50 Years of Long Island Wine

At the start of any new endeavor, people will often say that they had a vision.

In 1973, Louisa and Alex Hargrave had an aroma and a flavor.

It was the sophisticated and rich complexity of Château Beychevelle, a fixture in the Bordeaux region of France. It was the full-bodied reds pouring from Côtes du Rhône, with flavors of plum, currant and spice.

It was their hands in the soil, their fingers pulling grapes from the vines, the fruit whispering to them, exuding what they should be.

“The idea that you could grow something, you could make something and it would be part of your life — like you’d be a family working together — was not something we’d ever done but something we could imagine ourselves doing,” Louisa Hargrave recalled. “It’s, like, ‘We’ve got nothing to lose — let’s just go for it.’ And we did.”

Setting their sights on the East End of Long Island — its agricultural legacy dominated by potato growers — they bought a farmhouse and 66 acres of land in Cutchogue, along with 10,000 Vitis vinifera vines and a textbook titled “General Viticulture.”

The moment they planted their first grapes, they founded an entire wine region.

At that time, no one had believed in the potential of Long Island winemaking. Four years ago, the asking price of one winery and vineyard was nearly $18 million.

“Long Island is unique,” said Roman Roth, winemaker and partner at Wölffer Estate Vineyard in Sagaponack. “The elegant wines that Long Island makes, the fresh wine, the wines with less alcohol, the dry rosés, these are all things that have an impact on winemaking in America and certainly can compete with the best wines in the world. That’s a huge statement, a huge thing to celebrate.”

While Hargrave Vineyard, Long Island’s first winery, no longer exists, it cleared the path for the 57 wine producers on the North Fork, South Fork and western Suffolk County that thrive today. Over the past five decades, the region’s wines have only grown in both volume and quality, local experts say, as winemakers migrated east, each bringing a unique experience to a shared vision.

Now, a range of grape varieties pepper the 3,000 acres of three distinct American Viticulture Areas — the Long Island AVA, the Hamptons Long Island AVA and the North Fork Long Island AVA — and myriad production methods and styles distinguish the wineries from one another, landing them on an international stage.

But beneath any East End rivalry, a common history binds them. There’s science and cuisine, romance and connection, sun, sea, and soil that define the region.

And it is only just beginning.

There is a concept called “the denial of satiety,” Hargrave explained, which goes like this: If someone is thirsty, they drink water, or lemonade, or iced tea, and it sates them, she said. It would be enough.

But there is a different sensation, one that keeps the drinker going back — perhaps there’s a little bitterness, or funkiness, a je ne sais quoi that makes a beverage not quite satiable, yet irresistible.

“You drink it because you’re curious and you’re intrigued, and you follow that as you sip and you smell,” she said. “That’s important to me, and that’s what I look for in wine, and it’s a little bit of a complicated thought, but I do think we find that with our wines here.”

In some ways, the theory is an analogy for her own life.

When she and her future husband met while they were graduate students at Harvard, they had no formal training in viticulture, oenology or even gardening — but they did fall in love with French food and wines.

In 1972, they hopped in their Jeep Wagoneer and drove across the country, visiting every vineyard they could. In California, they realized that the American world of wine was still stunted by and recovering from Prohibition, Hargrave recalled, and the name of the game was bulk — which was unattainable for the couple.

Then, they visited a smaller winery and saw its modest, two-spigot bottling line. She was 24, he was 26, and, suddenly, they had a dream.

“We started looking for land,” she said, “and one thing led to another.”

Deterred by the heat along the West Coast, they toured one farm after the next 3,000 miles to the east, seeking the perfect area to grow European-style grapes, made famous in Burgundy and Bordeaux. They researched soils and climate, she said, and learned they needed a cooler region to grow these vines — which is precisely what agricultural scientist John Wickham was doing with his table grapes on Long Island.

So they paid him a visit and he explained what makes the North Fork exceptionally unique for grape growing — what dozens of vintners would eventually come to learn, including Kareem Massoud, whose parents, Ursula and Charles, founded Paumanok Vineyards in Aquebogue four decades ago.

