Connecticut Wine Trail web site

http://www.ctwine.com/

6/26 - Haight Vineyard in Litchfield, CT

Haight Vineyard
Chestnut Hill, Litchfield, CT 06759
Phone:(860)567-4045
Web site: http://www.ctwine.com/haight.html

On a drizzly Monday afternoon in late June, I found myself out in the Litchfield Hills. This part of Connecticut boasts eight different vineyards that make up part of the "Western Wine Trail". I went to the CT wine trail web site (www.ctwine.com) to see what vineyards would be open on a Monday.

My search culminated in one place: Haight Vineyard. Opened in 1975, it has the distinction of being the first and thus oldest CT vineyard.

Take Route 8 to Exit 42/Route 118. Left onto Chestnut Hill Road (comes up quickly, sneaky little devil). Haight is up on your left.

As I pulled into the vineyard driveway, I saw that they were breaking down big white tents. Wedding? Big event? Inside on the first floor, there was a flyer announcing the Taste of Litchfield Hills. I had missed it by one day. The mystery of the big white tents solved, I vowed to get myself up on the mailing list to be notified for the next big event.

The second floor of the winery is one big open room, combination tasting room and gift shop. The complimentary wine tasting is free. If you want a wineglass with the Haight Vineyard named etched on it, you'll pay $3.95.

One thing I was really surprised at was the large variety of wine they had available for tasting. There are a lot more whites than reds. All the wines I tasted are 2005 vintage. According to the wine maker, Sal Cimono, one of the best years for CT wine because of the hot and dry summer.

The Wines (in the order they were tasted)

Chardonnay - $11.98
First up was the Chardonnay. Very nice, dry and crisp. I found it a bit anemic and a bit on the "thin" side.

Covertside White - $9.98
Seyval Blanc grapes. An playful little off-dry white. The wine pourer was proud to announce this was their signature bottle (the wine that Haight is most recognized for) and that many Litchfield Inns and restaurants carry this bottle. I liked it enough to buy this bottle, knowing that my family would enjoy it.

Barely Blush - $9.98
Nice little wine, but didn't stand up to the previous two wines. My mom would love it. But then again, my mom gets drunk off of one glass. It didn't make my purchase list.

After the first three whites, we moved onto Haight's red wines. They only make two. I wasn't ready for what came next...

Picnic Red - $10.98
Marechal Foch grapes. HELLO! What have we here? My palate really likes reds. And this one was not only big, complex but so seductive I'd give it an NC-17 rating if wines got rated this way. I would have to say that for an light off-dry red, my favorite was a tie between a really good French Beaujoulais Village or Hopkins Vineyard's Sachem's Picnic. (Hopkins Vineyard is a hop-skip-and jump from Haight.)

Needless to say, I went home with the Picnic Red and I am not ashamed to admit it!

Merlot - $11.98
Very nice bottle. Gourgeous bouquet, dry, complex with a good finish. This bottle also made it onto the purchase list.

Reisling - $11.98
This wine really needs to be changed in the sequence of the tasting. Haight would be smart to move this to before or after the Blush. I was suffering from palate fatique from the big reds at this point in the tasting. I did think it was light and tickles the tastebuds in a sweetly flirtatious manner, it left a flat impression on me.

Honey Nut Apple - $9.98
An unusual wine with a unique nutty flavor. I still haven't identified which nut yet. This would be especially good in the fall with a warm apple pie or a good bread pudding.

Golden Delight
Light, sweet with a slight lemony finish. Excellent partner for shrimp cocktail, light seafood or as an after dinner apperatif similar to the Lemoncello.

One piece of advice I would give newbie wine connoiseurs: Get thee to the vineyards early or on a Monday!

Thanks to the quiet Monday afternoon, I not only had the opportunity to meet the owner, Mr. Sherman Haight, Jr, but also the winemaker, Sal Cimono, and his lovely wife Jenny. No one was around, and they had the time to actually converse with me.

After I bought my three bottles (Covertside White, Picnic Red and 2005 Merlot), I introduced myself to Sal and was invited to sit down for a glass of wine with him and his wife.

He poured me a glass of the Picnic Red and I asked him to tell me about the wines I had purchased. This launched us into an impromptu half-hour class! How many times do you get to sit down one-on-one with a commercial wine maker and ask them questions and learn so many things? Don't people pay hundreds of dollars for this type of experience? Well, not only did I get a lot of knowledge, I got to sip a glass of Picnic Red while doing it.

So he told me about their process of wine making, the amount of sugar/alcohol he looks for, how long a white vs. red wine takes to ferment. It was all very intriguing. Surprisingly enough, Sal is a white wine man. I told him that for a white wine man, I was impressed with his reds. Seems that Sal comes from a long line of Italian wine makers. Ciao bello!

All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by Haight Vineyards. The staff are friendly. The winemaker is a font of knowledge. The baseline of quality of the wine is pretty solid, meaning there was not one wine that I thought was "bad". Some just shone more than others. Always a good thing to look for in a vineyard experience.

6/18/06 - Jones Vineyard and Bishops Vineyard

Okay, I'm no wine expert by any means. But I'm aiming at at least becoming a reputable wine connoiseur.

Luckily, in my beloved home state of Connecticut, there are 18 vineyards. Yes, 18!

Surprisingly enough, my fall into viticulture commenced uneventfully. Take a bunch of people who like to sit around and imbibe large quantities of vino and stuff themselves on chicken wings, slap a name like "Salon Night" on it to make is sound hoighty toighty and you've got the beginnings of bunch of wannabe wine snobs.

Ad into the mix that I quickly became aware that we have some good vineyards right here in CT. I bought my first bottles of CT wine as Christmas presents about 2.5 years ago. Nowadays, I give wine as gifts often and in my immediate family, it is now standard for my sibling or parent to ask "What did you bring?" if we are gathered for a family dinner.

Wine trailblazing is fun, but it always more fun when you have company. I am on the mailing list for Hopkins Vineyard in New Preston, CT. I have visited this lovely place for wine events and barrel openings easily a half-dozen times. I would say that the place has impressed me so much that I could see myself having my wedding there, it is so verdantly magnificent.

Okay, but back to the wine. As I said, it is more fun to bring a friend along so I invited my friend Jaime to come winetasting with me. She claimed she knew nothing. I think she had fears that it was going to be all wine snobs and she was going to look like a dunce. I admitted that I knew next to nothing and this was a learning expedition. We mapped out our strategy and hit up two vineyards in central southeastern part of CT: Priam Vineyard in Colchester and Heritage Trails in Lisbon, CT.

But that was a few weekends ago. This past Sunday we visited Jones Vineyard in Shelton Bishops in Guilford.

I have to first start off by stating that we were spoiled by our first wine visit to Priam. We arrived and the husband co-owner was sitting there with no one else in the tasting room. We sat there for almost an hour, just the three of us having what was pretty much a private wine tasting. It was a superb way to initiate Jaime into the process.