Wine of the Finger Lakes - Summary

This posting is a short summary of our week of winery visits and wine tasting in the Finger Lakes in upstate New York.

We visited 44 wineries, not even half of the total in the Finger Lakes, averaging about 8 tastes per winery, so we estimate that we tasted about 350 wines.  Most wineries limit customers to tasting 6 wines, usually for a $1-5 fee.  But often they'll allow an extra taste or two if they are not busy and if you are genuinely interested in wine and seem like you are going to buy. Often, we were offered several additional tastes.  Sometimes, we each tasted different wines and shared with each other when the pours were large enough to do so.

We bought several good examples of affordable Finger Lakes wines, some of which we thought would be interesting in our Wines of the Finger Lakes class.  However, we found that most wineries were serving and selling their 2008 vintage, which was a wet year in the Finger Lakes, often leading to lighter, thinner wines, especially reds.  We found many good examples of Riesling, the wine the Finger Lakes are famous for, as well as some good Gewertztraminers and Traminettes, and a few good Chardonnays and Sevals.  Some wineries were still serving and selling 2005, 2006, and 2007 vintages.  The 2005 and 2007 wines were good and we found a few examples of excellent reds from those vintages, especially 2007.  We also found a few unique blends.

Riesling is the signature wine of the Finger Lakes.  A few years ago, most Rieslings were made to be semi-sweet and sweet, but as wine drinkers have matured and drier wines have become more marketable, many wineries are producing a range of Rieslings. The Rieslings ranged from very dry (almost no residual sugar) to Late Harvest and Ice Wine, which are semi-sweet and sweet (high in residual sugar).  Many were unimpressive as many wineries were serving and selling the 2008 vintage.  However, some wineries made excellent 2008 Rieslings and some were still serving and selling the 2007 vintage.

Good red wines were harder to find, but we found a few very good Cabernet Francs, some good Baco Noirs, and some good red blends, often from the 2007 and even the 2005 vintages.  Good red wines were more expensive (often $25 or more) than the good whites ($15-20).  We found a few bargains, including some blends that were unique, interesting, and tasty.

We had some extraordinarily good experiences wine tasting, and many just so-so experiences.  So many people travel to and taste wine in the Finger Lakes, sometimes the servers seem disinterested and are obviously just doing their jobs.  Other times, the servers are very interested in wine, in the people they are serving, and help create a wonderful, educational wine-tasting experience.  We would never visit most of these wineries on a weekend as they get hundreds, sometimes thousands, of visitors each day and have to move people through the tastings as quickly as they can.  On weekdays, however, staff are less harried and sometimes we were the only people in the tasting room, especially earlier in the day (most open at 10 AM and close at 5 PM on weekdays).

A few of our favorite wineries this trip, those where we found good wines at reasonable prices and friendly, knowledgeable staff, included Lakewood, Hermann Wiemer, Heron Hill, Prejean, Red Tail  Ridge, Fox Run,  Billsboro and White Springs on the West side of Seneca; Leidenfrost on the East Shore of Seneca;  Goose Watch and Sheldrake Point on the West side of Cayuga, and Heron Hill, Hunt Country, and Keuka Spring on Keuka.  Many other wineries were fine as well, but the stars were especially well-aligned this trip when we visited these wineries.  We had many other good experiences and found some good and affordable wines at other wineries, but in retrospect, these are the most memorable and where we bought the most or some of the best wine.

For our Wines of the Finger Lakes class this coming Thursday, we have narrowed down our examples to Red Tail Ridge Semi-dry Riesling or Heron Hill Single Vineyard Riesling, Chateau Lafayette Reneau Cuvee Rouge, Fox Run Arctic Fox, Bellhurst Golden Pheasant, White Springs Gewurtztraminer and Lucas Cabernet Franc.  Registrations can still be made for this class by calling MCCC's Continuing Education office at the Pottstown Campus at 610.718.1861 until 4 PM Thursday.

We have some other good examples as well, so plan to offer an Finger Lakes II class sometime soon.

All in all we had a good trip, a great time, and look forward to returning to the Finger Lakes in a couple of years when the 2010 vintage is released.  Like Eastern Pennsylvania, 2010 was a dry year in the Finger Lakes so most of the 2010 vintage wines should be much more concentrated, intense, and tasty than most of those we found this year.