Erik Longabardi (pictured above, center with the glasses) and Benford Lepley (on the left) are doing something just utterly soulful and inspiring out of Erik’s tiny garage in Roslyn and it registers, quite obviously, if you’re paying any attention at all – even if you don’t particularly care about Long Island, or cider, or natural wine, or preserving old apple trees inconveniently planted near strip malls.
It’s a deeply felt project, overseen with intelligence, purpose, and more than a little bit of passion. Both of these guys have other, full-time jobs. So far as I can tell, they spend nearly all their free time working on this project, gathering people to help them work on this, feeding and supporting the people that help them with this. In other words, through nearly any rational or economic prism, none of this makes any sense at all.
Which is of course part of what makes it so unique, so special. This is what we feel when we are near these wines, when we’re drinking these ciders, even if we can’t articulate it exactly… though I think the best word to articulate this feeling is maybe easy: “love.”
We hope you love these wines; we hope you’ll go out and support the great restaurants and retailers that are supporting Erik and Benford. I say it a lot, but it’s true: It is a very short line between your support and the growers themselves. When you buy a bottle, you keep Erik and Benford doing what they are doing, which in turn keeps the agricultural landscape of Long Island preserved.
So, without further ado, find the list of supporters, from around the country, below. Please go out there and support them.
To read more about the entire line of 2021 ciders and wines, click here. And if you have any further questions, please just email us and we will do our best to help you out! THANK YOU, to everyone, for supporting this!
Stephen Bitterolf
founder | vom Boden
Long Island!
One Kourt Studio (Greenport)
Tipsy Duck (Eastport)
Williston Park Wines & Spirits (Williston Park)
New York City
Contento
Flatiron Wines
Gem
l’Accolade
Manhatta
Parcelle
Pasanella & Son
Tin Building by Jean Georges
Vinyl Wine
Brooklyn & Queens
Beer Street South
Beer Witch
Five Acres
Foster Sundry
The Four Horsemen
Gage & Tollner
The Grain & The Vine
Henry’s
Irving Bottle
Judy’s
La Vara
Leon & Son
Oxalis
Parlour Wine and Spirits
Porcelain
Rolo’s
Tonchin
Vanderbilt Wines
Vinegar Hill House
Hudson Valley
Artisan Wine Shop (Beacon)
Bluebird Wine & Spirits (Accord)
Brunette (Kingston)
Kingston Wine Company (Kingston)
Left Bank Ciders (Catskill)
Rose Hill Farm (Red Hook)
Sipperly’s Grog Shoppe (Red Hook)
Upstream Wine & Spirits (Livingston Manor)
Windmill Wines & Spirits (Saugerties)
Upstate New York
Crush Bottleshop (Hamilton)
Noble Root Wine & Spirits (Buffalo)
Strickland Hollow Distillery (Delhi)
The Falls Wine Room (Ithaca)
New Jersey
Court Liquors (Long Branch)
Grape Collective (Montclair)
Neighbor’s Wine (Maplewood)
Riverview Wine & Spirits (Jersey City)
California
Reach out to our distributor @gcs_cali for more information!
Chicago
All Together Now
Beer Temple
Easy Does It
Parachute
Red & White Wines
Rootstock
Wherewithall
Colorado
Applejack Wine & Spirits (Wheat Ridge, Thorton and CO Springs)
Boulevard Bottle Shop (Lakewood)
Mr. B’s Wine & Spirits (Aurora)
Reach out to our distributor @anvilwine for more information!
Maine
Reach out to our distributor @crushdistributors for more information!
Michigan
Reach out to our distributor @ahd_vintners for more information!
Massachusetts
Craft and Cru (Milton)
Pip & Anchor (Nantucket)
Rebel Rebel (Somerville)
Reach out to our distributor @vineyardroadwines for more information!
North Carolina
Reach out to our distributor @proofwineandspirits for more information!
Oregon
Reach out to our distributor @deliciousish for more information!
Maryland, Virginia and Washington, D.C.
Ellwood Thompson’s (Richmond, VA)
Off the Rox (Baltimore, MD)
Reach out to our distributor @potomacselections for more information!
