Harvest House: Finger Lakes

Each year the New York Wine & Grape Foundation sends a few lucky campers to work harvest in the wine regions of New York: Long Island, Hudson Valley, and in my case, the Finger Lakes. This wasn’t my first time visiting the region, and for two years in a row I brought the first snow. Read my previous posts from Damiani Wine Cellars and Boundary Breaks, my top red wine producer and riesling producer respectively. In addition I had tasted with Red Tail Ridge, Hermann J Wiemer, Standing Stone, and Ravines.

Leaving the Rochester airport we would first head to Casa Larga Vineyards & Winery. Located in Fairport, the winery and vineyard resides in the most northern stretches of the Finger Lakes AVA almost 45 minutes north west of Geneva. We met Matt Cassavaugh, the head winemaker who moved to the region with no previous wine experience. Through hard work and an open mind, he has worked his way up to his current position. If you can overlook the sweet non-vinifera wines and the frozen margarita dispensers of wine slushies, they actually produce some serious wines. Their riesling and gewurztraminer wines were translucent, almost clear as water. The wines were less aromatic and more lime-citrus driven than stone fruits. Their cabernet sauvignon was too green for my tastes. Fiora della Stelle is a true ice wine when the grapes are picked frozen on the vine. Beware of the term ‘ice wine’ in the Finger Lakes, as many wineries do not pick late into the frozen winter, rather they use cryoextraction to freeze grapes in a cold box. There is no comparison between the complexity of flavors between the two different methods.

2015 riesling juice from the fermentor.

2015 gewurztraminer juice from the fermentor. The beautiful color falls out by the end of fermentation.

Our next stop would be in Penn Yan at Anthony Road Wine Company. Head winemaker Peter Becraft would give us a brief tour. They were cleaning out the press at the time, which most wineries were doing several times a day during harvest (I got to clean one, not fun!). Peter would explain about the effects of the past two cold winters. The hard winters since 2012 have caused many buds to freeze and die thus reducing yields in 2015 by as much as 50%. The decrease in yields we heard throughout the week varied greatly depending on micro-climate, some without any decrease in yields at all. Peter gave us a quick education on measuring fermentations with a hydrometer and tasted through some juice. Before we could taste any finished wine, we were hurried away to our last stop.

Facing Seneca Lake from the winery.

Removing the juice jackets from the press.

I’ve driven past Bellangelo Winery on Route 14 in Dundee in the past and unless I was with Harvest House I wouldn’t have made the stop. Even if I would have stopped I would have immediately turned around once stepping foot into the extreme fall-scented Michael craft store tasting room. Surely this was just another hybrid sweet wine house. Chris Missick, a tall casual young man, welcomed us with his smile and handed us a book, “A Sense Of Place”. Chris explained that he wrote this book after purchasing the winery in 2011 to share the historical stories of the estate and the stories of the small family growers of Seneca Lake. I knew of this book. Forgetting the cinnamon scented craft store, I was hooked.

Individually we would pretend to pump-over and punch-down. Upon completion of two 1-ton fermentors between 6 people we were rewarded for our hard work with a thorough tasting. First, a vintage comparison of Cabernet Franc: 2012, 2013 and 2014. In quite contrast to 2013 and 2014, the 2012 vintage was the hottest most winemakers can remember. The wine was ripe with firm tannins and black cherry fruit. The heat quickly ended in the winter of 2012-2013 and has since been cold. Bellangelo’s 2013 was lean, floral, with candied cherry and low in alcohol. 2014 was stylishly right in between 2012 and 2013. “The only thing consistent about vintages here is that they will always be consistently variable.” explains winemaker Nathan Kendall. Aside from their normal bottlings, an experimental label is in production. Such wines include a 50/50 pinot noir chardonnay blend vinified as a white wine and various barrel fermented wines. While they may not know so, Bellangelo is certainly a cabernet franc house. Look out for these guys to be the go-to specialist in the future, hell, maybe even in the present.

The view from the back of the winery facing Seneca Lake.

Afterwards we would retire to our beautiful home on the west side of Seneca lake with beer, whiskey, and a fire.

The following morning I would be given the task of working alongside Steve DiFrancesco, winemaker of Genora Wine Cellars. Throughout my entire day (which was too busy to take many notes) I would be taken through the gambit of production – pressing, filtering, fermentation, and eventually bottling. Steve was not only the most knowledgeable person I’ve meet in the region but also the most modest. Not one to buff his own chest I learnt he has been in the Finger Lakes for over 36 vintages and worked with Charlie Fournier at Gold Seal Vineyards. Glenora is not a small operation as most of our day was spent checking fermentations of nearly 100 tanks. Steve still prefers to do things old school; Not many fancy techniques or technology here. During a lunch break we dined at the Glenora restaurant overlooking the entire east side of Seneca. I shared my vision of Burgundy with Steve where all suitable land has been planted to grapes. When I asked Steve if he envisioned the entire coast of lower Seneca Lake to be fully planted he replied, “I hope so. It’s all perfect for planting.”