On Tuesday, May 2nd, Wine For Lunch hosts, Lisa Hinton, Ashli Johnson, and Drew Baker announced to more than 1,000 viewers the addition of an informative new feature: Each month, the sibling trio will feature a new theme for the live and interactive wine tasting. Themes include wine styles, varieties, and regions – both locally and around the world – each to be chosen live by the W4L audience. It’s a great opportunity to grow in your appreciation and knowledge of wine. This is mid-week wine tasting for the 21st century!

photo credit: Kelly Heck Photography — photo credit: Kelly Heck Photography

The first theme is “Wines from New York State.” And since there are five weeks in the month of May, they've selected five favorite wines: Hermann J. Wiemer’s 2014 Field Cuvée, Channing Daughters’ 2015 Ramato, Forge Cellars’ 2014 Les Alliés, Southold Farm + Cellars’ 2014 Flying and Falling, and Paumanok’s 2010 Merlot.

As you might expect from a livecast, viewers decide which wine each week. The first week, viewers voted (with a bit of nudging by Lisa) for Paumanok’s 2010 Merlot. And boy are we glad they did. This wine is lights out – offering intense aromas of crushed blackberries, plum, fig, and sweet vanilla – chewy and complex on the palate with rich, voluminous tannins. On the bottle, this wine said to drink between 5-10 years after bottling. At seven years old, this wine shows youthful exuberance. What a great wine to start this new theme off right!

Over the next four weeks, we'll explore each of the other wines in the order viewers select. Then for the month of June, viewers decide what style, variety or region to explore next.

Tune in – and weigh in – Join us for Wine For Lunch every Tuesday at 1:00 PM LIVE on Facebook & Instagram!

'Wine For Lunch’ LiveCast Strikes a Chord