Daily Archives: May 13, 2017

Vineyard Project – Paumanok Vineyard (Edited)

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It was a beautiful sunny day with some hint of coldness in April. I drove all the way down to Long Island where the vineyard is located. It was a long driving. It took me almost 1 and a half hour to get to the vineyard. The vineyard is called Paumanok Vineyard which located at 1074 Main Rd, Aquebogue, NY.

The reason why I chose this vineyard because on their website, they only premium vinifera grapevines are planted, consisting of Chardonnay, Riesling, Sauvignon Blanc, Chenin Blanc, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Petit Verdot. This provided description attracted to me because those are the most famous and common grape varieties in the wine world, and I thought it could be a good opportunity to see all of those famous grape varieties at one place. Also, the traditional dense planting of the vineyards at 1100 to 1400 vines per acre produces more concentrated fruit and therefore, they producing nice high-quality wines. (https://www.paumanok.com/history.html) When I and my friends arrived at the vineyard, we saw the vines were budding. The vines were empty and no grapes. I went to see more close up to the vine to observe carefully how they are budding. I saw some watery liquid was coming out from the vine’s twig and also realized the vineyard maker did vine training systems on their viticulture.

The vineyard was large. It was sad I couldn’t see any single grape from those large vine trees. Then we move into the store where Robert was greeting us very kindly. We explained why we are there and he was willing to help us. I asked what is the famous wine in this vineyard and why. He said, Chenin Blanc is the famous one because only Paumanok Vineyard is producing Chenin Blanc in New York State. Also, he mentioned Semi-Dry Riesling is a popular one in the vineyard which is a sweet wine. Then we asked is the vineyard is competitive in this neighborhood because we saw some other vineyards while we were driving to Paumanok Vineyard. Robert said no it is not because there are 50 vineyards in the neighborhood and they are pretty well balanced to each other. Then we asked when will the berries will growth and harvest? Robert said it depends on the weather but the berries will begin to growth after May. Unfortunately, we could not go into the procedure room. Therefore, we decided to taste some of the famous wines from Paumanok Vineyard. There was no separate tasting room. The store, office and tasting room were in one area.

 

The first white wine I taste was 2015 Chenin Blanc which is the most famous wine from the vineyard. According to their website, “It was cool fermentation in stainless steel tanks. It was bottled with a screw cap to preserve freshness and cleanliness. The result is a fresh, crisp, racy, and bracing Chenin that is redolent of grapefruit and pineapple, with more subtle notes of melon, apple, and guava. It makes an excellent companion to various white meat fish dishes, such as striped bass, flounder, cod and lobsters and especially oysters.” (https://www.paumanok.com/store/)

The second wine I tried was 2016 Semi-Dry Riesling which fermented also in stainless steel tanks. According to the website, it described as “this Riesling bursts with a fresh, fruit cocktail of peach, apricot, nectarine and apples. While it starts off sweet, it finishes dry with crisp acidity. Pair it with loin of pork, Asian foods especially Thai or Indian.” I felt like this can be a great start wine as well pair with some mango flavored dressing in green salad or a dessert wine with a strawberry cheesecake (not a heavy one though). My favorite wine out of all.

The third wine I tasted was Vin Rose. The website described this wine as, “This semi-sweet blush offers beautiful, fresh aromas and flavors of strawberry and red cherry. Pair with an aperitif or with spicier fare such as Asian Foods.”(https://www.paumanok.com/store/) The website does not say cranberry, but I smelled cranberry and tasted some rose.

It was such a good experience to see the vineyard by myself than just study and read the materials. Now I can imagine where the vines are grown and how will be harvested.

