Petrocelli "comes from a family tradition in Italy of wine appreciation, and everything about fine wines -- the smells, the tastes, the enjoyment of a great vintage -- are part of his personal history," said Richard Harbich, winemaker at the new estate, on the grounds of the old Korelski farm on Route 25.
In hiring Harbich, Petrocelli recruited one of the founding names of the Long Island wine industry. After a quarter century as a winemaker with Bridgehampton Winery and then with Hargrave, Harbich moved over to the untested vineyard after a brief conversation with Petrocelli.
About wines? "No, about quality," said Harbich. "His entire approach to quality, whether it's in construction or making wine, is simply to do everything the best way possible. It was refreshing to hear that."
The winery will be the first on Long Island, apparently, to devote its acreage entirely to one grape: merlot. This year, 20 acres out of 40 are under cultivation. "Our goal is simple: make the best merlot ever made on Long Island," declares Harbich. "Is it risky? Well, it will probably take longer to develop the market than if we offered all sorts of wines. But merlot is the fastest growing red wine in the United States.
If Long Island is ever to receive the recognition it deserves as a wine region, it will be by focusing on a wine that is ideal for this region, and reflects what is finest about this region. And that wine is merlot."
Non-fatal attachments
All the media frenzy over the Melissa Internet virus, which spreads through e-mail address books, seemed like a hurricane that bypassed our shores. The local digerati are saying no one is e-mailing them the attachments that keep the virus spreading. As viruses go, it's pretty small stuff -- a petty annoyance that nevertheless illustrates how vulnerable the wired are to malicious Net users.
"It's amazing to me that most of the people on the Internet haven't figured out yet that you don't open an attachment unless it's something you're expecting, from someone you know," harrumphed John Ammirati, president of Helping Hand Computers, a computer training firm based in Westbury. "It's like opening your front door in the middle of the night when you hear a knock, without knowing who's standing out there wanting to come in."
Even if you do know the sender, sometimes that's not good enough. Wayne Spivak, who operates SBA.net.web in Bellmore,
writes for several computer trade magazines and says he got the Happy '99 worm virus from an editor.
"Even if you open an attachment from someone you know, you never know if it is infected," he warns.
Melissa has been Topic No. 1 among local Internet Service Providers on listserve discussion groups, said David Drucker, who owns and operates Strive, an ISP in Farmingdale.
"I subscribe to several, and it was the week's hot topic, but everybody said the same thing: Nobody was downloading the virus," he said. "We all took it seriously. I set up a filter so any suspicious attachment was opened separately" and not on the client's PC, he said.
"For all the talk about Melissa, I didn't see one instance of it, and neither did any other ISP" among the dozens comparing notes all week on this virtual community," he said.
Adds ISP manager Amir Saeed, vice president for Web services at Interactive Internet in Westbury: "The only thing that I have seen is e-mails from companies telling me to go to their sites and download protection against Melissa."
And has he?
"Actually," he said, "those are the ones I am trying to avoid."