A Party with the Stars

Beyond being simply excited to see all the WBC15 wine bloggers, the folks at Ventosa Vineyards were particularly overflowing with excitement while we were visiting. Turned out, earlier in the day, the winery and winemaker, Jenna Lavita, were advised that they had won the Governor's Cup trophy at the 2015 New York Wine & Food Classic competition. Chosen as the "Best of Show" for their 2011 Lemberger, they were in a particularly celebratory mood.

With that exciting news in hand, the party kept going after our WBC15 dinner had ended. Jenna and her partner, Victor, also operate Lake Drum Brewing and their brewpub was the perfect locale for a little impromptu bash. Jenna invited us bloggers along to their festivities. Joining the fun was a no-brainer seeing as how the pub was just down the road from our hotel.

Taking our wine goggles off for a mix of craft brews, I'm not sure the locals expected their guest Canucks to shake their groove thang to Dancing Queen and a few other old school tunes as the vinyl hit the turntable. Having no dancefloor proved to be no impediment to our determined crew.

Simply heading home to the hotel would have been the wisest plan but, at the time, grabbing another bottle of wine and heading down to dock to watch the Perseid Meteor Shower seemed ever-so-much more exciting. Boo had texted me that the shower was at its peak and the stars are a whole light brighter in Geneva than they are back home. Miss Selfie, The Suje and Gone Girl joined me for for a little laid back action. That is, literally laying back on the dock to look up into the sky.

Except, of course, when we had to sit up to take another sip of wine.

1975.  2013 Forge Cellars Pinot Noir "Les Alliés" (Finger Lakes - New York - United States)

The kids picked up this bottle on their way up to the Conference. Forge Cellars is more of a virtual winery. It's a collaboration of three partners: a vigneron from Gigondas in France's Rhône Valley, a local, newby grape grower and a winemaker/partner of another New York winery. The 2013 bottling was only the third Forge vintage and they currently buy all their fruit and use the other winery's facilities to make the wine.

Unlike many start-up wineries in newly developing regions, the gents behind Forge did not go the route of producing a full range of wines to cover all tastes. They simply look to express what they feel best represents the Finger Lakes. As such, they decided that the two most interesting grapes for the region were Riesling and Pinot Noir and they've only made a couple different takes on the two varietal wines so far - with the Les Alliés being a single vineyard offering from the east side of Seneca Lake.

There were only 222 cases of this wine produced. So, we were lucky to have our bottle to watch the stars by. Unfortunately, the paper cups and pitch black lighting likely didn't showcase the wine to its greatest potential but it was a completely enjoyable venture - despite the fact that we saw very little meteor action before we called it a night. The show likely got better as the night progressed but it was only a matter of hours before we'd need to get back on our excursion bus. That and the fact we were out of wine.

As Gone Girl later noted, however, "We'll always have Geneva."