

As a youngster he helped out in the family vineyards in the bay area near San Franciso. Crosby, who is 59 years old, got started on wine early. The la bel, incidentally, was designed by Henry Varnum Poor, the artist, a neighbor on South Mountain Road, who died last Dec. Some of the High Tor wine is non vintage ($1.95), but a 1965 red ($2.40) and the white of several recent years (also $2.40) are on the market.

“It is dry in character and taste,” he says, “without the overpowerful bouquet and flavor of American grapes” used in the main by the big table‐wine mak ers of upper New York State. Crosby's wine is “very, very good wine for New York State-typical more of the wines of California and Europe.” To Michael Aaron, general manager of Sherry‐Lehmann at 679 Madison Avenue (between 61st and 62d Streets), another High Tor outlet, Mr. “People are reticent about an American white wine made in Rockland County.” What the wine lacks, he says, is “snob appeal.” “Who ever heard of making a good white wine 40 minutes from New York?” he adds. “It's like a big Loire wine”-meaning it has the Loire flavor and fragrance but is more full‐bodied. Sokolin, who says he uses Rock land White as his everyday white wine, is an unreserved admirer of it. “It is unusual in this day of great commercialism.”

Crosby's Rockland Red, Rockland White and Rockland Rosé. Sokolin Company at 178 Madison Avenue (be tween 33d and 34th Streets), one of the few New York stores that sells Mr. “It is a handmade thing,” says William Sokolin, proprietor of the D. Crosby's lone full‐time employe, labori ously bottling, corking and labeling by hand the red wine grown two years ago. In the 80‐foot‐long winery are four wooden barrels of almost 700 gallons each and an assortment of smaller barrels and metal, glass‐lined tanks filled with the vintages of recent years, slowly maturing.Īnd, on these early winter days, there is also likely to be Roger Bashant, Mr. Unseen from the winery, forest‐locked, are 12 acres of French hybrid vines on plots wrung from the sloping wil derness. The rest seems to be wild land-tall trees, brush, huge boulders, rock out croppings and the top of High Tor, to the north of the vineyard, 832 feet above the Hudson. There are also several outbuildings and a tenant house. Crosby and his wife, Alma, live and a long building almost buried in the ground, the winery. One hundred yards or so farther up the lane are a 200‐year‐old white clapboard house in which Mr. Near the sign on the stake is one visible small patch of vines trained on wires running along rows of posts. Stores in Rockland or New York City that carry his wine call in or write their orders, and he delivers in his Oldsmobile station wagon. He hires no salesmen and, he says, uses no distributor.
