Meet the winemaker who’s spent 18 vintages perfecting the art of sparkling wine on Long Island
Sparkling Pointe Vineyards & Winery has a new head winemaker who, it’s safe to say, already knows his way around the place.
The producer, located in Southold, on the North Fork of Long Island, recently announced that Andrew Rockwell is taking over as the head winemaker.
A key member of the production team since 2017, Rockwell has spent the last eight years helping to guide the winemaking operations along with founding winemaker Gilles Martin during his tenure.
With more than 16 years of experience in traditional method sparkling wine, he brings both technical precision and creative vision to the role, a press release said. His career began at North Fork’s renowned Premium Wine Group, and his background in engineering continues to shape his meticulous approach.
Rockwell’s process focuses on preserving each vintage’s character, cultivating exceptional fruit, and crafting méthode champenoise wines that are consistent yet expressive. While not seeking sweeping changes, he embraces a philosophy of continuous improvement, introducing subtle refinements in the cellar to elevate quality year after year.
Bottom line, he’s committed to innovation, sustainability, and excellence, and is set to guide the winery through its next chapter.
“Our goal is to build on Sparkling Pointe’s strong foundation by constantly striving towards advancements in our grape growing and winemaking processes,” he said in the release. “I have been fortunate to have been given the opportunity to learn and collaborate with an industry leader such as Gilles Martin, and refine my skills across all aspects of sparkling winemaking. It is an honor to continue this legacy and invest my passion and expertise into the Sparkling Pointe brand.”
Sparkling Pointe, at 39750 County Road 48, is open seven days a week. Reservations are required. You can view the winery’s tasting, by-the-glass, and food pairing menu before your visit.
The winery, founded by Tom and Cynthia Rosicki, opened in 2004.
Rockwell sent back these answers to several questions from PennLive.
Q, I looked at the winery announcement just to get a little background. Can you fill in a few blanks? How old? Where are you from? How long were you in engineering before you switched to wine, and what drew you in that direction?
A, I’m 42. I was born and grew up on eastern Long Island but a bit further west in Brookhaven. More of an educational background than a significant career in engineering, though I worked in a half dozen different laboratories during the school year and during the summers while I was receiving a bachelor’s degree in Material Science Engineering from Johns Hopkins University. I later earned a master’s in Biomedical Engineering from Stony Brook University when I returned to Long Island after undergraduate studies. I started to become interested in wine toward the end of my studies and took a part-time job working in the tasting room for Roanoke Vineyards, one of our great producers here on the East End. My then-girlfriend, now wife, was friends with the laboratory director at the local custom crush, Premium Wine Group, and I was encouraged to try out a vintage as a harvest lab intern.
Q, You’ve been there since 2017, yes? What did you do with the Premium Wine Group, and have you made wine anywhere else?
A, I started at Premium Wine Group in harvest 2008 and then took over as Lab Director the following year when the previous lab director left. I’ve spent my entire winemaking career making wine on Long Island. I just wrapped up vintage number 18. My wife and I also do our best to travel all over the wine world, spending time at wineries and with winemakers from every region to broaden our understanding.
Q, The announcement references your work with Gilles Martin. What are a couple of the lessons/perspectives you took from him?
A, The perspective of how Pinot and Chardonnay work with one another to make a harmonious and complex cuvee, and the value of holding some of your best lots as reserve wines for future blends.
Q, The announcement noted you’ve made some improvements in the cellar there … what are a few of the subtle changes you have made to achieve that quality that you seek?
A, I tend to focus on incremental, gradual improvements, especially when we are talking about well-established traditional techniques such as Méthode Traditionelle sparkling. There are always new tools and ideas being presented by the trade, but it’s important to hold that fundamental foundation in place while thinking about how we can improve wines that we already feel are of strong quality. I’ve been focusing on some fine-tuning of all aspects of the winery, with a primary focus on streamlining workflow logistics and some adjustments to how we handle and press grapes and our secondary fermentation processes, all with the goal of continuing to make fresh, lively sparkling wines with great aging potential.
Q, What’s the appeal for you, from a winemaker’s standpoint, of making sparkling wine? Are there a couple of things you’ve learned along the way to create the level of sparkling that you strive for?
A, I love how food-friendly the wines are. The great acidity typically found in sparkling wines seems to have an ability to pair well with most foods, and the bubbles always seem to help enliven the palate. Our region is blessed with wonderful growing conditions for growing Pinot Noir and Chardonnay for sparkling. I’ve never seen a year where we couldn’t make a good sparkling wine here. The ability to pick the grapes early limits our vineyard inputs and helps make the entire system of growing grapes and making the wine more sustainable for Sparkling Pointe. Fortunately, we seem to only have good and great years for this style of wine on Long Island, so from a winemaker’s perspective, it’s a blessing to be able to work with a style of wine I am confident we can deliver with consistency and quality year in and year out, and that I also love to drink myself. I’ve learned along the way that there are a lot of extra steps and long waiting times to make a high-quality sparkling as opposed to just still wines. Once you have them dialed in, it can be quite an easy formula to follow, assuming you have good starting base wines, but there are also many opportunities for missteps. It is of critical importance to have the technical side of things well within your mental grasp and control if you want to deliver a high-quality and consistent product.
Q, Careerwise, what are a couple of the things that appeal the most to you, and a couple of the biggest challenges?
A, Biggest appeal is the ability to continue working with the great team we have in place and the opportunity to help drive the continued growth and success of the winery in concert with the feedback from all the other hardworking, well-experienced individuals at Sparkling Pointe. The greatest challenges will probably be finicky grapes in a finicky environment in terms of costs, labor, and changing climate, followed closely by shifting consumer tastes and preferences that are always changing with the times.
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