TasteCamp: Paumanok Vineyard « My Wine Education

TasteCamp: Paumanok Vineyard

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On Saturday we visited Roanoke, Paumanok, Shinn, Bedell, and Lenz, with a myriad of tastings in between and during each visit. I managed to still be taking notes when we got to Paumanok (only 2 wineries in). We also got a rather nifty barrel tasting at Paumanok, straight from the wine thief (which is a tool, not a person). This German family-owned winery was one of our favorites that we visited.

Nifty tidbit: Paumanok was the first vineyard on Long Island to move to screwcaps for many of their wines.

Tasting notes are after the jump.

Tasting Notes:

2007 Barrel Fermented Chardonnay, $18.99: Aged in French barrels for 8 months. Between Kevin and I we noted spice, butterscotch, and apples.
Our review:

2007 Sauvignon Blanc, $28: We enjoyed this, but we're subtracting some happy just because of the price. It's a tropical and fun sauvignon blanc (in fact, I enjoyed a lot of Long Island Sauv Blancs) but it wasn't $28-worth.
Our review:

2008 Semi-Dry Riesling, $22: Filled wtih flowers, pears and pear blossoms, as well as a healthy dose of peaches. This was actually one of the last wines we tried and it was a perfect ending to this visit. It's also the only wine we ended up taking home. I thought it was worth the $22.
Our review:

2008 Chenin Blanc, no price: A happy accident. I thought it was
heavy on the lemon and acid and not as balanced as it could be.
However, it was also probably a good bet that a little longer in the
bottle and this would be a fantastic chenin. I did enjoy the earthiness
and trees I found (well, not literally) in the wine.
Our review:

2005 Merlot, $18.99: We had tried a lot of merlot the night before and at the previous winery. This was the first current merlot (as in, from this century and not the last one) that I considered buying. I thought it was very good for the price. It was light and bright, with soft tannins.
Our review:

2004 Assemblage, $36: This was filled wtih complex flavors and nice tannings. We were told (and I agree) that it was a good wine for aging. It's a blend of 12% Cabernet Franc, 12% Petit Verdot, 38% Merlot, and 38% Cabernet Sauvignon.
Our review:

2005 Tuttle Lane Vineyard (I might have that name wrong) Cabernet Sauvignon, est $60: This is a small production wine. It was robust, structured, and nicely tannic – well-balanced – but still has a fair amount of time left to hang in the bottle. I can't actually remember if this one was bottled yet or we just had a "bottled today" sort of taste.
Our review:

2005 Petit Verdot, no price: I got some barnyard on the nose, but I often find that with Petit Verdot. It's a really inky grape too, and this one was no exception. It was really tight, but still had dark jammy berries all over the place. It needed to open up a lot, but we still gave it a

Our first barrel tasting I managed to take some notes. However, I was holding a spit cup, a wine glass, pen, paper, purse, and a camera. Eventually something had to give.

Barrel Tasting: 2007 Assemblage: A lovely blend of 69% Merlot, 22% Petit Verdot, and 9% Cab Franc. Aged in 50% French oak and with a 14.2% AbV, it was still balanced. We thought it was jammy and big, but had a bit of a short finish. Of course, the wine itself wasn't finished, so what do you expect?