“There is a lot of science to it, and there’s also a lot of artistry to it,” explained Massoud, who is the winemaker at Paumanok and Palmer Vineyards, and president of Long Island Wine Country. “Most winegrowers, like ourselves, see ourselves as part scientist and part artist. There are some who are just pure artisans and others who are pure scientists, but most of us are somewhere in the middle.”

Surrounded on three sides by the Atlantic Ocean, Long Island Sound and Peconic Bay, the North Fork is a “Goldilocks region” with a cool, maritime climate, explained Richard Olsen-Harbich, winemaker at Bedell Cellars in Cutchogue, whose book “Sun, Sea, Soil, Wine” will hit shelves in January. There may be humidity, wind and cold snaps, but there are also four moderate seasons and the same number of days during the growing season as Napa Valley — and, on average, the same rainfall as Bordeaux.

Additionally, the sandy loams on the North Fork drain exceptionally well, despite the topography being flat, and deliver proper nutrients, altogether allowing the region to create wines with less alcohol, crisp, natural acidity, and clear aromatics, bridging the gap between the new and old worlds of winemaking.

“If you think of an American being a little bit more forward, a little bit more expressive than a European, that’s exactly where we are,” Roth said. “And we have a little bit more of an edge, that acidity that we have. It’s a cool mix of both of those classic places, and we’re right smack dab in the middle stylistically and geographically.”

Altogether, these components comprise the region’s “terroir,” which is essentially the “taste of a place,” Olsen-Harbich said.

“It’s really the essence of winemaking around the world — because if it wasn’t, then we would just make wine anywhere and it would all taste the same,” he said. “It’s pretty much the driving force among wine producers who are serious, whether it be in Europe, California, here, anywhere else in the world.”

From the beginning, the Hargraves were serious. In 1973, they focused their attention on their 17 acres of vines and learned as much as they could. Their neighbor, potato farmer Mike Kaloski, was a font of knowledge and support — pointing at invasive weeds to pull, showing them how to hook up a cultivator, teaching them how to ferment, and more.

“He loved the idea that we were doing something that nobody else had done,” Hargrave said. “He tried growing watermelons and he tried growing peanuts, and everybody told him that he couldn’t do that, and he did, with limited success. It was just a wonderful thing that involved other people who welcomed us and folded us into that community.”

In the second year, Hargrave chopped at the aforementioned weeds with a hoe while pregnant with the couple’s first child. And when Anne was born, she snuggled on her mother’s back while she picked their inaugural crop in October 1974. “I wore her like a sweater,” she said with a laugh.

It wasn’t until 1977 that Hargrave Winery released its first vintage, a Cabernet Sauvignon — which, admittedly, she said, wasn’t very good. But their next wine was a Sauvignon Blanc, “and it was terrific.” Eventually, they would make the first merlot east of the Rocky Mountains.

All eyes were on them, from local to national media, including New York Times food and wine critic Florence Fabricant, who went so far as to write recipes around their vintages.

“That’s what gave us credibility, and people would come and try it,” Hargrave said. “And the wines are great — that’s the thing. It worked.”

In July 1978, The New York Times devoted a magazine spread to the Hargrave Vineyard, inspiring a wave of new wineries to sprout on the East End. Paumanok Vineyards was one of them, in 1983, and Bridgehampton Winery was another — established in 1979 as the first vineyard on the South Fork and, three years later, its first winery.

At its helm was another unlikely character: 31-year-old Lyle Greenfield, an associate creative director at an advertising agency.

“When I read this article, it captured my imagination,” he recalled from his home in Amagansett, adding, “It was really difficult, but there were beautiful times, beautiful vintages, there was a sense of optimism I had for probably 10 of the total 15 years, before it became just utterly untenable.”

On the cusp of purchasing 74 acres of land in Bridgehampton, Greenfield received a grim warning from legendary weather expert Richard Hendrickson, who lived nearby, about the freezing temperatures. While the North Fork’s weather was a bit more stable, it’s southern neighbor was damper, frequently socked in early morning fog.

