New Jersey is known for many things. Tomatoes, blueberries, Turnpike exits. But wine is not one of them. Garden State winemakers want to change that.

To help you stock a few homegrown wines for your collection, we asked the state’s premiere wine merchant, our client Gary Fisch from Gary’s Wine and Marketplace (www.garyswine.com), for his picks.

Gary and his Wine Club director Maggie Fox tasted some Jersey wines and gave us a winning trio.

Start with blueberry. Seriously? It’s a great summery aperitif, say Gary and Maggie.

New Jersey produces the most, and some of the best, blueberries in the nation. Alba Vineyard (www.albavineyard.com) has taken this high-quality fruit and turned it into a sweet, syrupy Blueberry Wine (NV, $12.99) that mixes well with sparkling wine or Prosecco. Fill a Champagne flute 1/3 of the way with it and top off with the bubbly for a perfect start to your evening.

Gary and Maggie also uncorked a bottle of Unionville Vineyards (www.unionvillevineyards.com) Hunter’s Red Reserve 2005 ($11.99), in a distinctive label with an antique fox hunt print. The wine brings together the Old and New World with a blend of two European-American hybrids, Chambourcin and Cayuga. Although the winemaker claims a similarity to Beaujolais, Gary and Maggie thought it was more like a fruity, earthy Pinot Noir. The nose was a little barnyardy, they reported, but soft and smooth on the palate, a good match for pork or mushroom dishes.

Our wine experts finished with Alba Vineyard Riesling 2005 ($11.99) and found a nose-full of ripe yellow fruit, particularly pineapple. The 2005 growing season produced very ripe fruit in New Jersey, and these vineyards achieved some development of botrytis (otherwise known as “noble rot”) which dehydrates the grapes and concentrates the sugar. As a result, the wine had a sweet finish, which makes it a good after-dinner quaff.

You can find all these wines at Gary’s stores in Madison and Bernardsville. Thanks to Gary and Maggie for their help, and keep tasting those Jersey wines!