Lenn Thompson (LT): Tell me about your first winemaking job on Long Island. Where was it? When did you start?

Richard Olsen-Harbich (ROH): I started working in Long Island vineyards in 1981 at Mudd Vineyard where I was doing vineyard installations and general field work. My first winemaking position was with The Bridgehampton Winery (on Long Island's southern fork), which was actually the second winery to begin producing and selling wine from Long Island. I started with the 1982 vintage, working with Hermann J. Wiemer as consultant, and made two stainless steel white wines -- a Chardonnay and a Riesling. At the time, many people thought we were out of our minds trying to sell a wine from Long Island for $12 but we did and it sold out fairly quickly too.

It's interesting to me that after all this time, I've come full circle on Chardonnay. I make stainless steel versions now and they are what I think this region does best.

LT: Did people realize from the beginning that Merlot would reign over Long Island wine country? What was your first bottling?

ROH: I remember going to an event at Hargrave Vineyards (now known as Castello di Borghese Vineyard and Winery) in 1981 where all the people involved in the local wine industry were invited. I think there were only 10 or 15 people there and we tasted quite a few different local wines -- Chardonnays, Merlots, Cabs, etc. I remember clearly that the Merlots stood far and above anything else that was there. They were ripe, fruity and supple. I feel the same way today.

The first Long Island wine that I bottled was a 1982 Bridgehampton Dry Riesling made with fruit grown in Watermill by Ken Conrad. I made my first Long Island Merlot at Bridgehampton in 1984 with fruit from the old Resslar Vineyard (now part of Palmer Vineyards).

We actually purchased a great deal of fruit from the North Fork because we didn't grow many reds and our vineyards were marginal to begin with. So over the ten years that I worked there, I saw a lot of different fruit from many different vineyards. By the mid 1980s, it was clear to me that the best red fruit I saw every year was Merlot. It was the most ripe, balanced and always needed the least amount of intervention from me.

LT: Back when you first started, were Long Island wines bottled under the New York AVA?

ROH: For a while, the only accepted terminology was New York State. The Hargraves were actually instrumental in getting the BATF to accept the term New York instead of New York State. Alex (Hargrave) would always argue with them that California didn't have to use the words "California State", so why should we? Both the Hargraves and The Bridgehampton Winery actually used the terms "Long Island" on their labels quite a bit before we had approved AVAs, due to the "For Sale in NYS only" exemption clause.

By late 1984, after feeling snubbed by other North Fork producers, Lyle Greenfield, who was the owner of Bridgehampton Winery, decided that we should go after our own AVA.

LT: What made you decide to author Long Island's three local AVAs?

ROH: It's quite a long story that starts in the summer of 1984.

Lyle Greenfield and I were attending a meeting of the then nascent Long Island Grape Growers Association (later to be re-formed into the Long Island Wine Council). I honestly don't think I knew what the meeting was going to be about but Lyle was adamant that we should go.

At that time we were the only winery on the South Fork. There were about 75 acres of grapes in production on the South Fork versus almost 600 on the North Fork. Little did I know this meeting was going to be about AVAs and the future of our regional branding. Lyle and a couple of other people there wanted to talk about the region as "Long Island" while most of the group wanted to use the North Fork. They had someone already lined up to write a North Fork AVA and they were going to submit it shortly after the meeting.

To make a long story short, about a week later Lyle called and said "Let's do our own AVA. Do you think you can do it?" So he gave me the time and supplies to do the work and it took me about six months to complete. As it turns out, "The Hamptons, Long Island" was the first AVA approved on Long Island and we started using it immediately.

The North Fork submission kept getting rejected for lack of information. About six months after The Hamptons was approved, I got a call from the North Fork group, asking me if I could complete their application. Needless to say, I got quite adept at writing these up and actually really enjoyed the work and what I learned from the research.

I always felt there should also be an all-encompassing Long Island AVA, so Raphael's owner Jack Petrocelli gave me the time to complete the work in 2000. I think it's important to have regional identity and purity and the AVAs gave the industry a way to help preserve that. I'm very proud of them.

LT: What is the process of authoring AVAs like?

ROH: First, you have to prove that the name submitted for the AVA is recognized as a real location -- not just made up -- and then you must prove its existence by showing historical usage. In addition, the grape-growing history of the proposed name must be documented -- acres of vines under cultivation, what the future might look like, economic impacts etc. This wasn't a problem at all. Interestingly enough, I found information on grape growing from some nurseries in western Long Island that dated back to the early 1700s.

