May 5, 2021 Breakfast - Curly’s in Watkins Glen. Dinner - Park Inn Restaurant, in Hammondsport, NY
We awakened and drove to Watkin’s Glen to eat breakfast at Curly’s. Suzette ordered an mushroom and cheese omelette and I ordered two eggs, two pancakes, two patties of sausage, and pile of home fries. I traded Suzette my potatoes for her wheat bread at 9:00.
The food did not agree with Suzette but she soldiered on.
We drove to the Herman J. Wiemer Winery for 10:30 tasting appointment.
Most wineries now require reservations, so we made reservations at Wiemer fo 10:30 this morning. This was the best wines we have tasted so far. They were almost all consistently good to truly delicious and served in a vast barn turned into a tasting room.
A girl enjoying her first gulp of a new wine
The best was a biodynamic Riesling but the field blend of Riesling, Gruner Vitliner, and Chardonnay was also very good and less than $10.00 a bottle, so we bought four bottles of it.
We bought 15 bottles. These are wines we can not find in NM. Having a connection to the winery is the only way to get these wines.
We then drove to Havill Pottery further down the west side of Keuka lake.
We spent about two hours talking with Barb and Eric. Peter Eller grew up on Lake Keuka and has known Eric and his brother Steve all their lives, I assume. Steve lives in Datil, NM and I think PEter visits him quite often.
Barb and Eric are potters and bird watchers. They set up a feeding station by the picture window by their kitchen table. They were kind enough to invite us in for a cup of tea and it turned into an in depth lesson in Eastern US birdwatching. We must have seen two dozen different species. All except for two birds were new to me. It was an impressive experience.
Both are potters and their pottery is lovely. I bought 4 small teacups each decorated by Barb with a different small bird image; a charming remembrance of our visit and the profusion of birds on their property. Both throw. Barb decorates and Eric glazes and fires.
At 3:30 they mentioned Dr. Konstantin Frank winery and we remembered we needed to visit it by 4:00 so we bid them a hasty farewell and drove to the winery.
Dr. Frank was a legendary figure in the Finger Lakes. He was a European winemaker who began the cultivation of vinifera grapes in the Finger Lakes in 1962 on this property that led to the area becoming one of the most respected wine making regions in the world.
Again, we found that Frank’s wines were consistently well balanced and delicious. We sent a case home to enjoy this summer.
We then drove to Crooked Tusker Distillery where Suzette bought a bottle of horseradish flavored vodka and a bottle of gin with 23 different botanicals.
It was approaching 6:00 and we were getting hungry, so we drove to the restaurant named Park Inn in Hammondsport that Eric and Barb had recommended. It was on the square of downtown Hammondsport, which seemed to have seen better days.
We were seated and took off our masks and except for the waiters wearing masks, and tables spaced 12 feet apart it seemed just like a bustling pre-pandemic restaurant. Perhaps this is the new normal.
The restaurant was of the modern American variety with a relationship with a local organic farm, GKS, and a fresh menu every few days.
What a relief it was to be in a real restaurant with well cooked creative dishes again. We could hardly restrain ourselves from crying out loud.
Suzette was hungry so we ordered a little neck clam appetizer immediately when we first were handed the menu. This clam dish was the antithesis of the one at 30 Lake in Saratoga Springs that was a mess of uncooked garlic and red pepper flakes thrown over a few Manila clams. This clam dish consisted of six large fresh little neck clams served in a very restrained sauce made with fresh ramps sautéed in butter and chorizo with a hint of finely minced onion; a take on clams casino but with fresh available ingredients. The subtle spiciness came from the finely minced mild chorizo. As I said, the antithesis of what we were served in Saratoga.
We perused the menu and when the waitress returned we told her we were ready to order. Suzette ordered a dish of cod wrapped in prosciutto with mussels and potatoes. I ordered a duck breast with a sauté skillet made brown gravy with fried onions in it served on a bed of pureed parsnips with a blob of homemade cranberry sauce. Both dishes were served with lightly steamed kale that was still curly and dark green, as if it had just been harvested from the organic farm that appeared to have been lightly tossed with shredded duck meat.
One has a good indication one is in a first rate restaurant when the vegetables are just as impressive as the entree with which they are served and the sauces have a vibrant, unique identity that demonstrates creativity in their formulation and technical skill in their execution. I can not thank Barb and Eric enough for their recommending Park Inn restaurant.
We switched plates and I tasted Suzette’s cod dish. It was served poached and served in a white wine and butter sauce that had the slightly bitter seawater flavor from the mussels. Not my favorite flavor and poached prosciutto was not my favorite way to eat prosciutto, so I liked it less than my duck breast dish, but it had two generous fillets of cod wrapped in prosciutto and lots of potatoes for a sort of boiled dinner effect that showed a creative take on that traditional dish.
We each ordered a glass of wine. I ordered a glass of the Dr. Konstantin Frank Saperavi red that I had just finished tasting at the winery. The saperavi grape wine went perfectly with both the slightly spicy clams and the heavier brown sauce served with the duck breast. I wondered if that is why it is one of the oldest cultivated grapes.
Suzette ordered a glass of her favorite white, Gruner Vitliner from the Weis vineyard where we had a reservation to stay tonight until we had to cancel it due to the failure of Keller Bros. to complete the repair of the camper van we were scheduled to pick up last Thursday.
She liked the Gruner as we did most of the Northern European whites produced in The Finger Lakes. It is amazing to me that the Finger Lakes are synonymous with Riesling and elegant whites in the same way Napa Valley is synonymous with Cabernet Sauvignon and Willamette Valley with Pinot Noir in two respects. First, they both seem to have revolutionized a new dominant wine culture about the same time, in the mid-sixties. I remember visiting Mondavi Vineyard in 1969 and having Robert Mondavi pouring me my first glass of dry rose in his small tasting room at the front of his vineyard and saying, “Try this new wine I have just developed.”
I was not at Lake Keuka in 1969, but Dr. Frank was probably saying the same thing to visitors at his vineyard about his new Riesling.
The other thing that impresses me is that good wine makers can bring out the best qualities and characteristics in any grape suited for cultivation in a given area. Lots of Northern European white grapes are grown along side Pinot Noir in the Willamette Valley that taste surprisingly good. My favorite is a Elk Cove Pinot Gris, but there are hundreds of others and will be more as winemakers experiment with growing and blending grapes in their area.
For example, Dr. Konstantn Frank vineyard produces chardonnay that it uses to make sparkling wine and blends with Riesling and other grapes into a white blend.
One of the surprises I have had in the last ten years is the delightful delicacy of unoaked Chardonnay grown in a Northern European climate such as Anderson Valley, Calif. and the Finger Lakes in N.Y.
After we finished dinner we took a look at the dessert menu and our waitress mentioned that the chocolate mousse was changed to chocolate Creme Brûlée. I had been craving a custard lately, so I ordered the dessert.
It was as you expect, a little less creamy and eggy due t the addition of chocolate to the custard, but it’s pronounced chocolate flavor was really satisfying.
After dinner we drove to the funky old roadside Vinhurst motel down the road in Bath and were shown to a large room with a sitting area, small kitchenette area with a bathroom with a shower built into one side of the room. It is one of the strangest rooms I have ever stayed in.
But we were sleepy and went to bed by 9:30.
Bon Appetitt
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