| Issue #35, November 24, 2006 |
Quacking Its Way To The North Fork
Duck Walk Vineyards Opens Its Doors To North Forkers
By TJ Clemente
Many visitors come out to the North Fork year round just to visit the wineries and to taste wines before they purchase them. A new opportunity is almost at hand for those who love to sample the wonderful and magnificent Long Island wines. Duck Walk previously only available on the South Fork is in fact coming to Southold on the North Fork very soon.
The new Duck Walk Vineyards tasting room being constructed in Southold is almost completed. The Damianos families, who are a great winemaking family on Long Island, own, operate and supervise the vineyard. Besides Duck Walk, they also own Peconic-based Pindar. Pindar is one of the leading wineries on the North Fork. Duck Walk itself was founded in 1994 by Dr. Herodotus “Dan” Damianos and his son Alexander. They located the tasting room in Water Mill at 231 Montauk Highway. The Classic Normandy Chateau-style building in Water Mill is a well-known and admired landmark on Route 27. The new tasting room on the North Fork will be a roomy 7500 square-foot building consisting of a tasting room and a private tasting room for somewhere between thirty and forty guests. Hopefully it will be open before Christmas. Duck Walk is also going to start producing new wines from the ten acres surrounding the new tasting rooms.
On November 17, Duck Walk hosted an art show at their Water Mill tasting rooms. Art done by John Lennon, Jerry Garcia, Bob Dylan and Jimi Hendrix was sold with some of the proceeds going to the Sunrise Fund at Stony Brook Hospital, an organization to raise awareness about childhood cancer. The event was well attended and the buzz created by the fine wine, great art, and music performed by Terry Winchell and Caroline Doctorow was very uplifting. The event was originally planned to be held in the new North Fork tasting rooms, but due to the attention to detail the Damianos family is so famous for, the Southold facility was not yet ready to host the event.
Duck Walk is hoping to be able to market more of its wine on the North Fork where there is more wine buying traffic due to the higher level of wineries there. Now the famous Duck Walk “Blueberry Port” and “Aphrodite” will be available to North Fork wine shoppers.
With Duck Walk alone, the Damianos family harvests 130 acres and produce more than 25,000 cases of fine Long Island wine. With chardonnay’s from 14.95 per bottle to the famous 1998 Cabernet Sauvignon Reserve at $44.95 per bottle, the selection is thorough and interesting. The new released Meritage (fall 2006) is priced at $34.95. Soon all of these well-enjoyed Long Island wines will finally be able to be tasted, evaluated and purchased in the comforts of a new luxurious tasting room right on the North Fork. So pay attention to coming reports of the actual opening celebration party and events at the soon-to-be-opening tasting rooms for the many quality and gold medal winning wines of Duck Walk Winery. The Damianos family love to please customers with unique high standards. Their wine tastings are always educational balanced and well produced. These wine tastings actually account for about 50% of the sales of the 25,000 cases of wine produced by the winery. With the new outlet on the North Fork this number can only go up. Visit www.duckwalk.com or call 631-726-7555.
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