Eminence Road: Naturally Made Wines from Upstate New York!
10/5/16 -
Living in New Jersey in the early 90's and working in Manhattan, Andrew Scott and Jennifer Clark became passionate wine lovers and soon fell in with the burgeoning natural wine scene in NYC. Both Andrew and Jennifer tasted many Loire Valley producers beloved here at Chambers Street Wines with David Lillie (then of Garnet Wines) as well as Joe Dressner, whose import portfolio Louis/Dressner focused on non-interventionist wines made without excess sulfur, commercial yeasts, obtrusive oak, or chaptalization.
At the urging of his brother (a home-brewer in Florida), Andrew Scott decided to put wine passion into practice, and made his first batch of homemade wine in 1996. The winemaking transitioned from kitchen to basement to garage, and then to a barn upstate. More than 10 years later, Andrew and his wife left the city, purchased a farm in upstate New York, and produced their first commercial wines under the Eminence Road Farm label in 2008.
Eminence Road Farm Winery makes small lots of Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Gewurztraminer, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Pinot Noir, and Gamay on the western edge of the Catskills using grapes from sustainably managed Finger Lakes vineyards. Grapes are crushed by foot, mostly whole-cluster. Wines are fermented with native yeasts in neutral oak barrels and stainless steel tanks. The wines are bottled unfined and unfiltered with minimal sulfur added. Like the Loire Valley wines that inspired them, Eminence Road's are elegant, firm, and acid-driven with a minerally tinged core of fruit that reflects the cool climate in the Finger Lakes.
Despite a cold, inauspicious start to the growing season, the 2014 vintage proved to be a very good one. Although the summer was slow to warm up and delivered an abundance of rain in August, fall afforded long, sunny, and moderate weather, ripening the grapes slowly and beautifully in September and October. The reds especially are dark and ripe with a great intensity and weight on the palate; the whites have relatively high acids and ripeness.
We're proud to offer Andrew and Jennifer's wines from the 2014 vintage today! Jonas Mendoza
