Reflection on The Urban Winery Tour

Gorgeous winery, lush grapes hanging from rows and rows of vines in some bucolic setting or having a grand tasting room or pretentious tours. All those isn’t what you get in The Red Hook Winery which is the creation of Brooklyn native Mark Snyder, the owner. What you do get is a bunch of very quirky, driven, passionate people getting together in a centuries old warehouse overlooking Manhattan to make some good wine. I was surprised that I hadn’t heard of the winery until the first day in the New World Wine class.  The winery is remarkable. First, its creation as a hands-on small craft winery represents a coming together of three dynamic wine makers. Second is how they approach this great experiment; they get some of the best fruit from the North Shore of Long Island, divide the grapes, and experiment with the fruit applying their own personal approach. The third is that all the wines are vinified in a small warehouse in an old seafarers’ neighborhood on the shores of New York Harbor in Brooklyn. . Best of all, Mr Snyder gave us a great educational tour and was extremely generous with the wine pouring. Mr. Snyder is knowledgeable and very patient on telling and explaining to us where those drinks come from, how they are made, or the types of wine. From his tone I can heard his passion of wine making when he is telling the process of brewers and distillers, painstakingly shepherding raw ingredients from sacks and crates, through mills and presses to tanks, barrels and stills, always tinkering and mashing, checking and testing, heating and cooling until they have been transformed into the glittering gold or ruby red gems that are made. Sadly, that day was Tuesday follow Monday class schedule, so I had to leave early before the tour end for working, if not I really which to have a glass of every wines that I saw in there.