Ask most wine drinkers what they know about New York wine and you’ll probably get a polite pause, which is exactly what an international tasting panel set out to change.
With panellists from around the world, the aim was to define what the region actually tastes like, and in answering questions from the audience, the panel talked through land use, climate, vineyard practices and the geographic designations that shape the character and quality of New York wine.
The Finger Lakes has made a name for itself as one of the state’s best-known wine regions, though plenty of people still know very little about it.
Winemaking has a long history there, and new vineyards are being planted all the time, which raises some interesting questions. When does it make sense to label wines as New York State? What would it take to make that name mean something? And how can New York compete with California and the rest of the world?
Those questions shaped our conversation with three winemakers as we tasted three distinctly New York wines.
#1 Living Roots Bone Dry Riesling 2019, Finger Lakes
Sebastian and Colleen Hardy run Living Roots from Rochester, New York, and also have a winery in South Australia, so they know a thing or two about very different climates.
“The Finger Lakes provide insulation for the vines; it is very cold, especially in the winter, and it also extends the growing season,” Sebastian explained.
This full-bodied, bone-dry Riesling comes from a single vineyard, and the 2019 was the first vintage from their Shale Creek site. “It is a steep block with shale soil and catches the afternoon sunlight,” he said. “Riesling suits the Finger Lakes so well and can make so many styles. The slow ripening process is great for richer and riper flavours with high natural acidity: ripe citrus, stone fruit, wet stone, waxy. Texture to carry it when it is bone dry.”
Cold fermentation in stainless steel keeps the bright fruit and fresh acidity intact, and the result has attractive aromas of pear and stone fruit, balanced by clean citrus and a crisp acidity that works well on its own or with white meat and seafood.
#2 Weis Grüner Veltliner 2019, Finger Lakes
Peter Weis is a sixth-generation winemaker from Germany’s Mosel Valley who now makes wine on Keuka Lake, an unusual Y-shaped lake that was once known as Crooked Lake.
“When I came to the United States from the Mosel, I stopped at Sonoma for a short time. Surprisingly, a lot of similarities and soil types,” he said. But it was the Finger Lakes that felt like home, partly because it was closer than other wine regions he considered, such as New Zealand, and partly because of the style of wine. “The Finger Lakes is a home away from home.”
Like the Mosel, the Finger Lakes has slate and limestone soils, which lets winemakers grow different grapes for different styles. Weis makes the full spectrum, from the ancient Georgian red Saperavi to ice wine and wines from Cayuga White, a hybrid grape that copes well with freezing temperatures.
“The climate is very similar to the Mosel,” Weis said, “but what the Mosel was like twenty years ago.” It’s a telling comment on how climate change is reshaping cool-climate regions.
#3 Red Newt Cellars Cabernet Franc 2018, Finger Lakes
Kelby Russell’s journey in wine begins and ends in the Finger Lakes, although that was never a given. Growing up in Rochester in the 1990s and 2000s, while Kodak was collapsing, he faced a difficult job market, and his parents assumed he’d leave for good after university.
Instead he caught the wine bug, by mistake as he tells it, after swapping work in a Tuscan winery for room and board. He never looked back. Once home, he threw himself into the Finger Lakes before heading off again for harvests in Marlborough, Tasmania and at Yalumba in the Barossa Valley.
Australia inspired him to make reds with a certain spark that are a real pleasure to drink. The 2018 Cabernet Franc is a dark ruby colour with aromas of roasted pumpkin, violets and caramelised dark fruit, and the medium-bodied palate brings black cherry, boysenberry and currants with a hint of rose petal, finishing with a good length of spicy black pepper.
Final thoughts
New York is a remarkably varied wine state, with more than 400 wineries spread from Seneca Lake to the Hudson Valley. Yet with all that variety, one question remains open: what exactly makes New York wine taste like New York? The patchwork of soils across the Finger Lakes, which gives winemakers so many expressions of Riesling to play with, is part of the answer, but the region is still being discovered.
As Kelby Russell put it, “Finger Lakes always feels like the bridesmaid, never the bride.”
That began to change in 2020, when more New Yorkers than ever visited the Finger Lakes, and the extra visitors pushed wineries to raise their game, both in the bottle and at the cellar door. Tastings like this one, which bring the region’s winemakers together with an international audience, give the rest of us a glimpse of where New York wine is heading.
“Growing up in this area,” Kelby said, “it means so much more to bring the Finger Lakes wine region to the world.”
