To make the dough:

Place 2 cups of  flour and 1 teaspoon of salt in a food processor.  Add 2 sticks unsalted butter (diced and frozen) and pulse until butter and flour form pea-sized chunks. Add ½ cup ice water and blend until it just forms a dough. Let the dough rest for a few hours before rolling out.

Roll out the dough and press into a 9 or 10 inch non-stick, oven proof skillet. (Lisa doesn’t specify, but I’m guessing here based on experience and what we were served.)
Top off the dough with 1 cup shredded Swiss cheese, chopped & cooked bacon, (Lisa doesn’t specify how much, but really, I’d guess the more the merrier here) sweet spring onion, chives & tomato and then drizzle a mixture of 2 eggs, ½ cup heavy cream, salt and pepper on top of it, and bake it for approximately 25 minutes at 425 degrees.

Serving suggestion: cut into slices and serve to a dozen hungry wine bloggers, accompanied by Ravines Argetsinger Vineyard Riesling poured into tiny paper cups.

Accompanied by his canine helpmates Shiloh and Buddy, Argetsinger walked us through the vineyard, which is a pretty fortuitous site for grape-growing. The lake helps moderate the cold temperatures, helping to ensure that grapes achieve ripeness–not a given in frigid upstate New York. (Did I mention that it snowed the morning we left? This is in mid-May, people.) Older vines often produce better wines, and some of the Argetsinger Riesling vines are 40+ years old. He also favors organic growing methods, such as planting cover crops between vine rows. Shiloh and Buddy seem to approve.

The proof, however, is in the drinking. The vast majority of Argetsinger’s fruit goes into wines made by Morten Hallgren at Ravines Wine Cellars.  Hallgren makes a single vineyard Argetsinger Riesling and after our tour, he was on hand to pour some of the 2007 for us TasteCampers. We sipped it out of tiny paper cups and devoured slices of sublime breakfast quiche courtesy of Morten’s wife, Lisa. The wine, made in a dry style, had a steeliness, minerality, and finesse that set it apart from the other local Rieslings I sampled over the weekend, and it was one of my favorites of the entire trip.

Sadly, the 2007 is sold out, but the 2008 is available on the Ravines Web site (and, at $25, is very well priced.) Fans of not too-serious, slightly sweet wines should also check out the Keuka Village White, a casual summer wine for $12. I’d also like to try the Chardonnay that Hallgren produces from Argetsinger fruit. They partially dry the Chardonnay grapes, which concentrates the sugar and compensates for the cool weather. (Again, did I mention the snow?) And I’m going to check back with these guys in a few years to see what happens with the Petit Manseng Argetsinger is about to put in, at Hallgren’s behest. An aromatic white from southwestern France, it make beautiful dessert wines. Hallgren’s cautiously optimistic, admitting he’s not sure how the grape will fare in the cold. Given the successful track record of these two, I’m excited to see how it will turn out.

1. Not to be the master of the obvious here, but there are some truly excellent Rieslings made in the Finger Lakes. This was my first chance to taste so many Finger Lakes Rieslings at a single go, and it was great to try so many successful — and distinctive — interpretations of this variety. A lot of these wines also represent terrific value, which isn’t something that you can always say about Alsatian or German Rieslings.

2. It’s hard for me not to make comparisons to Long Island, the New York wine region I’m most familiar with, and in many ways, the Finger Lakes come off favorably. Some Long Island wineries succumb to the pressures of the nearby New York City marketplace, issuing luxury cuvées in ostentatious bottles when they’d be better off sticking to the basics of making good wines. I saw little of this during my time in the down-to-earth Finger Lakes. Compare some of the vanity Bordeaux-style bottlings of Long Island to one of the priciest wines I tasted in the Finger Lakes, a $75 bottle of late-harvest wine made from the deeply unfashionable (and in this case, deeply delicious) Vignoles variety – hardly a wine for the status-seeker.

