Morlene C.
Yelp
I've lived in NY all my life and this was my first visit to our [locally] famous vineyards just to the east of us. In my early twenties it was especially common to hear about friends renting limos or party buses and doing wine tours through the area. People always reported having a good time, but not once was the quality of the wine mentioned, which I came to understand why after this visit.
Arrangements were made ahead of time and my friends and I gathered in a bus that took us from the city straight to the winery. Once we arrived we were greeted with sandwiches, salads, and pours of wine. The options for sandwiches and salads were sorely limited, and the quality matched the sordid options. While I'm not a sommelier, I know enough about wine to know when the wine doesn't taste good, which was the case here.
The Long Island wine scene is still nascent, as compared to the more famous Finger Lake region in upstate NY, or the even more famous Sonoma wine country in the West Cost. I'm not sure the terroir supports the growth of the tastiest grapes, but I think it's really fun that they're trying. Of course I can't speak definitively for all the wines in the region but everything I had here wasn't very good.
What I will say is that the grounds are gorgeous, with grass and trees as green as Estonian green blur, and live music playing on the weekends. Most of the shaded tables were taken so we made due on a sunny bench, where we snacked on some of the desserts we brought up from the city. It was a nice way to spend an afternoon, and we were dropped off right back where we were picked up in the city at the end of the day.