Articles

DAY TRIPS In the Finger Lakes, the Sweet Taste of Winter

By TATIANA BONCOMPAGNI

It's 12 degrees outside, there's at least a foot of snow on the ground, and Bob Madill, a winegrower in the Finger Lakes region of New York, is picking grapes. For makers of ice wine, a dessert-style wine that gets its nuanced sweet flavor from grapes that have been allowed to freeze on the vine, the recent spate of Arctic weather has been ideal for harvesting. ''Fun and crazy is sort of what this is,'' said Mr. Madill, one of the owners of Sheldrake Point Vineyard on Cayuga Lake in Ovid, N.Y. FROZEN ON THE VINE Bob Madill of Sheldrake Point Vineyard in Ovid, N.Y., harvested grapes this monch for ice wine. Many Finger Lakes wineries stay open in the winter.

For those crazy enough to make the trek to the Finger Lakes in winter, the ice wine season can mean an intimate look inside the operations of one of New York's prime wine regions. During the winter months almost a dozen wineries, many of them family owned and operated, are in the process of picking, pressing and fermenting this year's yield of ice wine. There are often only a handful of people in the tasting rooms, allowing the sales staff -- frequently including the winemakers and vineyard owners -- to guide visitors through their various vintages.

Some even offer an impromptu tour or a taste of wines straight from the cask. That's what Kate Coster, a computer trainer at a talent agency in Manhattan, and her partner found on the wine trail in mid-January. Mainly in the area to visit the Harriet Tubman Home, the couple ended up spending 45 minutes tasting five wines each at Sheldrake Point. ''The lack of other people allowed us to belly up to the bar and stay for a while,'' said Ms. Coster, who also tried the linguine, part of a continuing cooking demonstration at the vineyard.

At other vineyards, the mood was a bit livelier. ''I love the party atmosphere,'' said Cynthia Simon, who had made the 150-mile drive from her home in Bloomsburg, Pa., for a day and went home with more than $200 worth of wine. ''People were kibitzing more,'' said Mrs. Simon, who has visited the Finger Lakes' wineries in the summer.

People like Mrs. Simon are part of the reason winter visitors tend to get a warm reception at the Finger Lakes' 80-odd vineyards. During summer months, tasting rooms are crowded with people taking a break from swimming or tennis. But in the winter, vineyard operators say, only true wine lovers brave the snowdrifts and freezing temperatures of upstate New York. ''In the summer we get as many as 2,000 visitors a day, but a lot of them walk out without buying anything,'' said Leanne Powers, retail director at Heron Hill Winery on Keuka Lake. ''In the winter, people buy.''

On her recent three-day trip to the vineyards, Lia Seltzer, 31, planned to do just that. Undeterred by the cold, Ms. Seltzer rented a small cabin and persuaded her husband, Tim, to drive their minivan instead of their smaller S.U.V. so there would be room to cart all the cases home to Long Island. ''The vidal blanc is outrageous,'' Ms. Seltzer said of her favorite wine from the region. But it's ice wine that is increasingly putting the Finger Lakes region on the wine map.

In the last three years, sales of ice wine made in the area, as well as on Long Island, which more recently jumped into the ice-wine-making fray, have more than doubled, said Susan Wine of Vintage New York, a shop with two locations in Manhattan and one at Rivendell Winery in New Paltz that sell only New York wines. ''The Japanese who come in to shop know to buy ice wine,'' Ms. Wine said. ''It's something that everyone knows New York does really well.''

New York vineyards first started making the sweet dessert wine about 15 years ago, but its roots stretch back hundreds of years to the vineyards of Germany and Austria, where it is known as eiswein. Winemakers there discovered that when they left grapes on the vines to freeze and thaw during winter's first months, the temperature cycles had the effect of concentrating both the sugars and flavors of the grapes. Then, when picked during a certain temperature range -- from about 12 degrees to 18 degrees, a kind of magic window when the juice inside the grapes has thawed but the water has not -- they yield a concentrated, amber-colored liquid.

In New York, many of the wineries, like Standing Stone Vineyards on Seneca Lake, have been making ice wine by picking grapes earlier in the season and freezing them artificially, a process called cryoextraction. But in 2002, the federal agency overseeing the wine industry, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau, reiterated rules dating to 1978 that prohibit vineyards from labeling their so-called partial-freeze wines as ice wine. Because the vineyards that make true ice wine end up losing many more of their grapes between the first frost and harvest time, their bottles can cost as much as $40, almost twice as much as some of the partial-freeze options. And truth be told, while one superb real ice wine had cherry and berry flavors and a caramel taste close to oloroso dulce, the well-known Spanish dessert wine, and other good real ice wines had more apple, pear and honey aromas, some of the partial-freeze wines had a taste closer to grape jelly.