3. A few producers I spoke to mentioned experimenting with different white varieties like Petit Manseng and Gruner Veltliner. I look forward to seeing how these grapes will progress in the Finger Lakes. I’m less excited, frankly, about the future of Cabernet Sauvignon and Syrah. Pinot Noir in the Finger Lakes, I get. Cabernet Franc too. This weekend, and in previous tastings, I’ve had some good, expressive examples of these varieties, which do well in cooler climes. But none of the Syrahs or Cabernet Sauvignons (and granted, there are only a few) I had this weekend have me convinced that these grapes have a particularly bright future in the Finger Lakes. I could be wrong — it wouldn’t be the first time — but I just don’t see it.

4. Like any other wine region, the Finger Lakes has its share of characters. My favorite character of the weekend by far was Sam Argetsinger. More on Sam, and all of the above, in the days ahead. (FYI, the picture here is a view of Seneca Lake from the Argetsinger Vineyard.)

My first foray into the subject is Charles Smith Wines. Based in Walla Walla, Washington, Charles Smith makes Syrah, Riesling, Chardonnay and Cabernet Sauvignon. The wines are big, bold and in your face — in case you couldn’t tell from the label pictured here. In fact, that’s what I love about these labels: they do a great job of describing what’s in the bottle. For example, his Kung Fu Girl, an off-dry Riesling that I’ve served at several tastings, would indeed be great with Asian food:

And the Boom Boom! Syrah (my favorite wine of his, and a good deal for about $15) is just as explosive as advertised. Some of his wines are a little over the top for me (the Eve Chardonnay is too much alcohol, too much oak, too much everything), but I respect that he’s not afraid to go big. I love the graphic, black-and-white design that stands out among the soft curlicues and muted colors that characterize so many other wine labels. The mastermind here is Danish designer Rikke Korff, who used to the design director of Levi-Strauss. As she says:

“My style of design has always been and is always rooted in the pure perspective of functionality, timelessness & simplicity. I blend that well with the guts & raw directness of rock n’ roll to create future icons and cult brands.”

Rock on.

Q. How would you compare your 2008 Riesling to your other Rieslings?

A. That’s like asking me which kid I like the best! It’s hard for me to say at  this early age, it really takes three to four years before we get a real sense of the vintage. Our Rieslings will age 15 to 20 years – that’s assuming a good vintage and good storage of course. They improve and pay back your patience.

Q. How would you define the style of your Rieslings in general?

A. Well, I like to say that nobody makes a better Smith-Madrone Riesling than we do! I think of our wines as a 60-40 split between Alsatian and German.  I think the Germans finish a little too sweet, and the Alsatians finish a little too dry and specific. We like a softer finish – that’s kind of the way I’ve backed into our style. Our Riesling is fermented and aged in stainless steel, never in wood. There’s no malolactic fermentation, no aging sur lees, which means you’re getting the pure essence of the grape itself.

Q. How have you seen consumers’ attitude toward Riesling change over the years?

A. Frankly, I think my entire adult life I’ve felt like Sisyphus pushing that rock up the hill [trying to get people interested in Riesling.]What changed was young people! They’ve come to Riesling with fresh eyes and without prejudice. In the past there were so many nasty Rieslings made in America, it has taken a long time to get rid of the generation who only knew those wines. Now the younger generation has come along and they’re not prejudiced at all about Riesling.

Q. What other Rieslings do you like – and what do you like to pair with Riesling?

A. Trefethen makes a nice one. Eroica, that’s a pretty doggone good one, too. There are a couple of good wines that come out of the Finger Lakes. I think Riesling goes well with almost everything, although I do draw the line at beef. I have too many reds to drink with cow. Any fish, especially real saltwater fish and true stream fish. Asian fusion food and Indian food too.

Q. What are some of the biggest winemaking challenges you face at Smith-Madrone and on Spring Mountain in general?

A. Farming on the mountain, that’s just hard. We have 38 acres. Down on the valley floor, you could harvest that in a day. Up in the mountains, that takes 2-3 days, then another day or two fixing the equipment because of the rocks. [The rocks and rocky soil are tough on farm equipment.] When you’re in the mountains, you are your own suppliers of everything that people take for granted, like water. We have our own pumps and pipes. It’s a great deal of work.

