New York has been good to me this summer and I want to return the favor, going out of my comfort zone and trying some wines that I had previously snubbed from the Hudson Valley. One summer I rented a house in New Paltz because I like to hike and I visited a number of the wineries around the town. I wrote about those experiences here. Since that time, I have had few Hudson Valley wines except for at a tasting in New York City. Lucky for me, I have been to the Hudson Valley a number of times this year.

One winery I hadn’t visited on my other trips was the Brotherhood Winery, one of the oldest in the region. This time around, with a friend we tried a variety of their wines. The merlot was actually pretty good but their biggest sales come from their sweeter wines, I believe. I am not partial to that style of wines but I always marvel at the marketing efforts of our wineries in the US. Brotherhood had everything: tours, tastings, clothes and objects to sell, a restaurant, a banquet hall and of course, 20 + wines. In short, an industry of sorts. While I don’t always love that, I do appreciate the skill and planning it takes to keep it going. Interesting, Brotherhood is owned by a Chilean concern. In fact the banquet hall reminded me of the one at Viu Manent in Chile

I like to go upstate at least once or twice in the fall for hiking and to see the leaves. Nowhere are the leaves more beautiful than in the Northeast. Arezzo and the Apennines comes in a distant second but it is beautiful there as well. I will be in Arezzo in a few weeks so hopefully, the leaves will still be on the trees. One reason I went to college in the Northeast was that I was seduced by the fall. I love the fall because of harvest, pumpkins, the color of the sky, and the harvest moon, among other reasons.

What my college town didn’t have though was a good pizzeria. That is always a serious problem if you are a pizza fan such as I am. Over the weekend though, I found the perfect spot for pizza in upstate New York, Prima Pizza. This was pizza the old-fashioned Italian-American way, just the way I like it when I am in the US.

Not too doughy, not too much crust but just enough of everything to be balanced. This place has been run by the same owner for the past 25 years and in the same family for 60 years. I was happy to find it and to see that such places still exist.Oddly enough, they also deliver pizza overnight anywhere in the US. Apparently they have a system that allows them to ship it “fresh.” Not a cheap option, I guess I might consider it if I lived in a place where I couldn’t ever get a good pizza. Luckily that isn’t the case at the moment but if it comes to pass, I will know whom to call.