A delightfully versatile white wine pleasant as a starter with cheese or olives but then very able to pair with a rich sausage roast like this one we made with meat from Marbled Meat Market in Cold Spring and fresh produce from the area.

Made by the small Adega Marea Alta in Galicia, Spain whose wines are mostly consumed in Spain it is a delight to find her at Dylan’s Wine Cellar in Peekskill.

It comes forth with a glistening soft straw yellow color with a touch of green. It was reserved at first with a tight grapefruit lemon aromas and flavored that morphed into apple and tart peach, even pear much like a good California Sauvignon Blanc. The trick with this wine is to let it breath, after being open for a little over an hour the aromas and flavors really intensified.

Made with classic and exotic Spanish grapes Albarino, Caino Blanco, Godello, Loureiro, and Treixadura that give the wine a beguiling complexity that we adored.

Dylan’s Wine Cellar

Marbled Meat Shop

Watch what David Hunter of the great Chelsea Wine Vault has to say.

This past weekend I went on an expedition south and east in search of new booze purveyors.  My trip took me to Hudson Valley Beverage in Mahopac, NY which was a disappointment and Suburban Wines and Spirits in Yorktown Heights which was an utter delight.

I felt like a kid in a candy shop, so many intriguing wines and liquors to choose from. It is without a doubt the best wine and liquor store in the 20 mile radius from our home base of Garrison Landing.

I am still getting used to this separation in New York. Wines and Spirits under one license and beer and malt liquors under another.  In New Jersey you can get both in the same establishment.

Suburban celebrates “vive la différence.”  Yes I am stretching the meaning of that phrase to make a point.  While you can get the standards, I walked away with my purchases in a Barefoot Wine box, but none of that for me, I like the exciting different and unique finds, and here there are many.

A new Garrison friend suggested I try Suburban as we discoursed on the wine and things. I told him how much I like Viscount and Mid-Valley, but he smiled and said wait till you see Suburban. Frankly the thought of driving down into the congested roads  of Yorktown was not encouraging. I enjoy being here in the quiet realm of Putnam, try to avoid leaving at all cost. But leave I must and am so glad I did.

You see Suburban is a place where they call their staff with titles like Wine Maven, Whiskey Fanatic and apt names they are. For even as traveled and seasoned in the world of wines and spirits that I am, I found many new and exciting things here.

Can’t wait to get back for more.

Suburban Wine & Spirits
379 Downing Drive
Yorktown Heights NY 10598
Phone: 914-962-3100

 

I love this poem that appeared in the New York Times

The Good Survives

By Charles Harper Webb

Not the time Jane threw a coffeepot at Don,
but the time they swam with turtles in Puako Bay.

Not getting drunk and crashing your friend’s car,
but handing him your #20 Adams, that’s caught fish all day.

Not the father’s snarl and hissing belt —
the time he played catch for an hour, sick with flu.

Einstein intuited this law, but couldn’t prove it:
Not his mad son and ruined marriage — E = mc².

Not Colly Cibber — Dryden, Swift, and Pope.
Not Sweet Rebel Sword — Moby Dick.

If not in heaven, then in mind, Auschwitz evaporates;
the orchid’s purple stays. Not the boy drowned

in a backyard pool, the girl’s heart missing beats,
then lying still. The way she’d lift her arms up

from her crib, and say, “Kiss. Kiss.” The way he’d throw
open the bedroom door, and say, “Daddy, it’s day.”

 

Charles Harper Webb is an American poet, professor, psychotherapist and former singer and guitarist. His most recent poetry collection is Shadow Ball (University of Pittsburgh Press, 2009).

It was a perfect day for a drive, sun out, top down, let’s visit a Hudson Valley winery.

Glorie Farm Winery is the sixth winery we have visited on the Shawangunk Wine Trail which winds through the Hudson River Valley from Warwick to New Paltz taking you to fourteen vineyards or wineries. Perched high on Mt. Zion Mountain in Marlboro, NY, this one offers great views and a comfortable place to enjoy their very good wine.

The farm is over 100 years old, Doug and his wife purchased it in 1979. Since then Doug, a former IBM engineer, has been perfecting his science of growing great fruit and making great wine. Read more of this story at New York Cork Report

On our way home from Hudson stopped by a bar I’ve been wanting to try for years.  Ever since my friend Tommy Eats gave it a rave review. The atmosphere on this Saturday afternoon was not what I hoped for, but who goes to a dark bar on a sunny afternoon anyway!  The cocktails as promised were awesome. Continue reading Afternoon Cocktails at Stockade Tavern

Back Yard by Carl Sandberg

Shine on, O moon of summer.
Shine to the leaves of grass, catalpa and oak,
All silver under your rain to-night.

An Italian boy is sending songs to you to-night from an accordion.
A Polish boy is out with his best girl; they marry next month;
to-night they are throwing you kisses.

An old man next door is dreaming over a sheen that sits in a
cherry tree in his back yard.

The clocks say I must go—I stay here sitting on the back porch drinking
white thoughts you rain down.

Shine on, O moon,
Shake out more and more silver changes.

 

Carl August Sandburg was an American poet, writer, and editor who won three Pulitzer Prizes, two for his poetry and one for his biography of Abraham Lincoln.