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PRESSRE^BUCAN PLATTSBURGriN.Y. PAGEC1 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 2,1995 Emigre family put New York state on fine-wine map ;«4' > i > ' i f BylENpOHIN Associated Press Writer HAMMONDSPORT, N.Y. (AP) — When it came time to take charge of his father's celebrated winery high above Keuka Lake, Willy Frank knew, he'd have to make decisive changes, even if it caused the old man much heart- ache. It was spring 1984, and Frank had been waiting in the wings for 22 years, commuting from New York City on weekends to help with planting and harvesting and repairs. \My father was losing his eyesight and his palate, 1 * he said. \He was at the bottom and he re- alized it.\ At 85, Dr. Konstantine Frank was probably New York's most clouded his judgment. Frank postponed •• the most painful task of all. Only after his father died in September 1985 did he begin to uproot all but a dozen of the 60 vihifera varieties that, against all predictions, had flourished' in a region where winter temperatures commonly drop to 15 below zero. \You cannot make 60 different wines to perfection. We kept what we felt were the best,\ said Frank, surveying theautumn- hued slopes rising above the nar- row, ; sinlliigg la}^, \The' famous winemaker, A war ret? ugee from Ukraine, he had haul- ed the Finger \Lakes wine region into the modern era by proving that delicate European vinifera grapes; considered the world's finest, could be grown in the eastern' United States. . ' Better than French His scientific genius in the vineyard vrafe;undisputed. His chardonnays and rieslings had often vanquished the French in blind tastings. But, as a business, his winery was, to a friend's alarm, \being run into the ground.'- Frank had to wait a few years more than he expected before his father, single-minded and proud, picked up the phone and asked him to take over., \I knew it was going to be a hard job,\ he said. \He was a tough man, a perfectionist. Another son would' have left and never come back.\ Quitting a career as a manu- facturer's representative at age 59, Frank quickly set about transforming Vinifera Wine Cellars from an experimental station into a profitable winery — one he could pass down to his children. The objective, would be no dif- ferent: Create--wltfes that*- duplicate^ if not surpass, the finest vintages of ^France tages,.bringi^;^r^;^i|^iad^s!to an old and still underratedwine country where h viticultural revolution is in full swing. Of the state's 100 wineries, 26 grow only vinifer^s and another 36 have begun to replace the native labrusca and French- American 1 hybrids that, for a cen- tury, branded the .region as a producer of cheap, simple, sweet Frank would do some trailblaz- ing of his own, turning out gold-medal fed and sparkling wines every bit as exquisite as his father's still whites. Getting it together First, he needed to put the house in order. He hired the best winemaker he could afford. He reorganized distribution. He quietly sold off, in bulk, more than 20,000 gallons of vintage that had aged past its prime in the tanks because his father was too busy in his labora- tory to .worry about marketing and sales. \He never considered this a business,\ Frank said. \I said, 'Papa, even the Catholic Church is a business — if there is no in- come, there is no church!' \His wines were excellent but spotty, f hey were good enough to wind up in\ the White House, but his heart was in the vineyard-\ What hurt the most was the son's insistence on French oak barrels. At $600 each today, they're four times more expen- made with classic champagne sive-than^Ainerican_6ak_and^iil_ grapes he planted himself, and Frank's view, far superior, noting research a Siberian grape variety that Dr. Frank's passionate* belief thai appears to be almost 100 in all things American sometimes percent immune to fungus. \There is going to be a weeding out,\ Frank said, echoing his fa- ther's harsh prophesy. \Excellent wines will flourish'and the rest will not make it. Worldwide con- sumption of cheap wines is going down rapidly.\ Great winet Frank sells up to 200,000 bot- tles each year, 60; percent of them in the Northeast, Canada and Japan. The rest is carted away by: tQur'isitSi S^ny arriving by the coachload from as far off as Minnesota and Florida; \Willy has turried his father's great grapes into some absolutely great wines,\ said James Trezise, president of the New York Wine. & Grape Foundation. \If he had not brought; the operation to the next level, Dr. Frank would have been just a historical footnote.