The first stop on our quest to evaluate Connecticut's native winetasting experience is Litchfield's Haight Vineyard. Located in the northwest part of Connecticut, Litchfield is known for its rolling hills, pastoral scenery and large country estates (Litchfield is home to many wealthy New York natives and even a few famous movie stars looking to escape the glare of Hollywood). It should also be known as the home of Connecticut's first established winery.
Having planted their first grape vines three decades ago, Haight is among the state's most experienced winemakers producing a number of white wines, a couple of reds and a couple of fruity wines. A number of Northeast wineries make wines based on different fruit combinations -- my guess is that this a popular practice here because it's so darn difficult to produce a diverse lineup of extracted, interesting reds. While many people like, for example, blueberry or apple wines, I won't be reviewing them. I really have no good frame of reference for comparing them, and I suspect most people are not coming out in search of these wines anyway.
Facilities
The winery is located on a wide open piece of farmland, surrounded by vineyards. With plenty of room to move, the winery hosts many community events, such as craft fairs and a Taste of Litchfield.
The facility itself offers loads of rustic charm. A walk upstairs, past the tapestries and mounted game tropies, takes you to a fairly large tasting room and gift store. There are a couple of tables for leisurely tasting by the fireplace, and there's a veranda. While the tasting bar can get crowded, there's plenty of room to explore the many different items for sale. In fact, my wife rated the gift store one of the best at a local winery. So I give the facilities a 4 out of 5 (see end note on scoring).
Staff
Our guide for the tasting experience was a very pleasant woman who conveyed a real love of wine, without resorting to cliches and hype. She also had a good knowledge of the products, though she had a few holes in her memory banks and couldn't answer some questions. All in all, she was helpful to anyone looking to learn and get excited about wines.
and complexity. Growing grapes in Connecticut means an almost constant battle against mildew -- this year, with lots of early rain, is off to a very bad start. But the occasional dry years can help Connecticut winemakers make some excellent wines. The wineries right now are serving almost all '04 wines (not ideal), though a few have some '03s. But some of the problems are evened out by using up to 49 percent of the grapes from other sources (true of wineries across much of the U.S.), such as South America or California. Haight uses some grapes from California.
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