The burgeoning farmer considered the information — and moved forward anyway.

“And he said, ‘It will be my pleasure watching you struggle, little New York City arrogant shithead,’” Greenfield deadpanned, adding, “He did not say that.”

The land, as he quickly found out, was overly wet — “literally a frost pocket,” he said — and not as conducive to grape growing as farms on the North Fork. Despite this, the winery won well over 150 medals in competitions, mostly for chardonnays and a couple for Rieslings, under the watchful eye of its winemaker.

“The greatest possible gift to the Bridgehampton Winery was Richard Olsen-Hardick,” Greenfield said.

As more wineries entered the fore — names that, today, include Channing Daughters Winery, Duck Walk Vineyards, Jamesport Vineyards, Lenz Winery, Lieb Cellars, Palmer Vineyards, Pindar Vineyards, Raphael Vineyard & Winery, and dozens more — producers lobbied for the region to be formally recognized in the 1980s. There was camaraderie, a pioneering spirit, and owners, winemakers and vineyard managers shared information, their wins and failures, and united in their mission to get Long Island wines on the map.

Among the earliest champions of the East End industry was Ted Conklin, owner of The American Hotel in Sag Harbor, who began his wine cellar in the 1970s. Of the 3,000 vintages on his wine list, about six pages are dedicated to Long Island wines.

“We have great backlogs of wines,” he said. “It’s just a wonderful collection. It’s like going into a library of first editions — it’s a wonderful place. So, when I get depressed, I go down to my cellar.”

Home to about 40,000 bottles, the working cellar boasts 30-to-40-year-old Paumanoks, one of his local favorites, he said, as well as vintage bottles from Bedell, Lenz, Wölffer and other labels.

“We’ve had a good 50 years. They do make unbelievably impressive, world-class wine — not to be ignored,” he said, adding, “Long Island is still striving to achieve its identity, and I think it’s very close to that — and it’s waiting for its breakthrough moment.”

While some wineries have seen enormous success — “Wölffer has turned into a juggernaut,” Conklin said — Long Island faces an uphill battle when considering the global scale, explained Dorothy-Dean Thomas, a consultant with Lenz Winery in Peconic.

“We’re never gonna be a large region, because we only have about 3,600 to 4,000 acres of cultivatable vineyard land in this area, so that’s gonna limit the amount,” she said. “When you’re looking at, say, South Africa, where you have one winery that can own 25,000 acres, it’s not something that we’re ever really gonna be able to compete with on a quantity level. But the quality is definitely there.”

On average, a vineyard can plant between 1,200 to 1,600 vines per acre, according to Massoud. Each acre produces between 2 to 4 tons of grapes — more for white varieties — and 1 ton translates to about 180 gallons of juice, which equals three barrels, he said. One barrel produces 25 cases of wine, he said.

And, of course, these numbers vary depend on each growing season, he said.

“As my father says, ‘Winemaking is less of an art and more of a partnership with Mother Nature,’” he said.

Greenfield learned that lesson the hard way — and by 1994, he’d had enough. He sold to Peter and Deborah Carroll, who own Lenz Winery, but after just 29 months, the vineyard officially closed its doors. Today, the land belongs to the South Fork Natural History Museum & Nature Center — its main building is the original Bridgehampton Winery.

“It was deeply, deeply saddening at the time. It was heartbreaking,” Greenfield said of the initial sale. “I didn’t want to drive by it for a long, long time. But now, it’s so many years later and it’s so much in the distant past.”

Simultaneously, other wineries were thriving. In his first year at Wölffer Estate Vineyard, Roth oversaw the production of the vineyard’s first dry rosé in 1992, “a genius stroke at the time,” he said, that would eventually set the winery apart from the rest.

“Nobody really took rosé serious or made sparkling wine at the time,” he said. “It was all exciting and very new, and those were great days. We would go to the city, and people didn’t want to touch Long Island wine with a stick, basically. We make, now, 100,000 cases of rosé on Long Island alone. It’s just wild.”