But Robert Ransom, a partner in Vintage New York and Rivendell Winery, said that excellent ice wine could be made both ways. What's more important, he said, is that the wine is made with a grape varietal, like riesling or vidal, that has enough natural acidity to balance the sweetness of ice wine. When it is made right, ''ice wine is the purest expression of that particular varietal you can get,'' Mr. Ransom said.

But not even the sophisticated taste of a cabernet franc ice wine from Sheldrake Point Vineyards is enough to convince Ellen Bradshaw to pick up a bottle, though she and her husband have been braving the cold and snow of the Finger Lakes region in winter since 1988. ''I just don't like dessert wine,'' said Mrs. Bradshaw, 42, an artist in Manhattan, who regularly takes home cases of chardonnay and riesling instead. ''It's just not my thing.''


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A TASTE Sampling the Frozen Wine Trail THE Finger Lakes region is a five-hour drive from Manhattan in good weather. Though the winter harvest is over, many Finger Lakes wineries are planning special winter events in the next month.

Nine wineries around Keuka Lake have organized Be Mine With Wine (Feb. 14 and 15), offering dessert and wine pairings ($16 per person in advance, less for designated drivers; 800-440-4898, www.keukawinetrail.com).

Fourteen vineyards along Cayuga Lake are sponsoring Mardi Gras at the Wineries (Feb. 21 and 22), with food and wine tastings, Mardi Gras beads, commemorative wineglasses and a prize for best costume (advance tickets $15; $20 at the door; 800-684-5217, www.cayugawinetrail.com).

Nearby accommodations include Esperanza Mansion (3456 Route 54A, Bluff Point; 866-927-4400), a hotel in a stately and recently renovated 1838 Greek Revival house overlooking Keuka Lake. Its guest rooms -- nine in the original building, another 21 in a less formal building nearby -- are $89 to $260 in winter. The Colonial Motel (175 West Lake Road, Penn Yan; 800-724-3008) has 17 clean and cozy rooms that are $60 to $90 in winter.

By TATIANA BONCOMPAGNI

Sitting in a mesh-covered pit in the middle of winter was never Christopher D'Annibale's idea of fun. That is until last January when he went on his first goose hunt on the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

‘‘It's actually not so different from golf,'' said D'Annibale, 33, a hedge fund manager in New York City. ‘‘It takes patience.'' Long out of favor among some crowds, hunting is fast becoming a hip way to spend the weekend for the young and upwardly mobile. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the number of hunters with household incomes of $100,000 or more increased more than 25 percent, to 1.3 million, from 1991 to 2001 (taking into account inflation and population increases). And over the last three years alone, upscale hunting clubs like the Mashomack Preserve Club in Pine Plains, N.Y., and Pintail Point in Queenstown, Md., report that business has grown as much as 20 percent, while high-end gun manufacturers and specialty clothing retailers say that sales of hunting jackets and other gear are up 10 percent or more.

Most of the growth, industry watchers say, comes from an unlikely group of newcomers: adults in their late-20s to mid-40s who did not grow up hunting — and who may have friends and family who are appalled by it. That has not stopped the new hunters from spending thousands of dollars on Barbour hunting coats and Beretta shotguns to use in the woods near their weekend homes or to take on guided trips to hunt upland game (pheasant, partridge and other birds) in places like South Dakota.

‘‘Traditionally, you'd be introduced to hunting by your father or an uncle, but what's happening far more these days is younger people are taking it up and getting their friends to come along,'' said Daryl Greatrex, a New York-based director of Holland & Holland, a nearly 170-year-old British hunting outfitter.

Helen Nigg, a managing partner at an Internet services company in San Francisco, grew up in Irvine, Calif., and had never held a gun until last year. But on a recent weekend excursion to a private ranch in Sun Valley, Idaho, she shocked her friends by bringing down a chukar (a bird similar to a partridge) with one shot.

‘‘I guess I just had this stereotype of hunting as just a bunch of big, burly guys who wear plaid and NRA caps and say, ‘Let's go out and kill some defenseless animals,''' said Nigg, who is planning to go bird hunting next year in Northern California. Her friends still think it is a ‘‘rednecky thing to do,'' she said.

