Twenty Wineries In Four Days: Day Three

9 a.m.: We're both eating bagels this morning.

10 a.m.: All the cute little coffeeshops in Greenport are still closed, dernit!

10:30 a.m.: Pull into a coffeeshop called Eric's somewhere on Route 48. They don't have foamy fuzzy coffee but, promises the dude behind the counter, their basic coffee is darn fine. After getting a cup, I agree.

11 a.m. I came to the North Fork once before a couple of years ago. I have a vague recollection from that trip of a winery in a strip mall. Today, it turns out that wasn't just a wine-induced hallucination - it was Waters Crest. Their whole operation is in a strip mall - they're true "garagistes." They get their grapes from others' fields - a lot of the wineries out here do - and blend them all right there. In addition to good wine, they've got a neat story. Jim Waters was a home winemaker and volunteer firefighter before 9/11. After 9/11, he changed his life around and made winemaking his full-time career. The winery just released the 2006 Red Knight Red, named after a firefighters' motorcycle club that raises money for charity. The woman who poured our wine said it was quite an experience to see 100-some bike-riding firefighters show up at the wine's debut!

11:30ish: I am hunting fudge, but I cain't find any. All these cute little farm markets are pumpkin fudge-less.

11:45ish: We're at Roanoke now, which is somehow related to Wolffer, which we did not get to. Nice enough place, and the server brings out some cheese for us out of the goodness of her heart. She's also been on a fruit fly-killing rampage, which makes the tasting room so much more pleasant. Truthfully, this made more of an impression on me than the wine did, although I did grab a bottle of the Blend One, a tasty mix of Malbec, Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc and Merlot.

12:30ish: Maybe the reason I can't remember any of the wines at Roanoke is because of where we went next - Macari. I won't dwell too much on how good this place was, apart from to say that AMP and I were having a debate about what's better - winemaking as art, or winemaking as business - and that Macari, like Bedell, does both successfully. They've got really nice low-end wines - I bought a bottle of $10 Collina 48 Chardonnay - and even nicer higher-end things, like the just-released $27 2004 Cab Franc I bought or the $43 2004 Bergen Road Meritage that AMP sprung for. Our server was lovely, too, putting up with us tolerantly when we decided to do our own blind tasting with two of their merlots.

1:45ish: From here we went jauntily down the road to Lieb. I've got mixed feelings about this place. I have fond memories of it from last time I was out here. Back then, we had a great pourer who let us try some old vines versus new vines wine. This time, however, the guy behind the counter was a little bit of an obnoxious hothead. In between correcting our pronunciation - it's "Merit-udge" - telling us how much wine his manager likes to drink, and waxing on about Pink Floyd, he did serve us some pretty nice wine though, so we'll let it slide. I especially liked when he pulled out their newest release, a Merit-UDGE, and forced us not to drink it until we'd swirled it for several minutes to age it a bit. He also explained to us what Meritage is - a name for blended wine that winemakers can pay to use on their bottles. Lieb also, unusually for Long Island, have made a Syrah, in memory of their vineyard mascot dog of the same name. Ultimately, we passed on buying any bottles here, but we did buy a glass of one of their Pinot Blancs - it's one of their specialties - and sat outside and drank it and ate some cheese. Because we had no knife, we bit off chunks of the cheese with our teeth. Classy.

3ish: Still hunting fudge. Still no luck.

3ish: We stopped by Osprey's Dominion somewhere in here. It was just a quick in-and-out. We tasted a few wines, pleasant but not extraordinary, and I picked up a bottle of the Richmond Creek red table wine, which at $11 seemed well-priced.

3:45ish: I'd love to say we continued on our wine-chugging ways, but really, we needed a break. So we hightailed it back to Greenport, where, miraculously, the tea shop was open. In fact, they were closing their kitchen within 15 minutes, but they took pity on us and let us have some tea and scones.

7:30ish: Ever since I first came to the North Fork, I have wanted to go to the Frisky Oyster in Greenport, based solely on its name. In fact, I have in mind that it could be a franchise, with slight variations on the name: The Ornery Oyster (which would be mine)...the Boisterous Oyster...the possibilities are endless. All that aside, this was my favorite restaurant we ate at out here. Really interesting, good food: squash and apple soup, mussels in white wine sauce. They also had a Merlot wine flight on the menu that I ordered despite myself: a side-by-side tasting of three 2002 Merlots: Medolla, Raphael, and Osprey's Dominion, some of which are no longer available to buy anywhere. The Medolla (from one of those smaller vineyards that don't have tasting rooms) was unremarkable in comparison to the other two, both of which were fantastic. The Raphael especially was incredible: so dark and thick it was almost sludge-like, and it tasted that dark and thick, too.

Our waiter held extremely strong opinions, so when we asked him what to have for dessert, he was unequivocal: "The key lime pie, of course!" On the menu, they refer to it as "The best key lime pie." We were both a little skeptical - we've both been to Florida - but after tasting it, we had to admit that it was definitely the best key lime pie we've had in the tri-state area. Finally, if I may just add girlishly, the wallpaper in this restaurant is so cute!

So, smiley-face round-up: Waters Crest gets a moderate smiley-face and Roanoke the same. Macari gets a ginormous smiley-face, Lieb a flat robot face, Osprey's Dominion a moderate smiley-face, and the Frisky Oyster gets a fittingly frisky smiley-face.