Harvest: Cheers To East End Wine And Food

When Wölffer Vineyard Estate planted its first grape vines in 1987, the Sagaponack winery didn’t have it easy.

The East End wasn’t Bordeaux. It wasn’t Napa Valley. It wasn’t even on the map for winemakers.

Two decades later, that’s a reputation of the past. And Wölffer’s winemaker and technical director Roman Roth, who joined the vineyard’s team in 1992, has watched the transformation firsthand.

“The prejudice is broken and people are really embracing what we’re doing,” the winemaker said during a telephone interview last week. “And our neighbors feel proud and have a reason to be proud. We have these local, food-friendly wines that have much more intensity and are just as world-class. You don’t have to fly to France or California to experience a real winery and meet with winemakers. Here we are, 20 years later, with a fantastic event. Knock on wood. It’s going very well.

The event Mr. Roth was referring to was his brainchild, the Harvest East End festival, now in its third year, which will be held this Saturday. The event brings 40 local winemakers and 30 chefs under one tent, this year to the grounds at the Hampton Classic Horse Show in Bridgehampton, in order to pair what goes together naturally: food and wine.

But the event’s not just a party. It doubles as a fundraiser for the Peconic Land Trust, East End Hospice and Group for the East End. Mr. Roth said he has high hopes for this year’s proceeds; the last two Harvests have raised $91,000 total.

“If you’re serious about where you live and what you eat and what you drink and the future, it’s a great way of supporting these three groups and the wineries who are, in this case, the ‘

perpetuo mobile

,’” Mr. Roth said, and added in explanation, “keeping this rolling.”

On Saturday, August 25, Harvest-goers will mingle and move around the tent, meeting the winemakers while grazing on small bites and bidding on silent auction items, which range from special dinners and spend-a-day-in-the-winery packages to sailing trips and yodeling lessons with Mr. Roth himself.

And then there is the main event: the wine.

“You can make three times the rounds and taste three times all completely different things,” Mr. Roth pointed out, “starting with the whites, then the reds, then the barrels.”

Each winery is allowed six different labels, he explained. While there will be plenty of reds to choose from, not to mention never-before-tasted barrel samples, the summer weather will see an abundance of romantic whites, lively rosés and stainless steel chardonnays, he reported.

“They’re animating. They won’t drag you down,” Mr. Roth said. “They won’t overload you on fruit or alcohol. It’s like when you drink a sparkling wine. It just somehow livens you up and gets you going. And they’re not just something you need to drink by themselves. They pair very well with an array of different foods.”

About half of the participating chefs this year are familiar faces on the East End, including Southfork Kitchen’s Joe Isidori, who will be preparing sea scallop sashimi; Cittanuova’s Kevin Penner, who plans to make fluke ceviche; Foody’s Bryan Futerman, who will bring watermelon gazpacho; and James Carpenter, executive chef at The Living Room at c/o The Maidstone, who will make a Balsam Farm sweet corn and miso salad with Montauk lobster.

Mr. Carpenter is returning for his second year at Harvest with a summery, local dish, he said. The corn is shaved raw, mixed with scallions and cucumbers from the restaurant’s garden and tossed with a light miso dressing. The lobsters are gently poached and dressed with crème fraîche and olive oil.

“Local is important because it makes sense. In the field one day and on your plate the next, or even that night, in some cases,” Mr. Carpenter wrote in an email last week. “Any chardonnay Roman makes will do this dish justice.”

A lifelong dream, Mr. Roth released his own wine label, Grapes of Roth (separate from the Wölffer line) in 2006. His father, Remigius, was a winemaker and a cooper in Mr. Roth’s hometown—Villingendorf-Rottweil, Germany. And though the elder Roth’s motto was, “A day without a good glass of wine is a day without sunshine,” he wanted his son to become a banker, to steer clear of the family business.

But banking wasn’t for him, Mr. Roth said.

“I just loved the idea of creating something, of making something, of having a product you can share with people as a whole. There’s a social aspect to making wine,” he said. “As serious as we are as wineries, we love to have fun.”

The third annual Harvest East End local food and wine festival will be held on Saturday, August 25, from 6 to 9 p.m. at the Hampton Classic Horse Show grounds on Snake Hollow Road in Bridgehampton. Tickets are $150. Proceeds benefit the Peconic Land Trust, East End Hospice and Group for the East End. For more information, call (800) 838-3006 or visit harvesteastend.com.