Of course, hunting has long been popular among upper-crust American families, but until recently the majority of hunters came from rural communities where fathers and sons would go out each fall to shoot a deer. But over the last 40 years, that tradition has been waning. In New York state, for instance, slightly more than 750,000 hunting licenses were sold last year, compared with 1.27 million 20 years ago.

That has encouraged hunting-related companies to increasingly focus on a more upscale market, said Bob Ireland, a branding specialist in New York and an avid hunter. The sport's popularity falls into the same ‘‘country'' lifestyle category that has soccer moms buying Range Rovers and wearing Beretta jackets in suburbs like Greenwich, Conn.

Dan O'Conner, the director of licensing and outdoor services at the Orvis Co., which sells bird-hunting gear and runs three shooting schools, said that bird hunting is up 20 percent at Orvis' Sandanona game preserve in Millbrook, N.Y. ‘‘Bird hunting has always been done by an elite group of people, and young successful people in the city are caught up in that whole thing,'' he said.Indeed, gun makers and hunting outfitters are increasingly pushing high-end goods designed for the new hunters. Kimber, a New York-based manufacturer, and the Remington Arms Co. of Madison, N.C., are introducing new shotguns featuring checkered stocks for an enhanced grip and more aesthetic appeal (the priciest are $6,000).

And the U.S. Repeating Arms Co., of Morgan, Utah, maker of Winchester rifles and shotguns, recently reintroduced stack barrel shotguns, which are frequently used by clay sports shooters and bird hunters, and which the company had not sold in the United States in more than a decade. The top model of the new line sells for $2,227.

So many people want to look as if they spend the weekend flushing grouse that Barbour, a British-based retailer, opened its first U.S. store in December, in New York, Barbour by Peter Elliot, to sell items like its classic waxed-cotton, corduroy-collared sage green jacket. ‘‘We built this store to cater to the urban hunter,'' said Elliot Rabin, Barbour's American partner.

Even retailers that haven't traditionally produced hunt-friendly gear are getting into the act. The high-end men's store Paul Stuart, for instance, added a $1,000 field jacket to its men's collection three seasons ago and is now selling heavy boot socks and $130 sport shirts in traditional hunt-style checks and plaids. Sales of the jackets have almost quadrupled since their introduction, said Jack Freedman, the brand manager for Paul Stuart.

Elizabeth Van De Bogart, 32, an account manager for a marketing company, understands the appeal of hunt fashion. She went on her first armed hunt in October, after completing her 10-hour hunter safety course (a requirement in New York state). For her weekend hunting jaunts in the Adirondacks, at a family second home, she bought a fitted camouflage jumpsuit and gloves. ‘‘I look really good in it,'' she said of the outfit, which she wears with pearl earrings.

But hunting, as many neophytes find out, is not only about fashion. On his first hunt, D'Annibale hit a goose on the wing but then had to finish the job at close range. ‘‘I had to put it out of its misery,'' he said. ‘‘It kind of bummed us out.'' Nevertheless, he said he found himself enamored of the sport.

Others have drawn the line at killing. Gregory Barnard, 48, a senior vice president with Bank of America in Washington, has loaded up on hunting gear, like a shooting vest with a padded shoulder (it helps with kickback), special walking boots and electronic ear protectors. But the only thing he has shot in the two years since he took it up are clay disks, which are ejected into the air at different angles to mimic the flight of birds. ‘‘I don't feel much desire to go out and shoot animals,'' he said.

Then there's Bryan D'Orazio, 35, a senior vice president at a printing services company in Somers, N.Y., who took up hunting last year near his family's second home in the Catskills. Since then, he said, his sisters have been giving him a hard time. ‘‘They kind of yelled at me, ‘How can you shoot animals?,''' D'Orazio said. His answer: ‘‘I still haven't hit anything.''

By Tatiana Boncompagni

You know the adage that men grow more handsome with age, while women merely grow older? It's a saying that makes women livid with frustration and anger at the unfairness of life, while men can remain smugly secure in their bald spot.

Well, hear this: it's headed for retirement. These days looking young is just as important in the boardroom as it is on the movie screen and men, who have for years merrily sat on the sidelines of the war on wrinkles, are finally joining the fight.

And like women, they aren't just arming themselves with creams and vitamin supplements; they're going for everything, from Botox injections to the full nip and tuck.