\ An agricultural engineer, Dr. FrariK jratf the Spinet Union's German Airmy ip;;l,941vp[e arriv- ed penniless in America with his -wife, aiid three children in 1951. and his poor English consigned\ him' to a succession of menial jobs. In 1953, he finally convinced a winemaker, the French-born , Charles Fournier, that vinifera shoots could be grafted onto har- dy North American root stalks — and survive. Hadn't he already grown vihifera grapes along Ukraine's Dnieper River, where temperatures plunge to 40 below zero? . Snapped the streak Fournier hired him, and the rest is history. Dr. Frank's suc- cess snapped 200 years pffailure, dating to Thomas Jefferson. '^/jy father was a real teacher and a pioneer,\ Frank said. \I probably am a little bit of the same cloth.\ Now, 70, Frirfe;still works an 18-hour day during crush; which runs through\ October. But since after 13 years with a Long Island winery, he's found more time to concentrate on sparkling m k-ifm I I Photo-Provided |||^^|i Seafood dinners can be easy to prepare and much less expensive than in the past using surimi seafood instead of re^ifeiiiftfi^n'uSUrimi is already cooked and ready to go put of the package whether used in a cold dish or just reheated in a hot dish. See r«cipes Page C-3. • . ' BvNoflhlkoShlroUMi From The Wall Street Journal Half-asleep and clad in pajamas, Akemi Omptop tosses a few frozen chicken nuggets . and frozen potatoes into the microwave. The time is 7i45 a.m.,<and the place-is Kikuna, a leafy suburb of Yokohama, Japan. Omoto has 15 minutes to make and wolf _d_ownher meal, then microwave a lunch that „ . her 4-year-ordTdaugEter,rMartg; wilt estr—average life-span of- 82.5 years- for Jwomen later. At 8 a.m., she willwake Marie, feed and 76.3 for men — longest in the world. years, there has been an invasion of \ethnic\ restaurants and packaged foods, too: Chinese, Italian, Greek, Indian, Pakistani, Thai, Vietnamese, Cambodian. Losing favor are traditional, home-cooked Japanese meals — assorted small dishes of fish and vegetables, served with rice and miso soup. That's unfortunate, because the old-style, low-fat diet partly explains the longevity of the\ Japanese, who have an her a rice-and-egg breakfast, and walk her to kindergarten. \Between being a mother and a wife and running a pet-grooming business, the day is never long enough for me,\ says Omoto, 36. \So we buy a lot of frozen food to save time.\ In a residential area like Kikuna, Omoto and other middle-class Japanese lead in- creasingly hectic lives. An hour-long com- mute to a job in Tokyo is typical for many in the Yokohama area. Overtime work keeps people at the office well into the night. The high cost pf living is pushing many Japanese women more deeply into the work force. Such economic factors, plus the cachet of foreign foods, are revolutionizing the Japa- nese way of eating. \The Japanese boast about being gourmets,\ says Toshiko Sunada, a food and diet expert. \But the pro- blem is most people have little time to really enjoy fine foods.\ People are eating more cereal for breakfast and \energy bars\ or a bowl of noodles for lunch. Busy families rely on frozen food, takeout food and precooked food, including hamburger steaks and deep-fried mashed potato cakes. There has also been a huge influx of foreign foods into Japan in recent decades. McDonald's and Kentucky Fried Chicken may be even more popular here than they are in the United States. In the past few Compared with 30 years ago, the Japanese are now eating less rice, more meat and more dairy products. The Omotos are typical of the new Japa- nese household. Earlier this year, Omoto's 39-year-old husband, Kiyonobu, was trans- ferred to Osaka, 330 miles away in western Japan. Such split households are common among middle-class families in Japan, where companies move white-collar workers around at will. The Omotos decided that Mr. Omoto would go to Osaka alone so their daughter can stay in her kindergarten. Now the only time the Omotos cook a full Japanese meal is when Mr. Omoto comes home for the weekend, once every two weeks. \We rarely go out these days,\ says Mr. Omoto, chopping up carrots in the kitchen for dinner. \I get to come home only twice a month, so family time is too important to waste on eating out.