Paumanok Vineyards

Family-owned since 1983, Paumanok is Long Island's quiet specialist — pioneering Chenin Blanc and serious solo Petit Verdot.

The Massoud family planted Paumanok on a 103-acre Aquebogue farm in 1983 and remain hands-on three decades later — Charles and Ursula's three sons, Kareem, Salim and Nabeel, now run viticulture, winemaking, and the cellar. Paumanok is one of just a handful of North American producers to bottle a serious Chenin Blanc, picked from vines planted in the late 1980s, and its Tuthills Lane Merlot, Grand Vintage Cabernet Sauvignon, and rare solo Petit Verdot are routinely among the highest-scoring releases on Long Island. In the cellar Kareem Massoud, who has been making the wines since the late '90s, runs one of the most disciplined cellars on the East End. The Chenin Blanc is hand-picked at modest sugars, whole-cluster pressed, fermented cool in stainless to preserve acidity, and bottled without malolactic — the goal is a Vouvray-style line of crisp orchard fruit and steel rather than a soft, tropical New World version. The reds go the other direction: small-lot fermentations, native yeasts where the vintage allows, and 18 to 24 months in French oak (a meaningful share of it new on the Grand Vintage and Tuthills Lane bottlings) before bottle age. The solo Petit Verdot is the rarest bird in the cellar; it appears only in vintages when the team thinks the fruit can stand on its own, which is roughly one year in three. What I order in the tasting room Always open with the dry Chenin Blanc — there's nothing else like it on the East Coast and it's the bottle most visitors leave talking about. Then move into the Festival Chardonnay (the unoaked one) for contrast, then the Cabernet Franc, then the Tuthills Lane Merlot. If the Grand Vintage flight is offered the day you visit, take it; it's an extra-cost seated experience that pours the top reds with library context and is the clearest single window into what Paumanok is really doing. Save room for a small pour of the late-harvest Sauvignon Blanc on the way out — it's a quiet specialty that rarely makes it into the standard flight. Best time to visit Paumanok is the rare North Fork stop that's almost better in winter than in summer. From late November through March the tasting room is uncrowded, the family is often pouring, and the library bottles come out. April through mid-June is the next-best window for a true tasting visit. Summer weekends are reservation-only and crowded; if that's your only option, book the first morning slot. The signature bottle Tuthills Lane Merlot is the bottle. It comes from a single block on the home farm that the Massouds consider their grand cru, picked late, fermented slowly, and aged roughly 22 months in mostly new French oak before another year in bottle. In a warm vintage (2010, 2017, 2019) it's a dense, plummy, graphite-edged Merlot that drinks like a serious Pomerol and gains for a decade in the cellar. The Chenin Blanc is Paumanok's conversation-starter; Tuthills Lane is the wine that proves they can play at the very top of American Merlot. Buy a half-case, drink one bottle, and forget about the rest until 2034.

Chenin Blanc, Tuthills Lane Merlot, Grand Vintage, Petit Verdot

Paumanok is the quietest serious house on the North Fork. The Chenin Blanc is the conversation-starter — there's nothing else like it on the East Coast — but the Tuthills Lane Merlot in a warm vintage is the one I cellar. Book the Grand Vintage flight if you want to see what the Massouds are really capable of.