From the US to Japan, the number of men going under the knife is on the rise. Men still represent far fewer than the predicted one-half of plastic surgery patients some forecasters anticipated a decade ago, but the number of men hoping to turn back the clock is on the increase in every time zone.

According to the International Society of Plastic Surgeons, men now account for 15 per cent or more of the total number of plastic surgery procedures in 11 surveyed countries, including Germany, Mexico and Singapore.

Even in countries where men's plastic surgery remains less common, there has been considerable growth. For example in the US, men undertook in excess of 800,000 cosmetic procedures in 2002, up from 520,000 in 1999, according to figures from the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery.

Nowhere is the battle against age being waged any harder than at the Longevity Clinic on Manhattan's Upper West Side. Founded by Oz Garcia, a nutritionist and author of Look and Feel Fabulous Forever, the Longevity Clinic focuses on reducing signs of premature ageing - rather than changing the likeness of patients - through laser surgery, injections, and peels.

This approach to aesthetic surgery makes men feel more comfortable with the concept, says Garcia, because they are particularly afraid of appearing vain.

"We are talking about proper expressions of vanity," says Garcia, adding that it is important to use plastic surgery as a part of a total health program.

"There's a difference in terms of artificiality; people getting surgery because they aren't taking care of themselves internally and people simply managing their appearances better," he says.
The bottom line is that many men want to look better, and that alone underscores a seismic shift in the attitudes of men towards their own appearance.

France-based Dr Claude Lassus attributes the change in men's perceptions of plastic surgery to the competitive job market. "When you have passed 40 or 45 years, it is difficult to get a job. It wasn't that way a few years ago, but now it is and men have to look energetic, strong and healthy," he says.

Likewise, Dr Mark Nussberger, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon based in Basel, Switzerland, says he's noticed that his growing group of male patients, who most often ask for lower eye lifts and liposuction, are increasingly concerned with their external image. "You can see advertising with beautiful men in all the magazines and the patients are identifying themselves with those images of beauty. Moreover, there is no taboo any more, it is not a problem any more to say, 'Yes, I had surgery to make myself feel better,'" says Nussberger.

But is the taboo truly gone? Not according to one Manhattan cosmetic industry executive, who keeps his $25,000-and-counting plastic surgery habit a secret from friends and colleagues.
In the past five years the 62-year-old executive has had the bags under his eyes removed, his neck lifted, and his stomach and sides liposuctioned. He also gets $2,000 Botox and collagen injections three times a year.

Despite all the different procedures he says he still looks like himself, only better, and no one can tell that he's been surgically altered. "People say to me, 'Gee, you look so young,'" he says.
Hiding plastic surgery procedures is such an enormous concern for patients of London-based plastic surgeon Dr Adriaan Grobbelaar that many men, who might benefit most from a facelift, decide to go for less invasive treatments, such as eyelifts or face contouring through liposuction, which have faster recovery times.

"If you cut your hair short and can't wear make-up, then facelifts can be a little difficult to hide, and few people can take six weeks off work," says Grobbelaar.

There are some men who go to even more extreme measures to maintain their surgery secrets. Dr Z Paul Lorenc's clinic in Jamaica's Montego Bay draws men from South America, Europe, and the US who inevitably end up telling friends and contacts back home that their "discreetly" improved looks are the result of a relaxing vacation. "People go there to disappear," explains Lorenc.

Of course, not everyone can just conveniently drop off the side of the Earth for a few weeks. Case in point: a 63-year-old French necklift patient.

This retail director checked himself into his doctor's clinic on a Friday afternoon, drove himself home the next morning, and by Monday was on the golf course for a pre-scheduled meeting.
The fast turnaround time meant that a few of his friends would figure out that he had had something done, but the Cannes-based businessman didn't mind the limited exposure. "Their wives now are all saying they want it too," he laughs. And what about their husbands? "They're too scared."

From the surgeon's point of view, dealing with male patients can be tricky, since men tend to be more concerned about coming out looking drastically changed. "The interactions with men and women are definitely different," says New York surgeon Dr Thomas Loeb. "Most men want reassurance that they are going to look natural and restore the way they once looked. Women are probably willing to take a lot more chances."

But that's changing, if Dr David Colbert's New York practice is any indication of what's to come. Dr Colbert's many male patients are signing up for everything from acid peels to bloodless facelifts, and recently a 30-year-old male publicist requested a lip augmentation. Still, there were specific instructions not to make him "look like Meg Ryan." Says Dr. Colbert; "Men want to look worked-out, but not worked on."