Q. What do you think makes Spring Mountain wines so special?

It’s really hard to say what makes the difference. [Here we break so that he can lovingly chastise his Springer spaniel Curly for stealing something from his daughter’s room.] Upland soil is very different from soil on the valley floor. It’s less fertile, it’s better drained, and it’s rockier. The weather is different, it’s cooler. The berries are smaller, there are fewer grapes, there’s a greater leaf to cluster ratio, and the vines do struggle just to grow.

Q. I really loved the 2004 Cabernet Sauvignon. How would you define the style of your Cabernet Sauvignon? It seems like you have a more restrained style than a lot of other California Cabernet Sauvignons.

I like the 2004. It’s unfined, unfiltered and done with American oak.  I believe there are four hallmarks of wine quality. The first obligation of wine is to give pleasure. After that, wine should have varietal character. [Meaning it should represent the typical qualities of the variety or varieties it’s made from.] Third, a wine should have balance. The fourth one, which is so hard to get hold of, that’s what Charlie [brother and winemaking partner Charlie Smith] and I call “sense of place.” There should be something that’s interesting and different about the wine. That’s what we call a sense of place. It’s also our goal get the vintage into the glass. Whatever that vintage is imparting, we want that in the glass.

There are two styles of California Cabernet Sauvignon I don’t like: first is the low acid style. They’re impossible to drink. I simply can’t drink them. The second is what I call the high maturity, Parker wine. Those wines can be very seductive. But once you hone in on the singularity of the wine, you realize there’s no complexity, there’s just a prune or raisin flavor. Once you home in on that, that’s all you can taste.

I think there’s more bad wine being made today that ever before in California. There’s a lack of education for some of these winemakers who are self-taught. They don’t understand the basics of winemaking, the importance of clarity and consistency.

But I do think what goes on here on Spring Mountain is a wonderful thing. Many, if not most, of us are small and family-operated. People are very passionate about what they do. It takes a certain kind of person who would want to go into the mountains and put up with the heartache and the hard work that we do. But there’s nothing that’s quite as much fun.

It was really a delight to taste these wines. Smith-Madrone is up on Spring Mountain, in Napa. As I’ve mentioned before, this is one of the most beautiful places you’ll find in the region. It’s a little corner of iconoclastic winemaking and old-school California ruggedness that’s a great contrast to the faux-rustic, Tuscan lite feel that permeates some of Napa’s more touristy areas on the valley floor. The altitude makes for a big temperature drop in the evenings, and this night-time coolness helps ensure that the grapes ripen more slowly, giving them time to develop more complex flavors. The lower temperatures also mean that these wines have good levels of acidity, which gives the wines a freshness that’s sometime lacking from Napa wines.

See below for my tasting notes. My next installment will be  a Q&A with Stu Smith. Chatting with winemakers is really one of my favorite things in the world and is a terrific learning experience. If you ever have the chance to do so — when visiting a small winery, attending a tasting or winemaker dinner — take full advantage, and don’t be afraid to ask lots of questions, even if you think they’re dumb.

All the prices below, aside from the Riesling, are retail direct from the winery.

2008 Riesling (they’re sold out at the winery, but an online search turns up pricing in the $25-$27 range)

The wine has medium intensity aromas of white flowers, honeysuckle, candied grapefruit rind, and a slight perfumed talcum powder scent. There’s some zippy acidity, and just a hint of sweetness. The floral and soft mineral characteristics really come out on the palate, and there’s a hint of guava, too. The wine has a lovely, long finish with a slightly (and pleasantly) bitter/metallic note.  I’d hang on to this guy for a few years to see how it develops. A friend to spicy pork loin, lighter Asian-inflected dishes…or lovely on its own.

