day. However, we were given a

brief description of the process. You 

can see the stainless steel containers 

where the grape juice is being fermented into wine and the barrels where the wine  aged. The chateau just hired a new wine maker who has experience working at wineries in both California and Bordeaux. He plans to release a chardonnay in December which will have been oak aged for a year. He plans on focusing more on blending varieties of wine in stead of releasing varietal wines every year. He has a very different style from the previous winemaker who was much more focused on a New World taste and having fewer tannins in the wine.

Following the tour, we proceeded into the shop and tasting room. As part of the tasting portion of the visit, we had the opportunity to try 10 different wines. There were some wines on the tasting list which I hadn’t tried before, like the fruit wines and the red muscadine, so they were very much interesting to taste. 

2011 Chardonnay - $18

This chardonnay is a mix of wine which has been aged in steel and oak barrels. This made it taste much less buttery than other chardonnays I have had. There were definitely hints of green apple and grapefruit in the aroma and palate. 

2011 Cabernet Sauvignon - $18

This cabernet sauvignon had an aroma reminiscent of the produce section of a grocery store with a wide range of fruit and vegetable aromas mixing together. The smell of raspberries and cherries were the more prominent smells which came through. This was a relatively dry wine with tastes of red cherry.

2011 Merlot - $21

The merlot had a distinct strawberry smell on the nose. The taste is reminiscent of a mix of strawberries and cranberries with a bit of tartness coming through. It was a fruitier merlot, not as dry or tannic as some merlots I have tried. 

2011 Pertit Verdot - $20

The aroma of this petit verdot had hints of raisins and toast. This wine did have more tannins than others in the tasting and it was not among my favorites of the day. Perhaps I would enjoy it more if paired with food. 

Angel Chardonnay - $13

This may have been my favorite wine of the tasting, which surprised me because I usually prefers red wines to white wines. The nose had hints of pineapple and citrus. This wine was a blend of wine aged in steel and oak barrels as well, but with 90% of the wine coming from the steel barrels. This allowed for more subtle flavors and was definitely much less buttery than other chardonnays. It was also not too dry. 

Our Dog Blue – Riesling - $11

One of the facts that I always found fascinating about this wine is that it used to be called "Virginia Riesling," but when the winery changed the name to our dog blue and changed the label to a diamond shape with a picture of the dog, sales increased by 600%. It definitely demonstrates how important marketing is for a business. The wine was a pretty generic riesling for me. Very good with citrusy fruity smells and very sweet tastes. It would be prefect for relaxing on a warm summer evening sitting on the porch.  

Cherry Wine - $11

As expected with a wine made exclusively out of various types of cherries, the nose and palate were dominated by cherry. The smell reminded me slightly of cherry flavored medicine and it tasted like cherry candy. During the tasting, we were given chocalate bites to taste with the wine which defeinitely accentuated the flavor of the wine. 

Red Muscadine - $11

This wine was not like any other kind I have tried before. It is apparently a type of grape which is much more popular in North Carolina than most places. The smell was kind of like grape juice and some kind of strange candy. It tasted similarly to strawberry soda, especially since it was lightly sparkling. Fortunately it was not too syrupy and overly sweet. The aftertaste was quite odd. I did not really like this wine.

Blackberry Wine - $11

This wine is made out of 100% blackberries and since I really like blackberries, I also really liked this wine. It was very good and tasted like blackberry juice. We were told that it makes a great substitute for water when making brownies from a mix. After the tasting, I did buy a bottle and tried this and I must say, the brownies were very good. Another one of my favorites for the day. 

Heritage – Dessert Wine - $20 for 375mL bottle

This is one of the few times I have tried a true dessert wine. Brandy was used to increase the alcohol content and the wine tasted very syrupy and thick. It smelled of plums and tasted a bit better to me after getting a bite of chocolate to pair with it. 

And of course the trip would not have been complete without a few ridiculous selfies and photobombings outside the winery. 

  

Tasting- "Steeple Jack Moscato"

Variety: Moscato

Region: South

Country: Australia

Year: 2012

Price: $6

Steeplejack Review: Premium wines, easy drinking, great value for money - extreme lifestyles ... seriously good wines. Steeple Jacks played a crucial role in constructing and maintaining our townships, completing stonework on the highest towers, oblivious to vertigo, gravity and mortality. Sweet full flavours with a fresh, spritzy finish - just for fun!

My Review: This wine, similar to other moscatos, smelled very fruity like peaches and pears. It was very sweet but still quite good. 

Tasting- "Tisdale Merlot"

Variety: Merlot

Region: Modesto, California

Country: USA

Price: $4

Total Wine Review: Flavors of black cherry and mixed berries are complemented by spicy oak aromas, creating a balanced and distinctive wine.

My Review: This wine had a nose of a very typical red wine. There were some slight tannins and reminiscent of dark fruit. It was slightly sweet though.

Tasting- "Rubus: Shiraz"

Variety: Shiraz

Region: Barossa

Country: Australia

Year: 2012

Price: $20

Wine Spectator Review: Polished, supple and juicy, with red berry, black cherry, licorice and white pepper flavors, persisting nicely on the refined finish. Drink now through 2017.

My Review: The nose of the wine was fruity and alcoholic. This wine had a bit of a kick upon first tasting and was definitely a bit spicier than I expected. It is a very bold robust wine. Between sips, I had a bite of Gouda cheese which seemed to bring out a sausage flavor when tasting the wine afterwards.