For nearly 20 years as the winemaker for Lenz, in Peconic, Eric Fry, 56, has portrayed himself as an iconoclast.
He was true to form as the spokesman for the Long Island wine industry at an international symposium this month on cool-climate and maritime wines sponsored by the Stony Brook University Center for Wine, Food and Culture, in Southampton.
Mr. Fry dismissed the buzz word terroir — a debated French notion that fine wine can express its unique soil and setting — as “a marketing term.” Terroir is illusory, he said, because innumerable farming and cellar decisions affect a wine.
“Two winemakers cannot make identical wines if they tried,” he said, according to a prepared text.
If Mr. Fry dismayed local vintners who, he thinks, tout terroir without good reason, he pleased them by surmising that a broad style may be emerging in the 35-year-old region.
“There is one very powerful force,” he said. “Our wonderful climate: our long, warm, relatively dry late-fall season. The resulting slow ripening gives us enormous amounts of fruit flavor and ripe tannins, which we all agree are essential for good wine.” Balance is another feature, he said. “On Long Island,” he added, “alcohol is not too high, nor is acid too low.”
Unlike Europe’s wineries, which have a “multigenerational tradition,” Mr. Fry said, East End vintners have no tradition whatever. “Anything goes.”
Conventional wisdom holds that the area’s signature wines are merlot, cabernet franc, chardonnay and possibly sauvignon blanc. Mr. Fry looked further:
“More varieties than ever” are being planted, he said. “More varieties in the tasting room translate into increased sales. People like to have a choice.”
