Author Archives: Andre.Andre

Winery and Vineyard Visit Blog

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For my Winery and Vineyard Analysis, a couple of my classmates and I decided to go to Shinn Estate Vineyards and Farmhouse located on Oregon Road in Mattituck, NY. Shinn Estate Vineyards was bought and owned in 1998 by native Midwesterners, Barbara Shinn and David Page. They planted 20 acres of grapevines and built an estate winery and Farmhouse bed and breakfast which has been named a top American wine destination by Gayot, Fodors, U.S. News Travel, Food and Wine and Bon Appetit.

As we arrived, we head to the wine tasting area where we await our tour to begin. We were greeted warm and friendly staff of the farm. The wine tasting area was very comforting with indoors and outdoors seats available for us.

We begin our tour with a greeting from Barbara Shinn who will be giving us the tour around the vineyard. As we walked along the vineyard she gave us many detailed and important information about how she runs her vineyard as self-sustainable eco-system. One of the main reason she choose that farm to grow wines was due to the type of soil which has a mixture of gravel and loam soil. Due to the maritime climate and many rains they get, the soil drains the rain water with ease. Clover crops and roots where allowed to grow under the vines as these greens and grasses absorbs rain water too so the vines don’t get too much water.

As continue to walk deeper into the vineyard, she explains that unlike other farms, she does not use any form of chemical fertilizers, using only organic materials for her farm. Seaweed are used for fertilizers. On top of that, the farm does not have any bug issues as bugs are attracted to the vineyard to eat the meadow.

The vineyard itself grows 8 types of different grapes:

  • Red: Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Malbec, Cabernet Franc, Petit Verdot
  • White: Sauvignon Blanc, Pinot Blanc, Semillon

And out if the compound:

  • Riesling and Chardonnay

The chosen wines depends on the agriculture. The red wines ripened in mid-September and the white wines ripened in mid-October.

The second part of the tour would be in the winery. The winery tour was conducted by David Page, Barbara Shinn’s husband. He started off by giving us some history if the vineyard. The grapes where planted way back about 17 years ago and Sauvignon Blanc were the first grapes to be harvested.

David gave us some information on how they do their wine making process. The grapes are picked and loading in the picking bins and unloaded for pressing. In the pressing process, the whole cluster will be pressed meaning that the braches are included. Once the liquid are extracted, it will be chilled at a temperature lower than 40’F for about 2-3 days. As soon as its time for fermentation, the liquid will be warmed to about 50’F for fermentation. Juices are separated from the yeast after fermentation.

Apart from wines, Shinn Estate Vineyards and Farmhouse also produces a small production of brandy and cognac.

To finish off the tour, we were taken to the barrel cellar where there are about 200 barrels stored at the temperature of 58’F and below. The wines are stored in variety of types of barrels but mainly French barrels. Each barrels can bottle about 300 bottles of wines.

A small info of what the vinyard could offer

A small info of what the vinyard could offer

Wine Cellar

Wine Cellar

Barrel Cellar

Barrel Cellar

Large Wooden Tank (Winery)

Large Wooden Tank (Winery)

Metal Tank (Winery)

Metal Tank (Winery)

Growing Bud

Growing Bud

Outdoor wine tasting seats

Outdoor wine tasting seats

Wine tasting room

Wine tasting room

RETAIL BEVERAGE SHOP ANALYSIS

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GRAND WINE AND LIQUOR

For my analysis, I decided to visit Grand Wine and Liquor in Queens, located at 30-05 31st St, Astoria. As advised, I contacted the store manager through email to arrange an appointment prior to my visit. Unfortunately I was told by a lady in the store that GM was in the store but unable to meet me. Unable to tell me in person, she emailed me saying to arrange another day with her. Not wasting any more time I decided to just do a little tour around myself with no assistance offered and took a couple of picture with permission.

The store itself is quiet big, selling a large variety of wines, and small variety of liquors. The newly renovated store is neat with clean wooden floorings and glass windows that stretch the entire width of the store. The store has two long wine racks displaying their variety of the wines. And at the back end are three large chiller for some white wines, champagnes and sparkling wines.

The first rack and on the right side are a large variety of American wines coming mainly from California and Oregon. The bottles are arranged according to the state/region and the type of grapes. On the front section of the shelves that is labelled “Staff Pick”, there is a small selection of wines from various regions. And for each different wine producer, small notes are written on a cue card which I believe are positive feedbacks from customers. On the left side of the rack, three quarter of the wines are French wines, offering wines from Bordeaux, Loire, Burgundy, Alsace and Rhone. And on the last one quarter of the rack, it is shared between Germen and Austrian wines. Both have a very small selection of wines offering only one white wine from each country.

On the second rack, on the right side, it is shared between Chile, Argentina and Australia. The Chilean and Australian wines offers a good variety of wines and balanced between the white and the red wines. As for the Argentinian and New Zealand wines, only a small variety of Argentinian wines, offering only Chardonnay for their white wine and mostly white for the New Zealand wines.

On the other side of the rack, it is shared between four categories of wines, South African, Dessert wines, sparkling wines and champagnes. The South African wines offers a good variety of wines with balanced selection between the red and white. A small selection of dessert wines offered are Sherry, Marsala and Port. And I’m not sure if Ice wine is considered dessert wine, but I was also available. As for the sparkling and champagne wines, surprisingly the store offers only a small selection.

Coming back on a different day with an appointment made again with the GM. And again she’s unable to meet me in person to answer the questions that I’ve prepared. She sent a store assistant to assist me with the questions. The questions are:

How do the store choose their wine selection?

  • They choose their wines based on the customers’ demands. And Greek wines is one that they have included as it was more demanded around their neighborhood. Also they try to balance the selection of wines from the Old and New world

How do you store your wines?

  • They don’t have any wine cellar or chiller rooms. They only store them in the basement and only controlling the temperature in the basement.

Any particular vineyard/wineries that you get the wines from?

  • And the assistance only recommended to visit vineyard in Long Island.

The only negative about the store is the GM. Very unprofessional when it comes to replying emails. Even when appointment was made for my second visit, she was unable to meet me.

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