\ When Mr. Omoto leaves for Osaka on Monday morning, mother and daughter revert to their quick meals. Ms. Omoto has no choice but to cook and run: In addition to her work at the pet-grooming shop, she shut- tles Marie to piano, math and gymnastics lessons; teaches flower-arranging classes; and looks in on her aging parents. Most nights, Ms. Omoto ends up eating alone, another growing national trend, ac- patterns cording to experts. Marie also eats solo most of the time, though always with her mother at her side. \She's too demanding asking me to do this and that,\ says Ms. Omoto. \I can't eat with her.\ To be sure, the Omotos' diet retains many staples of Japanese cooking. Marie, her parents say, loves to eat salmon and spicy cod roe over hot plain rice. \She doesn't care for pizza,\ Mr. Omoto says. Adds Marie: \I likejbrpjied eelsy too.\ The parents also honor tradition when they can. On a recent Saturday, with Mr. Omoto back from Osaka, the'family's dinner is a 2V2-hour affair, starting with beer and appetizers, followed by a stream of Japanese dishes: yakitori (grilled chicken kebab), pickled cucumbers, a salad with a soy-sauce dressing, butterbur in Japanese plum sauce. The feast is capped with sushi and miso soup. But tradition is clearly losing the battle. For Marie, the Omotos prepare a dish\ of curry over rice and a thick slice of bread and butter. \It's good with butter,\ Marie declares, licking a small clump Pf butter off her knife. She is not much of a sushi eater, her parents say. For breakfast, Ms. Qmoto and her hus- band have coffee, buttered toast and yogurt, instead of their former favorite, rice and seaweed. On a shopping excursion to the nearby Maruetsu supermarket, the first thing Marie puts in the basket is a pack of corn dogs. At home is a cookie can full of potato chips, soy-sauce-and-butter-flavored popcorn and cookie wafers. On the way home from the supermarket, the Omotos stop at McDonald's for lunch. \The chicken at Kentucky Fried Chicken is really good,\ Marie volunteers, putting a Chicken McNugget to her lips. \But I love these nuggets better — they're the best.\ ' , ' ' '/,.,' \ ,i '. ' . APPhoto IT'S A RECORD: Chefs place a ; qrust 6n a jumbo chicken pot pie in New York's Bryant Park recently. The gigantic pie, Which measured 12 feet in diameter and four feet deep and weighed 21,000 pounds, was made to'promote the newest Kentucky Fried Chicken menu item KFC's Chunky Chicken Pot Pie. the previous \Guinness Book\ record was for a pot pi6 Weighing 19,908 pounds setin England in'1988. < r , Mars bar supper Fried candy-bar dinner brings criticism to restaurant owner From Th« Wall Strmt Journal Take one chocolate-coated candy bar filled with nougat and toffee. Dip in fish batter. Submerge in a vat of hot vegetable.oil. Add one side order of fries. And there you have Scotland's latest^ heart-stopping delicacy. At the Haven Chip Bar in Stonehaven, a small' town on Scotland's northeast coast, shop owner Ingram MPwatt serves about three dozen \Mars bar caused a few skipped heartbeat^ among British dieticians, who condemn it as an unwelcome ad- dition to the country's already unenviable dietary habits. (Scotland has the highest in- cidence of heart disease in Western Europe.) \It doesn't sound as if it could be anything but extremely unhealthy,\ says Ian Baird, medical spokesman for the Brit- ish Heart Foundation. It also is offensive to some of Scotland's most discriminating foul to me schoolchildren, at 99 pence frankly,\ says Elaine Knox, gen- ($1.57) a pop. Since he began the practice at a customer's request a few years ago, the colossally caloric concoc- tion has caught on at other chip shops. The dish's popularity has eral manager of The Ubiquitous Chip, one of Glasgow's best- known restaurants. She adds: \I'd rather have a nice piece of fish.\ Criticism has even been aimed at Mowatt's staff, one of whom received an anonymous poison- pen letter that claimed selling the suppers to kids was irrespon- sible. For Mowatt himself, the atten- tion is getting a wee bit tiresome. \Not a day goes past without somebody coming in asking about the Mars bars. I'd rather be known as a good fish-and-chip bar,\ he says. He likens the dish to an even- ing meal — fries for dinner and a Mars bar for dessert — and can't really see what the fuss is about. \It's not like I'm selling alcohol or drugs,\ he says. \At the end of the day a Mars bar is a Mars bar, batter or not.\ He describes the taste as sim- ilar to that of candy — with a side of fries. \\•-•Vl'si.'.
