Festivities, food, wines on the weekend

As the long, lazy summer days begin to slip away, why not join Jodi Perry, co-owner of Wheeler's Liquor Store in the town of Southport, for a free wine tasting on Sunday, Aug. 29? There will be lots of good things to eat, too.

One of the featured items will be the open-pit chicken barbecue for $7.95. The meal includes half a chicken, salt potatoes and corn. In addition, a clambake, poker run (motorcycle ride from 9 a.m.- 2 p.m.), live band and tractor pull are all scheduled for that day at the store.

But what about the Finger Lakes wines?

"What kind of wine do you like?" Jodi asks customers when they drop by the store. "I automatically go to the Finger Lakes wines because I know their taste and I want to push New York wines," she says.

Jodi and her parents, Judith and John Wheeler, opened the store at 1825 Pennsylvania Ave. on March 9. They offer wine tastings from 4 to 7 p.m. on Fridays and from noon to 3 p.m. on Saturdays and Sundays.

Yes, I did write Sundays. It is one of the few liquor stores in the region that has opted to be open on that day of the week.

Wheeler's Liquor Store is closed on Tuesday in order to abide by the state's limit of being open for business a maximum of six days per week. Ah, but back to the wine.

Jodi and her husband, Michael, have visited all of the wineries that they represent at their store.

"We went up to Fulkerson's and tasted it and fell in love with it," says Jodi, referring to Fulkerson Winery and Juice Plant's Vidal Ice Wine. They insisted that the distributor get some of that sweet wine as well as other dessert wines from Hunt Country Vineyards and Heron Hill Vineyards for their store. Although the distributor did not think their selections were very sound at the time, he came around when they went to reorder. According to Jodi, he said that he was glad that they had insisted on the wines because it turned out that they were moving well.

Although Wheeler's offers wines from regions as far-flung as California and Australia, more than half of their wine selection is from the Finger Lakes.

Poplar Ridge was one of the wineries to help out when they first opened in March.

"He's really nice, a lot of fun," says Jodi of Dave Bagley, owner of the winery. His son, Matthew, has been down a couple of times to do tastings at the store.

"We have sold a lot of his wines since we opened," Jodi says.

There should be a wide range of wines to sample on Aug. 29. Anthony Road Wine Company will be pouring Tony's Red and Tony's White wines. Hunt Country Vineyards and Glenora Wine Cellars will offer wines from each of their wine lists.

Even if you are attending the celebration of the 225th anniversary of the Battle of Newtown in Lowman on Aug. 29, you may still have time to make it to the festivities at Wheeler's. The barbecue is scheduled to run from noon until 9 p.m.

Please call 607/732-3597 to get information about the tractor pull and poker run.

Note: For those interested in the complete list of winners from the New York Wine and Food Classic, last week's column topic, please visit: www.nywine.com/nygold/ competition.asp?cmp= 111&yr=2004.

Jeff Richards' wine column appears Saturdays. For comments or questions, he can be reached at 607/271-8279 or 800/836-8970, ext. 279, or e-mail: jrichards