2007 Chardonnay ($30)

Medium intensity aromas of preserved lemons, pineapple, lemon curd, Golden Delicious apple. Definitely some oak. (The wine spent 11 months in oak.) richness and freshness at the same time. Again with the citrus and the tropical notes on the palate, a tad too much oak for me, and the alcohol (14.3%) seems a bit high. Long finish. A well-made, luscious wine, just not my bag. [Note: I revisited this guy a few days later with some leftover roasted chicken, and enjoyed it more.]

2004 Cabernet Sauvignon ($45)

Love the deep, ruby color and the intense aromas of black currants, cedar, blackberries and fresh bay leaves. The palate has some cool leather, almost meaty flavors, and the tannins are really well-integrated into the wine. Lots of intensity and concentration of flavor + great balance, something you don’t find everyday. Somehow rugged and approachable at the same time — a very California combination. Given the quality of this wine, and overall crazy pricing you find in Napa, can’t believe it’s only $45. Pan sear a beautiful piece of steak or lamb and dream of summer grilling.

1. Get organized. I’m a little scattered when it comes to keeping my tasting notes all in one place. I just downloaded an iPhone app called Drync Wine, which lets me take notes and store label photos of what I’m drinking–and flag wines that I’m interested in trying next. I’ll let you guys know how it works out. Not to sound like your mom, but I’d encourage you to figure out some simple way to track your consumption and preferences, whether it’s an iPhone app, an Excel spreadsheet, or a little notebook. No need to get too fancy about it — just figure out an easy, unobtrusive way to record your thoughts. It’s the single biggest thing you can do to improve your wine knowledge.

2. Try something new. Once a week, I’m going to try a wine that falls outside my default France/Spain/Long Island/California repertoire. Tannat from Uruguay? South African Chenin Blanc? Greek Xinomavro? Bring it on. If you’re very serious about this — and really, what better thing to be serious about? — check out the Wine Century Club, which is open to people who have tasted at least 100 grape varieties. There’s a spreadsheet on the site you can use to track your progress. (I’m at 114, but who’s counting?)

3. Drink more sherry. I make this one every year, and each time I fall short. I love sherry, and it’s surprisingly versatile — and well-priced. One of my favorite Christmas presents is the Moro cookbook, from the Spanish/Mediterranean restaurant in London of the same name, so I’m hoping this will inspire me to cook even more sherry-friendly dishes. In June I’ll be taking my sherry/port/Madeira and sparkling wine exams as part of my never-ending diploma studies, so that will force me to do some more sherry drinking too.

Enough about me…here’s what I’m hoping to see from the wine world overall in 2010:

4. For prices to go down and everyone to get more for their money. As I mentioned before, we’re already seeing a welcome return to sanity in some California pricing. And I think that the overall quality of wines from Argentina and Chile, two sure-fire value destinations, is on the rise. Sauvignon Blanc fans, take note: there are some really strong examples of this wine coming out of Chile’s Leyda Valley that can go up against  New Zealand Sauvignon Blancs for half the price.

5. For Australia to regain its footing. After its huge success with value wines in the 1990s, Australia lost its way a bit — right now it’s saddled with a reputation as a producer of cheap, undistinguished wines when the world is craving more sophisticated flavors. Recent environmental crises, like droughts and forest fires, haven’t helped. I have a soft spot for Australia for two reasons. First, those Australian wines of the 1990s — cheap, fun, fruity — were my on-ramp to the world of wine. That’s all I could afford, and the flavors (and, let’s be frank, sugar) were easy and welcoming. Second, Australia makes some incredible wines from Syrah and Riesling, my two favorite grapes. True, the style isn’t always to my liking, but I appreciate the diversity.

6. For the term “wine snob” to disappear. Yes, some people can be insufferable prigs about wine. But there are plenty of a-holes out there when it comes to a lot of things that take time and effort to master– say, woodworking — and you never hear anyone talking about carpentry snobs. Wine can be expensive, and there are elements of it that can be intimidating to the neophyte. But the snobbism comes from the person, not the beverage. There’s a lot of mysticism and romance surrounding it, but at the end of the day it’s a drink made from fermented grape juice that, when taken in moderation, makes our food tastier, our company livelier, and our evenings more convivial. Here’s wishing you and yours many tasty, lively, and convivial evenings in 2010!

