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Earlier this year, I wrote with sorrow about the death of Ben Sisson, a beloved North Fork vintner. Now, the wine community is rallying to support his wife, Cornell grape specialist Alice Wise, and the couple’s two children, Emma and Ethan, with a fund-raising party on May 8 at Bedell Cellars (Route 25 in Cutchogue), from 6 to 9 p.m.

You can bet that this will be a tremendous party, well worth the $50 donation, which can be made on the website set up for the purpose at www.friendsofsissonfamily.org. Those who are unable to attend can also send donations in any amount to that website.

Besides this worthy fund-raiser, spring brings with it many other wine tasting events. On April 18, I attended a wine dinner at the Jedediah Hawkins Inn in Jamesport, featuring the wines of Sherwood House Vineyards.

Situated in the sweet spot of North Fork farmland, on a broad expanse of pebbly soil south of Oregon Road in Cutchogue, Sherwood House Vineyards is a little-known property that has attained great loyalty among its fans. In 1996, its owners, Charles and Barbara Smithen, bought this 38-acre farm with its classic 1860s farmhouse, and decided to plant it with wine grapes.

The Smithens had been part-time residents of the North Fork for 20 years, cultivating the dream of living amidst the vines while pursuing their careers as Manhattan professionals. Barbara made her mark in public relations, while, until his recent retirement, Charles was a leading cardiologist, personally monitoring many prominent celebrities who were able, thanks to his expert care, to stay in the limelight despite their compromised hearts.

Because the Smithens were in Manhattan during the week and couldn’t tend the vineyard themselves, they hired Long Island’s leading custom vineyard maintenance company, Mudd Vineyards, to install and tend their plantings, working the soil for two full years before the initial 5-acre planting of Burgundian clones of chardonnay, later adding merlot, cabernet Franc, cabernet sauvignon, and petit verdot to the mix.

From the vintage of 1999, the Sherwood House wines have won accolades from many national and international sources, including medals in London’s International Wine and Spirit Competition, the Decanter World Wine Awards, and the Los Angeles County Fair Wines of the World competition. As was the case with vineyard management, the Smithens have sought to hire the best professionals to make their wines, electing to have them fermented off-site, at the state-of-the-art custom crush facility, Premium Wine Group, in Mattituck.

Gilles Martin—a graduate of the Universite de Montpelier’s oenology program who has worked from France’s Rhone Valley to Roederer Estate in California—is the winemaker, using his broad experience to translate the fruit of the vine into Sherwood House’s classically crafted wines.

The Jedediah Hawkins Inn, where the recent tasting of the Sherwood House wines took place, is an 1863 Italianate manse in Jamesport that was known as the neighborhood’s decrepit “haunted house” until, in 2004, it was rescued from imminent demolition in a dramatic, last-minute coup by one of the Hawkins descendants, Jeff Hallock. Restored in every detail, the inn now houses one of the East End’s finest restaurants.

Ably run at first by chef extraordinaire Tom Schaudel, the restaurant now has at its helm chef Matt Murphy. Having earned his chops (as it were) at several prime Manhattan restaurants (including the Ritz Carlton, the Rainbow Room, and the Russian Tea Room), Mr. Murphy started his own restaurant in Greenport, Antares Cafe, before taking over the Jedediah Hawkins kitchen this winter.

The Sherwood House wine tasting, held in the intimate brick wine cellar of the inn, began with large, round glasses of the Sherwood House 2004 Cabernet Franc. While it is unusual to 
begin a tasting with a red wine, this spicy cab franc was well matched with the chef’s offering of hors d’oeuvres: duck mousse on baguette, savory 
gorgonzola and pear tarts, and herbed focaccia with goat cheese and truffle oil.

The next course offered local fluke paired nicely with two vintages of chardonnay, the 2004 and the 2000. It was a generous gesture of the Smithens to offer up the last of the 2000 vintage, which still had all the vibrancy of its fruit, albeit more muted than the exuberant 2004.

The second course (spicy roasted shrimp with mustard greens) also featured wines from two vintages, the 2000 and the 2002 merlots. While the 2002 had been a tough, rainy vintage, after six years in the bottle that wine had gained considerable finesse, although the 2000 more fully showed the remarkable suppleness that merlot can achieve on Long Island.

When we moved on to the third course (salt crusted filet mignon with garlic mashed potatoes and asparagus), we had a lesson in blending and aging by comparison of the 
previous two wines with the newly-released 2005 “Sherwood Manor,” a “meritage” style blend of merlot with cabernet sauvignon and petit verdot. Many of the guests were unfamiliar with petit verdot, a Bordeaux varietal, but it gave the wine depth and character with a lovely aromatic hint of rose petals.