Dan's Papers - February 15, 2008 - Over the Barrel... with Lenn Thompson

It's 9:30 a.m. on a frigid Saturday morning and here I am in a large, barely-heated garage-turned-winery just off of Alvah's Lane in Cutchogue. The thermometer has crept just above freezing. I can just barely feel my hands, but I'm getting my first taste of the wine that I'm making at Sannino Bella Vita Vineyard, sipping a barrel sample of 2007 cabernet franc. The three rows of cab franc vines that bore the wine in my glass are just at the end of the driveway behind me, off to the side are the merlot and cabernet vines.

Sannino Bella Vita Vineyard, the East End's only home winemaker's center, is a welcome and exciting new addition to the local wine world. Most importantly, it's just plain fun.

There are several places where you can taste and learn about wine on the North Fork - from winery tasting rooms to my friends' education center, Grand Cru Classes, all just up the road in Mattituck - but no one offers such a comprehensive, hands-on wine education as Lisa and Anthony Sannino.

Membership at Sannino is $3,500 per year and includes everything you need to make a full barrel of red wine from the grapes growing right outside this garage. From that one barrel, you'll end up with 23 cases of wine ...... 275 bottles. That's a lot of wine, but you can get a group of friends together and buy a group membership - which really adds to the fun.

Your membership really starts in the fall, when you'll go out into the vineyard and harvest the grapes that you'll then crush, de-stem and inoculate with the yeast that will turn them into wine. Never made wine before? Don't worry, Anthony has been making wine at home for over a decade and he'll guide you every step of the way. Juan Eduardo Micieli-Martinez, winemaker at Martha Clara Vineyards, also serves as a winemaking consultant for your barrel.

Throughout the year, as your wine is truly born and evolves, you'll be invited out to the winery to take part in the necessary work - both in the winery and in the vineyard. I missed the harvest and pruning sessions, but didn't want to miss the first tasting.

That's why I'm here on this chilly morning - it's time to taste the wines in barrel and also rack them - the process of siphoning the wine from its sediment and putting it into another vessel.

The wines we tasted, which will eventually be used to create each member's or group's custom blend, are all from the 2007 vintage. The small lot of cabernet franc stands out with great fruit and subtle spice components that were surprisingly evident in such a super-young wine. Another favorite is a merlot fermented with a Barolo yeast strain and aged in new French oak. It showed great ripeness and some spicy, smoky and vanilla notes.

I wasn't sure what to expect, but came away very impressed with the wines. In a few months, we'll be working on our blends and then we'll bottle the wines in the fall, before harvest begins the cycle all over again.

The Sanninos are building a new barn that will serve as the winery starting with the 2008 vintage. They are accepting applications for 2008 memberships. Visit www.sanninovineyard.com for more information and details. Hopefully I'll see you at the 2008 harvest party.