Then, of course, there needs to be a case made that the AVA is geologically and climatically unique from the areas directly adjacent. This is the meat of the application and is done by using local soil surveys and weather data. It is quite time-consuming and takes a great deal of research and writing.

LT: What were your most important research resources?

ROH: One of my key resources for The Hamptons application was Richard Hendrickson, a farmer in Bridgehampton who had been keeping weather data since the late 1920s. We met quite a few times and he had many stories to tell me about the area, as well as reams of temperature and rainfall data. Richard Hendrickson’s information was key to the Hamptons AVA getting approved.

The Cornell Long Island Research Lab was also very important and supplied a ton of data. This was all pre-Internet so I spent a lot of time in library archives accessing data. The Long Island AVA was a little easier, because at that time there was so much data available over the Web.

LT: As someone who has worked as a winemaker (and vineyard manager) on both forks, how do the growing conditions differ? (soil, weather, etc.)

ROH: It’s interesting how different the two forks really are -- both culturally and viticulturally. The North Fork growing season can be up to two weeks longer and is generally warmer than the Hamptons, due to the South Fork's proximity to the Atlantic Ocean.

The soils are also clearly different. The Hamptons have predominantly silt loams while the North Fork is made up of mostly sandy loams. The soils are heavier and hold more moisture in the south, as a result of two separate glacial periods.

Historically, most potato farmers on the North Fork used irrigation while their neighbors in the Hamptons often didn't. This all gives the North Fork a little more time to mature later ripening varieties.

LT: How do these differences come through in the wines? What tendencies are there in Hamptons vs. North Fork wines?

ROH: It really all depends on the grapes -- there are early ripening reds (Pinot Noir) and later ripening whites (Sauvignon Blanc) so I think you have to try and match up your site as best you can. It's what terroir is all about.

I do think the North Fork is probably better-suited to growing Bordeaux reds than the Hamptons while I think the Hamptons can do a better job of growing some very aromatic and crisp white wines.

In terms of the wines themselves, I think the differences show up best in the whites. Chardonnay grown in the Hamptons has more of a lemon-citrus character which I enjoy. On the North Fork I find it a little more nutty -- maybe a little more earthy.

LT: You've been in the Long Island wine industry for 27 years, what are some of the most significant changes you've observed over the past decade?

ROH: Going back even further than ten years -- bird netting. Without it we couldn't hold onto our fruit as long and achieve the levels of ripeness we need to make great wines. Before the advent of netting, many growers picked fruit based on the amount of bird damage they were able to withstand. Because of netting, we all harvest a lot later in the fall than we used to. Twenty years ago most wineries were done picking their last grapes by Columbus Day. Now we're usually not even starting to pick then.

Over the last ten years, the influx of Latino labor has been important. Ten years ago when you saw a vineyard tractor driving down the road, it was being driven by a Long Island native or Eastern European worker. Today it's almost always a worker from Latin America. And more often than not, that person is working in a position of vineyard management.

The Latino immigrant population has helped our industry thrive and has given us the labor source needed to complete the hundreds of manual tasks in the field. It is hard to see how the wine business would survive without them.

Ten years ago, very few wineries were harvesting by hand. Today, due to the labor pool, there are a great number of companies harvesting grapes by hand in order to produce the best wine possible. I think it's definitely the way to go and gives us an advantage over the raft of industrial, mass-produced wine on the market today.

The French influence has been huge as well. No fewer than five French consultants have been working in the region in the last ten years, helping us understand the concept of terroir and guiding us in the production of softer, riper red wines.

In the last 10 years, I think we've also gone a long way toward identifying which varieties of grapes will be the most successful in our region. Early on, there was more experimentation with varieties. Now, we know more about what we can do best -- plush Bordeaux reds and crisp, aromatic whites.

LT: You, along with Raphael, are a founding member of the Long Island Merlot Alliance (LIMA). Some people question the idea of pushing Merlot as Long Island's signature variety. Why should people buy into this notion? What about Cabernet Franc or Meritage blends?

ROH: I think Long Island's greatest strength is in its ability to produce the best red wines on the east coast. With that goal in mind, I believe the best red grown on Long Island is Merlot. I've tasted a lot of Long Island wines in the last 27 years and, if you put them all on a table in front of blindfolded tasters, the Merlots would stand out as the most consistent.

