Although New York is the country's third-largest wine producer, many New York City residents are not very familiar with some of the best local wines. For the members of Long Island's celebrated wine industry, that can be very frustrating. Cheryl Wills has more from the North Fork, as our "Grape State of New York" coverage continues.

Long Island wines have been winning awards and fans for decades. However, when the industry first started in the early 1970s, the region's wines often left a bad taste in the critics' mouths.

Mudd's Vineyard owner Steve Mudd says there is a very simple explanation for that.

"A lot of the early wines on Long Island were nothing to speak of," said Steve Mudd, owner of Mudd's Vineyard. "It’s because we didn’t know what we were doing growing grapes. That’s surely not the case now. Everybody’s on top of their game."

Unfortunately, winemaker Barbara Shinn says the stigma attached to Long Island early on is sometimes hard to shake.

"People that don’t take East Coast wine growing seriously are part of that category called “wine snobs.” A true wine connoisseur really understands our wines," says Barbara Shinn, owner of Shinn Estate Vineyards.

Louisa Hargrave planted the North Fork's first vineyard in 1973. She is dismissive of critics who dismiss wines from the North Fork.

"Surprisingly, many people who write about wine don’t really know that much about wine," says Louisa Hargrave, writer and former vineyard owner. "They don’t necessarily know how it’s made and they don’t necessarily have great palettes. I've had some pretty high and mighty wine critics here, who, I found out, couldn’t taste their way out of a vat."

Winemaker Eric Fry of The Lenz Winery is not concerned about what critics think, and wants growers to continue to keep things small.

"I hope it doesn’t become the big corporate monstrosity with thousands of acres and all that kind of stuff, because that’s… quality suffers...but with the little guy who might make mistakes, but who’ll also make some wonderful surprises too," Fry says.

And for Eileen Duffy, author of "Behind the Bottle: The Rise of Wine on Long Island," the true mark of success will be when the public begins to associate the region with wine and food.

"If you go to Bordeaux you know you’re going to eat a steak to go with a Bordeaux, and if you go to Nappa you’re gonna have California cuisine. And I think that we have such a rich food shed here so that the kind of stuff people are growing to eat and growing to drink will become Long Island cuisine," Duffy says.

Thirsty for more? Tune in this weekend for "The Grape State of New York," Time Warner Cable News' hour-long look at wine across the state. That's this Saturday at 9 p.m. and Sunday at 6 p.m.