Finger Lakes

Let me begin by letting you know that we are fans of the Finger Lakes.  We’ve visited the area, tasted the wines, stayed in some lovely places, and enjoyed some great food (pot roast at the Sherwood Inn)!  So, yes, we’re a little biased.

The history of the Finger Lakes began roughly two million years ago, when the region was created by continental glaciers. When they receded, they formed a series of long, skinny, deep lakes. (They’re also responsible for the gorges that nearby Ithaca are famous for, and those in Watkins Glen State Park.) These are moraine lakes, just like Moraine State Park in Butler.

The combination of deep water (Seneca Lake is 632 feet at its deepest point) and steep sloping hills create the ideal micro-climate for grape growing in the Finger Lakes. It protects the growth of native grapes, hybrids, and even the more delicate varieties of Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir.

The first European explorers of the East Coast were impressed with the number of wild grapevines that grew there. When he saw them, 16th-century Italian explorer Giovanni Verrazano wrote, “[There are] many vines, growing naturally, which growing up, tooke hold of the trees as they doe in Lombardie, which if by husbandmen they were dressed in good order, without all doubt they would yield excellent wines,” (from Thomas Pinney’s A History of Wine in America).

Creating a wine industry there that would produce the kind of wine they enjoyed in Europe was a dream of the colonists. But every time they tried they failed. Even though the vines of many species of North American wild grapes grew there, nearly all of them yielded unsatisfactory wines. Europeans had cultivated their diverse vinifera (“wine bearer”) grapevines for thousands of years and had selected them for their wine quality. But on this side of the Atlantic, the vinifera planted in eastern North America failed to survive long enough to bear commercial crops. (That changed much later thanks to the efforts of a stubborn but visionary Ukrainian immigrant to the Finger Lakes.) As a result, there was no commercially produced domestic table wine or sacramental wine there. Imported wine was scarce and expensive.

The rise of Finger Lakes wine is a recent thing, given the long history of grape-growing in the area. Plantings of vines in the region took off in the 19th century, but most were either native grapes like Concord and Catawba, or French-American hybrids like Cayuga, rather than vinifera grapes. Not until the 1950s did a concerted effort begin to demonstrate that vinifera grapes could grow in the cool, wet climate.

Finger Lakes producers today are still getting a sense of where the best terroirs are, and a lot of research is still ahead of them. In addition, the Finger Lakes AVA remains an undercapitalized region in which many producers have to compromise, harvesting with machines, for example, to save on the labor costs required for hand-picking. More investment will mean better wines. Meanwhile, they are really good now, and, for the time being at least, reasonably priced.

Finger Lakes Wine Facts

1. The Finger Lakes was established as an American Viticulture Area (AVA) on October 1, 1982. An AVA is the U.S. federal government’s designation for a geographic area where wine grapes are grown and where the growing conditions, such as soil and climate, are easily distinguishable from other areas.
2. About 90 percent of New York State’s wine is produced in the Finger Lakes, the state’s largest wine region.
3. The Finger Lakes AVA has 130 wineries, 9,393 acres of vineyards; 54,600 tons of grapes are produced each year.
4. The Finger Lakes is home to 828 acres of Riesling, including more than 200 different Riesling brands, producing an average of 220,000 cases each year. The average Finger Lakes winemaker produces 2-3 styles of Riesling a year.
5. Following Riesling, the most common grapes grown in the Finger Lakes include: Chardonnay (340.53 acres), Cabernet Franc (220.74 acres), Pinot Noir (179.19 acres), Gewürztraminer (104.94 acres), Merlot (62.25 acres), Pinot Gris (51.45 acres)
6. The Finger Lakes’ growing season lasts between 190 and 205 days.
7. The earliest instance of grape growing in the Finger Lakes can be dated back to 1829, when Reverend William Bostwick planted Catawba and Isabella grapes in his Hammondsport rectory garden.
8. The New York State Agricultural Experiment Station on Seneca Lake in Geneva, with grape breeding and viticultural research programs, was established in 1882.
9. In the 1950s, Ukrainian immigrant Dr. Konstantin Frank, with a Ph.D. in viticulture and his experience winemaking in the cool Ukrainian climate, was the first to successfully plant vinifera grapes in the Finger Lakes, where previously only hybrids were commercially grown. The “Vinifera Revolution” had begun!
10. An important moment in the history of the region’s wine industry came in 1976 with the passing of the New York Farm Winery Act, which reformed tax and marketing regulations to allow New York grape growers to sell directly to the public. Within 20 years of the law taking effect the number of Finger Lakes wineries grew from 6 to 50.
11.  Meritage blends made in the Finger Lakes are commonly composed of Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Cabernet Franc.
12. Ice wines are produced from ripe grapes that are pressed while frozen. This causes some water in the grapes to remain on the skin, producing very sweet, thick and concentrated dessert-style wines. Finger Lakes ice wines are commonly made from hybrid grapes like Vidal.

Check the blog often for tasting notices, tips, and wine talk.

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