Recently, I visited a winery for the first time in quite a while.

New Egypt, NJ, was formerly best known for its Flea Market and Auction and the short-track raceway located there. Now, it is also the home of Laurita Winery.

The winery has been around only a few years, less than five, and I was unfamiliar with it and its wines.

Entering the property for its first "Concert on the Lawn", featuring a local blues band, I thought to myself "This explains why they ask $30 for a bottle of New Jersey Cabernet." The place is magnificent with beautiful landscaping, artistic hardscaping that is just as extensive and impressive, and a restaurant/retail space constructed from two converted barns. Spectacular views of close to 46 acres of vineyard are afforded the visitor.

I didn't like it.

I realize that commercial wine-making is a rich man's game. Vineyard acreage alone is prohibitively expensive. This place didn't drip maoney, it was built of it. I felt as if I could see dollar bills laminating the walkways, fluttering from the stone walls, and mulching the manicured lawns.

The owners have to get that money back in some way and they are attempting to do so by charging $9 a glass for what is no more than pedestrian New Jersey wine.

Even though this was billed as a 'festival' they seemed to actively discourage the tasting of their wines by offering tasting portions at only one of their four or six wine bars/counters. Only two were in fact open, and the one which had more than a single person pouring was only selling wine.

Imagine - a winery festival with thousands of invitees attending and one person offering tastes of the wines.

I was able to taste only 3 of their wines: the aforementioned $30 Cabernet Sauvignon (identifiably Cabernet, which is actually success with that vinifera in NJ), an earlier vintage of that wine, selling at $23 (idenitfiable as red wine) and an off-dry light blend, identified as "Tailgate", presumably intended for consumption in parking lots and selling for $15.

Some few years ago, I spoke with the owner of another relatively new winery and noted that his leading wine, a Cabernet Franc (which I think is the most successful red vinifera in the Mid-Atlantic states) was a nice enough wine but priced well over comparable CA and French wines.

He responded "You have a nice place to drink it, some music playing..."

I want my wine priced by the quality of the wine, not by the quality of the setting of the winery.

Excellent report !!

If they were offering a concert and selling wine to drink than perhaps $9 a glass was reasonable. And perhaps they didn't want people to bypass that by filling up at the tasting counter. Youdon't mention, but were the tastings free?

You did well getting a taste of three wines in the circumstances.

That's a very good point. Was this a free concert? If they have a free concert being offered, I think it's fair enough that they charge for the alcohol served at it.