Quick chemistry lesson review: the sugar in grapes is the precursor of alcohol in the finished wine. So a very simplified equation for fermentation would be sugar + yeast = alcohol + carbon dioxide. The riper the grapes, the more sugar you have, and the higher alcohol wine you end up with. This explains why big reds from hot regions in Australia, Spain, or California, for example, have higher higher alcohol levels than wines from France’s Loire Valley, Germany, or our very own Long Island. In some cases, producers making a “dry red wine” will actually leave a little sugar in there. That makes the wine softer, rounder, and easier to appreciate, particularly for the American sweet tooth. (No judgement: I’m eating a bowl of brown sugar ice cream as I write this.)

The truth is, many people like slightly sweet wine, and that’s OK. They go down easy, and sugar adds a seductive, luscious quality to many wines that’s hard to resist. Sugar helps to balance out high acidity (think of making a glass of lemonade), an equation that works well in sweet German whites. Sugar also helps to mask flaws, distracting from excessive levels of tannin, for example.

Often in my classes I find that when people say they like dry wine, especially when they’re talking about whites, they mean they don’t like very aromatic wines that smell like sweet things (pineapple, honey, and the like) but are actually dry. It’s no knock against them — it took me a while to figure this out, too. When you bring a glass of Alsatian Riesling or New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc to your nose, the smells can be overpowering: kiwi, lychee, passion fruit, nectarines, candied lemon peel … all things that we know from experience taste deliciously sweet. We assume then that the wine itself is going to taste sugary, even if that’s not the case. Remember, you can’t really smell sweet: stick your nose in your box of Domino sugar if you don’t believe me. Sweetness is something we taste, so the proof is on your tongue. You can have wines that smell like a perfectly ripe peach but are actually dry (e.g., Albariño from northern Spain) or wines that smell like lemon and minerals and are perceptibly sweet on the palate (some German Rieslings). When evaluating the sweetness of a wine, and deciding what you do and don’t like, it’s important to think about what you’re smelling vs. what you’re tasting.

I’m a big fan of sweet wines. German Rieslings, Port, sweet Chenin Blanc from the Loire Valley, Banyuls, a dark and luscious wine from the Roussillon in Southern France near the Spanish border, syrupy Pedro Ximenez sherry…in my dream cellar, I’d have a case or two of each. Aside from the Pedro Ximenez, which makes an incredible topping for vanilla or coffee ice cream, I usually prefer them on their own. Unless you’ve perfectly matched the sweetness levels, either the wine or the dessert ends up overshadowing the other.

• Do Ferreiro Albarino 2006 (Rias Baixas, Spain): Hands down, one of my favorite Albarinos on the planet. Organic. $26.95
• Kuentz-Bas Alsace Blanc 2006 (Alsace, France): Gorgeous traditional-style blend of 4 white grapes. Biodynamic. $16.95
• La Raia Gavi 2008 (Piedmonte, Italy): A rich and complex white from the Cortese grape from Piedmont. Biodynamic. $18.95
• Clos du Tue-Boeuf “Frileuse” Cheverny Blanc 2007 (Touraine, France): An unusual, unfiltered blend of Sauvignon blanc and Chardonnay from the Loire Valley. Idosyncratic and delicious. Organic. $13.95
• Fritsch “Windspiel” Riesling 2008 (Niederosterreich, Austria): Super-dry and very crisp Riesling from Austria–a perfect summertime quaff. Organic. $14.95

I’m excited for the Albarino, a wonderful wine that I rarely drink — the price is usually steep, and Paul and I don’t eat a ton of shellfish, often the happiest pairing for the grape. Also psyched for the Cheverny, which is pretty offbeat. I’ve also asked them to throw in an off-dry German Riesling so I can get people thinking about dry vs. sweet wine. More on all of this later when I post our tasting notes.