I approach it simply from a viticultural perspective. Merlot can ripen the most consistently year in and year out. It has more time to mature in our climate. I think if you polled most winemakers on Long Island, the majority would say the same thing.

LIMA is not about varietal purity -- it's about varietal quality. Most all of us are blending some other Bordeaux reds into our Merlots for complexity, but often there is limit as to how much one can blend before the quality of the wine is compromised. Blending is supposed to make a wine better, not just add more names on the label.

My idea of a fine Long Island red is a wine with dark, ripe fruit flavors and round, soft, supple tannins with enough flesh to make it mouth-filling. I'm looking for a balance between elegance and power. I'm going to find those qualities more often with Merlot than with the other Bordeaux reds.

In my opinion, Cabernet Franc is much better all by itself. It’s really a different animal -- flowery, shy, delicate and beautiful -- than it is when it’s balanced. It usually doesn't have the power that I'm looking for in my Merlots. My next favorite red grape right now is Malbec. I think it’s a great fit for the North Fork and is the most dynamic blending grape for Merlot.

Meritage blends (I hate that term by the way) only work if they actually work! There are a lot of Meritage wines out there that are made just to be called Meritage. When I blend, I'm trying to be open minded and produce the best wine I can, not just fit some old model.

If you want to go by ratings, the recent reviews in the Wine Advocate gave the highest red scores to Merlots. But people shouldn't feel they have to buy into anything. All they should do is taste the wines out there and make up their own minds. That's what it's all about.

LT: Now that the three local AVAs have been established, do you see any potential for sub-appellations? Perhaps Riverhead as a sub-appellation of the North Fork? The growing season tends to be warmer and longer there, making it better suited to Cabernet Sauvignon than other locations.

ROH: I think it could be worth looking into. The moderating effects of the water are decreased in the Riverhead area when compared to areas further east. The further east you go on both forks, the shorter the season gets. One does have to worry slightly about lower winter temperatures in Riverhead since you are also losing some moderating effects in winter as well.

Also the areas west of the North Fork typically receive more storms and rain during the growing season so that might negate some of the temperature benefits. Still I think there might be enough going on there to make an AVA worth considering. There are a surprising number of microclimates on Long Island that could probably all be classified. For example, one of the coldest areas on Long Island almost every year is in Westhampton Beach. We know this because of the Coast Guard weather station there. The soils in that area are also different than the surrounding areas -- very sandy and arid.

LT: Recently, Long Island wines have been receiving more and more accolades. Where do you think the "ceiling" is? Will Long Island ever have a wine that receives a 95+ score from Wine Spectator, Robert Parker, etc?

ROH: I don't think that wine ratings alone should be a barometer of our success but, of course, I do believe that our best wines -- particularly reds -- have not yet been made.

Most of our vines are less than 20 years old so as the vines continue to get older and our techniques keep improving, you're going to see some amazing wines coming out of Long Island. In Bordeaux, for example, most of the top wines are made from vines no less than 40 years of age. It's exciting to think about the wines -- but not about how old I'm going to be when I make them.

LT: Raphael is known first and foremost for its Merlot. But you're also doing something a little different with your Cabernet Franc. I’ve heard you say that you think you make it in the way that is best suited for Long Island. Can you explain what you do with CF and why it's the way to go on LI?

I've come to believe that Long Island Cabernet Franc is best if it is kept fruity and accessible. Too often, winemakers try to get something out of Cab Franc that just isn't there, whether it be color, fruit, body or roundness.

It's a delicate wine -- more like Pinot Noir than Merlot -- and no matter how ripe it gets, there's always a slight grassy character. What I like to do with Cabernet Franc is nothing new. I just leave it alone. I want to limit the tannins and emphasize fruit and in order to do this, I don't use any oak.

To me, the best Francs I've made are the ones I've made in stainless steel. I think it’s part of recognizing terroir and emphasizing varietal strength. They've been making red wines like this for hundreds of years in the Loire Valley. The only difference for me is that I ferment them much cooler. The response has been tremendous so I think the style works. It's a wine that goes with just about anything. People tell me it is a relief from all the over-blown, high alcohol reds that are on the market right now. It's the anti-Parker wine.  

~ Lenn Thompson, Regional Correspondent – Long Island


To comment on Lenn Thompson’s writings and thoughts, contact him at l.thompson@appellationamerica.com