Private Wine Tastings on the North Fork
The North Fork is where I live and where I pour: private, seated wine tastings across Long Island wine country, led by a Certified Sommelier based in Riverhead, right at the base of the fork. Tastings happen at rental houses, farmhouses, and waterfront homes from Greenport to Orient, priced at $350 per hour with a three-hour minimum, for any group size. You buy the wine from a list I build for the evening; I never bring or sell the bottles myself.
Where tastings happen
Most North Fork tastings happen at a rental house taken for the weekend, a family farmhouse along Sound Avenue or Main Road, or a waterfront home facing the bay. The back deck is usually where the group ends up, glasses lined up on a plank table as the light goes gold over the vines somewhere within sight. I bring the tasting format and the pouring order; you bring the group and the house, from a shingled farmhouse in Cutchogue to a rental with a pool closer to Southold.
- Greenport
- Mattituck
- Cutchogue
- Southold
- Jamesport
- Aquebogue
- Orient
Can you host a private tasting at a rental house on the North Fork?
A rental house on the North Fork is exactly where most of these tastings happen. I bring a tasting format and a pouring order built around the group, set up at the kitchen island or out on the back deck. The host handles the venue and buys the wine from a list I build; I lead the evening.
Most rental houses already have enough stemware for a seated flight. If not, we talk through what to buy or borrow before the day arrives, so nothing gets scrambled together at the last minute.
How is this different from visiting a North Fork tasting room?
North Fork tasting rooms are wonderful, and most groups here have already visited a few before booking me. A private tasting at the house is seated and unhurried, with a pouring order built specifically around the people in the room rather than a set flight poured for whoever walks in that afternoon. Nobody has to drive back roads after dark.
Tasting rooms pour a set flight in whatever order the room decided on that season. At the house, I build the order around your group specifically, sometimes bracketing a favorite against something unfamiliar, sometimes building toward one big finish. It reads closer to a hosted dinner than a tasting counter.
Do you pour North Fork wines?
The North Fork's own wines anchor most of the flights I pour out here. The maritime climate favors Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, and dry rosé, and producers like Suhru and Lieb Vineyards are two of the bottles I come back to for a flight that feels genuinely regional. I mix those in alongside other regions for contrast.
That same climate is the reason the North Fork became Long Island's wine region in the first place. The Sound and the Peconic Bay both moderate the swings that make grape growing risky this far north, and Cabernet Franc in particular has become something the region is known for well beyond Long Island.
What works well for a group weekend on the North Fork?
Weekend groups on the North Fork usually build the trip around one big house dinner, and a three-hour tasting fits naturally right before it, giving the group a full flight and conversation without cutting into beach time or a bike ride out toward Orient Point. Six to twelve people is a comfortable size, though the format works for any group.
Which North Fork towns do you cover?
I cover the whole North Fork: Greenport, Southold, Mattituck, Cutchogue, Jamesport, Aquebogue, and Orient out at the tip. Riverhead sits right at the base of the fork, so every one of these towns is a short drive from where I am already based, and none of them adds a travel charge on top of what's already included.
If your group is spread across more than one of these towns over a weekend, that's fine too. I only need one address for the evening itself, wherever the group ends up gathering.
Wine, locally
The North Fork is Long Island's original wine region, first planted beginning in the early nineteen-seventies along Main Road and Sound Avenue, on a narrow plain between two bodies of water. The Long Island Sound to the north and the Peconic Bay to the south both moderate the swings that would otherwise make wine grapes risky this far north, and that maritime climate keeps landing on the same handful of grapes: Cabernet Franc, Merlot, Sauvignon Blanc, and dry rosé. When I plan a tasting out here, that history is usually the story running underneath it, how a strip of farmland between two bodies of water grew into a serious wine region within two generations.
Summer weekends on the North Fork run on rental houses, farm stands, and long dinners that start on the back deck and drift into the evening. A private tasting fits naturally into that rhythm, giving the group something to gather around before or after a day at the beach or a ride out toward Orient Point, without anyone driving back roads after dark to reach a tasting room. Most groups out here already know a few of the wineries by name; the tasting is a chance to taste more slowly than a flight at a bar usually allows, and to talk through why a bottle works instead of just working down a list.
Not on the North Fork on tasting day, or want a wine expert year-round? The Wine Line is a wine expert on call by text, and it works anywhere in the United States.
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