The Chocolate Lab Experiment

Warning: This post is not about dogs.  It's about wine.

So here goes....

I am not a wine connoisseur.  No, far from it.

VERY far from it.

I was nurtured by sweet Concord grape wine (Manischewitz, to be exact), and, in my early adulthood back in the 1970's, enjoyed the gourmet cheap offerings of Boone's Farm and still, when reaching for wine, tend to favor the sweet stuff.

But, I don't put Manischewitz down at all.  It was a local wine (Brooklyn) when I was growing up in the Bronx, and it is an upstate New York wine now, being made in Naples, New York.  And, although they have a lot more variety in their wine output now, you can still buy a bottle of that sweet Manischewitz Concord grape wine goodness.

So, when I saw this bottle in a newly opened wine and liquor store near my home, I was intrigued.  "Unabashedly unsophisticated?" That's me, exactly, when it comes to wine.  Perhaps I should be a little ashamed to admit it, but my wine palate has never progressed from where it started out at age...um, 18, which was the legal drinking age when I turned 18.

I would never have imagined wine and chocolate in the same sentence, except to say "bleechhh".  I was to a wine tasting once where they "paired" chocolate and wine, and, I'm sorry to say, it was awful.  (Of course, "awful" to me may mean something different to a wine connoisseur).

But who could resist the face on the bottle?

I looked Chocolate Lab wine up online. Yes, it is a New York State (Seneca Lake) wine.  Yes, it is made from sweet concord grapes (the "lush native grapes" of the label) and natural chocolate favor.  Two years ago, I did not find anything like this at the Finger Lakes Wine Festival, but maybe they didn't waste Chocolate Lab on the masses. (or maybe, it wasn't being made yet.)

Apparently, there are those who like this as a dessert wine.  There was even one review that likened it to "drinking a Tootsie Roll".  So, this is what I did.

I bought a bottle.

I'm going to have it on Valentine's Day if I am permitted. (Hopefully, I'll be far enough recovered from my dental surgery to indulge, but I am on antibiotics - so I may have to wait a day or so.)

And then, I am going to tell you, my blog readers, what I thought. 

My first wine review! (run, run as fast as you can....)

Have you had chocolate flavored wine before?  Or a wine named after a dog?

Cheese and a Taste of the Finger Lakes Wine Festival

I wanted to make a little addition to my post of yesterday, talking about what seemed to be a lack of NYS cheese at a festival that was promoting NY products (especially wine).

So if you are expecting a Civil War Sunday post:  there will be one, but it may not be until later today (depending on how much more heat I can stand.)

There was one local cheese producer at the Finger Lakes Wine Festival (including Yancey's Fancy, and I believe I also saw Helluva Good represented there) and I would be remiss if I didn't mention them. (Again, the disclaimer that I do not get paid for promoting any products on this blog.


This cheese producer is Side Hill Acres Dairy Goat Farm and Cheese, and I highly recommend their products.  I've had many of them, including their flavored goat cheese logs.  I'm not a big drinker of goats milk, but they sell that on the farm.  At one time they used to have goats milk ice cream (which, needless to say, you had to eat there.)  I've taken their tour, and go up there every October for an annual event they hold on the Saturday of the Columbus Day weekend.

At the Festival, they were sampling goats milk cheddar (dry, but tasty) and various of their goat cheese logs.

But, that was the only "smallish" cheese producer I saw there.  If there were others and I missed you, I apologize.  There were three large tents with vendors and with thousands and thousands of people jammed in there (I am not exaggerating) on a nearly 90 degree, bright sunshiny day, I couldn't visit everyone and keep my sanity.

Some people would suggest I lost my sanity a long time ago, but we won't go there.

I will write more on this festival perhaps next Saturday, (on the food aspects) because...well, there was a lot more to the festival than just sampling wine. (and I promise, I will get around to the wine part after the Ultimate Blog Challenge is over.)

A Finger Lakes Taste of Wine-But Not Cheese?

I spent today at the Finger Lakes Wine Festival in Watkins Glen, NY.

After the Ultimate Blog Challenge is over I will speak more of the wine aspect of this festival. 

For now: Since I like to talk about farmers markets and local foods on Saturdays (although it is not an official Saturday feature of this blog) I wanted to spend a little time today on something about this festival that disappointed me.

When you think of local New York food, there are several  foods you should think about.  There is sweet corn, and our grapes and our apples, our onions (we are a top grower of cooking onions and we, personally, grow fantastic cooking onions in our community garden) and our wine industry - but our state also has a thriving dairy industry.  Our state is blessed with a number of local cheese makers, and some national brands.

So, you would think, there would be a lot of local cheese being featured along with the wine. After all, is not cheese a natural to go with wine?

Well, there were flavored oils (many were very good), flavored balsamic vinegars (ditto) hot sauces, and someone featuring garlic in various forms.  But, not much in cheese, and I was disappointed.

Yancey's Fancy was one of the sponsors of the festival, and they had a number of their cheeses available for sampling, including one I haven't seen in any local market, a steakhouse onion.  And, the Yancey website offers some pairings of their cheeses and wine.

(Incidentally, I am not paid to mention any products).

But...why no other local cheeses?  There were some 130 wineries presenting their products (this is an all-you-can-taste event, by the way) along with many breweries. But why only a limited amount of cheese?

Especially as 40,000. people were expected to attend, and I think 39,000 were there by the time we left.  My head is still spinning (and not from the wine, either.)  That's a lot of people to expose your product to.

I'm puzzled.