I haven’t written in a bit because I’m on a family vacation on Cape Cod, a place I love. This year I brought wines that I bought in the Finger Lakes at the Society of Wine Educators conference, thinking I would pair them with the seafood that the Cape offers and that the sweetness I found in almost all of those wines would be complementary to that of the seafood. I was not disappointed.

There’s nothing like a beautiful Lobster to make me feel like summer is in full swing. I paired this one with the Vignoles that I bought at Knapp vineyards and it was fantastic.

It has also been great to introduce my family to these wines and these varieties. I had never had a Vignoles before my trip either.

What I learned was that Vignoles has been in the Finger Lakes with that name since 1970. Prior to that it was called Ravat 51 after J.F. Ravat, a French vine breeder in the 1930’s. Knapp has made semi-sweet to late harvest styles wines from the grape in the past and recently made its first dry version. I liked it a lot.

I bought it at the tasting room but it is for sale online on their website. At $16.99, I thought it was reasonable. One of the reasons some of these wines don’t get much play outside of the tasting rooms is the price can be prohibitive once the additional mark-ups are added for people who want to try new grapes and wines.