 

References

Paumanok Vineyards. (n.d.). Retrieved May 26, 2017, from https://www.paumanok.com/

Paumanok Vineyard Is NY Winery of the Year. (2015, August 14). Retrieved May 26, 2017, from http://www.ediblelongisland.com/2015/08/14/paumanok-vineyard-ny-winery-year/

Vintners, N. V. (n.d.). The Life Cycle of A Grape. Retrieved May 26, 2017, from https://napavintners.com/napa_valley/life_cycle_of_a_grape.asp

The Chenin Blanc Wine Guide. (2017, May 01). Retrieved May 26, 2017, from http://winefolly.com/review/chenin-blanc-wine-guide/

Beer Brewery; Coney Island Brewery (Update)

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Have you been to a brewery? I know I never been to one. This was my first time going to a brewery because of this assignment. Although, I was a little disappointed that I couldn’t go to a winery/vineyard, but it wasn’t bad going to a brewery. It was a really fun experience and I got to learn some new things about beer. The brewery I went to is Coney Island Brewery. It is located at 1904 Surf Ave., Brooklyn, NY.

The place is not so big, but can still try to get the most out of it. They also provide free tours from Thursday through Sunday at 2pm, 4pm, and 6pm. At the brewery there are also tasting, but it will cost a fee of $5. It is nice to go on the tour to learn more about beer, but the unfortunate thing is that it is a little difficult to hear the tour guy due to all the noise outside and in the room.

During the tour at the Coney Island Brewery, we got to see the processing room of where they make their beer. It is where they keep their kegs and try to create new type of beers. The room is not really big. It is like going straight in and making some turns and you’re finish. Although it is small, but I still got to learn some things about beer. As I was having the tour in the processing room, I saw many carbon dioxide tanks. The carbon dioxide are used to produce the foam on the top surface of the beer.  I also learned that it was form during the process of fermentation. Before I went on the tour I didn’t know that that’s how they form bubbles and I wonder why is there always so much foam in beer.

Aside from carbon dioxide tanks, there were also many other tanks. The tour guy explained what each buckets and tanks were for and how they process their beer. In the processing room there are yellow buckets that are filled with different grains. After choosing their grain they want to use, they will place it in the grain mill. When all the grains are broken up; it goes into the mash tun tank to mix up the broken grain with hot water. With hot water, it will turn starch into sugar.

After those steps the beer will go into the kettle of hops. I learned that different hops from different places will have different flavors. The next step is to move everything to the heat exchange machine to bring the boiling liquid down to a lower temperature around 55 degrees; depending on what beer. But this doesn’t mean your beer is ready because you don’t have beer until you add the yeast. For the last few steps of making beer, they fill the fermentation tank with yeast including the liquid that was made previously and add any other flavoring or fruits if they want to create a different flavor beer.

When the process of making beer is finished they will go through a filter. After going through the filter they will store the beer in kegs. At Coney Island Brewery, not all beers are filter, only some. For every batch of beer they make, they can fill up 15 kegs. In the processing room, they also had another small room where they keep their kegs. The kegs are used to store their beer and keep the freshness.

At Coney Island Brewery, there are a lot of history. Their brewery is filled with old Coney Island pictures around the place and old ride pictures that Coney Island was known or represented for. I believe same goes for their beer. Beer at Coney Island Brewery can also be a place representing Coney Island. Their brewery also have many different types of beer. There is 8 tap beers that they serve, but it rotates through out the year. During summers the Cotton Candy Beer is a good sell. Although, the most popular beer there is Mermaid Pilsner but when I was there I also notice a lot of people like to get the Flight. The Flight costs $8 and you get four different types of beer. It looks quite interesting. Here at Coney Island Brewery, I had fun and enjoyed my tour. I learned a lot about beers and some day when I get to drink, I will definitely come back and give it a try. I would recommend others to come here and have a nice drink.

References:

Coney Island Brewery. (n.d.). Retrieved May 25, 2017, from http://coneyislandbeer.com/

How To Taste Beer. (n.d.). Retrieved May 25, 2017, from https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/101/taste/

W. (n.d.). Coney Island Brewery’s creative craft beverages. Retrieved May 25, 2017, from http://www.fox5ny.com/news/145001886-story