Ten years later, Wölffer released a 2000 merlot that Roth called its masterpiece — the first bottle on Long Island to retail for $100. “At the time, people thought we were crazy, but it has been selling ever since,” he said. “The more mature the vineyard gets, the more mature the winemaker gets, the more we have been pushing the boundaries of quality of the wine.”

Over the decades, wineries have changed hands, moving on and off the market, and back on again. Bedell Cellars set records in 2000 when it sold for $5 million, and nearly again when it was listed for $17.9 million nearly 20 years later — after its owner, Michael Lynne, died — but didn’t sell. Previously, Martha Clara and Palmer Vineyards sold, too, the latter to the Massoud family.

But before them all, in 1999, the Hargraves — who had decided to divorce — sold Long Island’s first winery to Marco and Ann Marie Borghese for almost $4 million.

“Up until the absolute last minute that we owned that vineyard and winery, Alex and I worked together really well together,” Hargrave said, “as growers, as winemakers, as decision-makers.”

As Castillo di Borghese, the vineyard once again became a household name in the wine region. Then, in 2014, both Borgheses died tragically — Ann Marie from cancer, and Marco, several days later, in a car accident. One of their children, Giovanni, has taken over the business, landing himself among the second generation of wine producers across Long Island.

“I’ve seen people plant new vines, and I’ve seen people innovate, and I’ve seen people with their own vision and their own excitement who are carrying it forward into the future in their own way — and this is what you need,” Hargrave said. “You have to have the change of people, of pace, of vision for something to go on.”

Eric Fry used to joke that Thomas Spotteck was his longest-running intern.

The veteran winemaker, who steered the ship at Lenz Winery for 30 years, hired the 21-year-old hobby fermenter as seasonal help for three months, which grew into a decade-long relationship.

“I was just getting out of the military. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life,” Spotteck, now 34, recalled. “I realized after starting under Eric that there was a real career path.”

When Fry retired in 2018, Spotteck stepped into his shoes as winemaker, having earned his bachelor’s degree in viticulture and oenology from Washington State University in 2013, followed by work in wine regions from the Pacific Northwest to Stellenbosch in South Africa, bringing what he learned back to Lenz Winery.

“We really make our wine in the field,” he said. “From there, it’s really my job to just not screw it up — and to know, from tasting the grapes, what they want to be, or, more importantly, what they don’t want to be. You can’t force a product out of certain grapes. Sometimes they don’t want to be something, and you have to be able to improvise and adapt and overcome.”

Against a backdrop of warming global temperatures, worsening weather events and climate change, the next class of vineyard owners and wine producers are already preparing themselves.

In 2009, Paumanok Vineyards installed its first solar panels and is now entirely powered by solar, with Palmer Vineyards up next, Massoud said. They have also ordered three electric tractors that, in addition to eliminating diesel, are expected to be fully autonomous. If the technology is developed, they could be used in the future to emit UV light to eradicate mildew, instead of spraying fungicides, as humidity increases.

“I just came across this great quote from Charles Darwin: ‘It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change,’” Massoud recited. “And so all we can do is try to adapt to a changing climate, and of course we can do our share to mitigate the causes of global climate change.”

In May, the Long Island industry watched in horror as an unprecedented frost hit the Finger Lakes wine region, entirely wiping out some varieties of grapes, while others escaped unscathed.

But Hargrave watched with a certain knowing, she recalled. After all, she had this information 50 years ago, in the depths of her research as she chased her vision. Her son, Zander, has carried it forward — with his own aroma and flavor in his mind, which he explores as winemaker at Pellegrini Vineyards in Cutchogue, just two miles from where his parents took a chance and started it all.

“I love my life. I’m very happy. I’m excited to go and taste wine, and sometimes I will go down into the cellar with Zander, and if he’s putting together a blend, I’ll taste with him and I love it,” Hargrave said. “But I’m not a person who looks back. I look forward, and if I have to look back, I think it’s absolutely astonishing that we did what we did — and I’d love to see it go on.”