Manhattanites throng the wineries on weekends, but when we visited over several weekdays, the tasting rooms were subdued and staff had time to chat about their operations. Eric Fry emerged from the back room of Lenz Winery in Peconic with his shirt smeared with red wine sediment. He had been tuning up his temperamental Italian bottling machine. “What I like about the North Fork,’’ he said, “is that we grow all these different kinds of grapes. It’s exciting to have all this stuff in the region, not just chardonnay and pinot. And I like that there is no ‘North Fork style.’’’
Lenz was founded in 1978 and Fry has been its winemaker since 1989. His vinting approach is showcased in two tasting flights. The estate wines emphasize balance, fruit, and acid. The complex fruit flavors of the White Label chardonnay, for example, result from picking and fermenting the grapes at different stages of maturity, then blending “to make a fruit salad,’’ as Fry put it. The more expensive premium tasting includes his Old Vines wines, which he crafts in a Burgundian style.
But this is Long Island, not Burgundy, and the historic potato fields and sod farms have only recently been turned over to trellised rows of chardonnay and merlot grapes. The Old Field Vineyards in Southold exemplifies the agricultural evolution. Chris Baiz’s grandmother farmed potatoes and cauliflower on the property until her death in 1993 at 101. Baiz and his wife, Ros, moved to the farm in 1996 and planted grapes the next year.
Since 1640, only five families have owned the 23-acre farm that sprawls downhill from Route 25 to the ocean. “We couldn’t bear to see this property sold and developed,’’ said Ros Baiz. The site was once an Indian village. “We still find arrowheads,’’ she says, “and all the oyster shells they buried keep the soil sweet.’’ Most of the farm buildings date from the 1850s and ’60s, including the ice house, corn crib, farmhouse, and dairy barn (now the winery “so tight you can barely turn around’’). The grapevines of this backyard winery stretch from the shady barnyard down the sunny hill.
