The Lenz Winery

For years, The Lenz Winery in Peconic has been one of the North Fork’s most respected and successful producers. Together, vineyard manager Sam McCullough and winemaker Eric Fry comprise one of the East End’s most experienced duos. Their experience and familiarity with North Fork growing conditions and fruit results in some of the area’s best wines – wines that the Wine Spectator was insane not to include in its recent New York-themed issue.

Fry is probably best known for his Merlot - it rivals Bordeaux’s best at a fraction of the price in professional blind tastings. Those wines are well regarded for a reason — one needs only to taste them to understand. But, Fry is more than a Merlot maestro – his Chardonnay program often gets lost in the mélange of Merlot tastings.

I can’t recommend the Lenz Winery 2004 “Old Vines” Chardonnay ($25) enough. “Old vines” is a term without official meaning (much like “reserve”) but the grapes that go into this wine are from some of the oldest Chardonnay vines on Long Island. An elegant, but intense nose offers fresh apples and pear with subtle oak and vanilla accents. Clean Chardonnay fruit flavors are balanced extremely well with delicate oak undertones and nice acidity on the finish. This is an example of what East Coast Chardonnay can be and what West Coast Chardonnay is not. California winemakers only wish they could make this stylish a wine.

Reviewed July 1, 2006 by Lenn Thompson.