This week, we’re back in the Finger Lakes relaxing over Labor Day weekend. One of the reasons we couldn’t wait to return is to stock up on more wine. The region is known for their tasty white wines &, while we don’t normally consider ourselves white wine drinkers, we absolutely are Finger Lakes white wine drinkers. These are two of our favorite wineries from our trip back in June:
Heron Hill Winery
Heron Hill Winery, located on the west side of Keuka Lake, started in 1977 & has been producing European-style wines ever since. Their tasting room is considered one of the most beautiful in the world – an attribution I’m happy to confirm. The soaring curved ceilings welcome tasters & almost feel like you’re standing inside a wine barrel. The day we visited, the tasting room was busy with bachelorette parties, groups of cyclists & couples enjoying themselves.
The winery produces about 100,000 gallons of wine annually, with nearly 20 different bottles on site & seven different series’ of wines. To escape the crowds, we grabbed a few bottles & headed up to the roof for a private tasting with Blaine Mayes. Blaine, who runs Heron Hill’s cafe, has been with the winery for years & knows more about wine than anyone I’ve ever met. We quickly identified our favorite: the Semi-Dry Riesling (which is also their best selling wholesale wine).
While the Finger Lakes is known for its white wine, Heron Hill is producing high quality red wine as well. Their Eclipse Red will be 25 years old next year & is their best seller in-house. The cabernet-merlot style wine was easy to drink.
It’s one of only a few wineries in the area that has a full service cafe, where we enjoyed a fantastic al fresco lunch the day we visited.
We had such a great visit to Heron Hill that we came home with an embarrassing amount of wine, most of which we’ve already drank. We will definitely swinging by to stock up on our next trip!
Dr. Frank Winery
Dr. Frank Wine was – inadvertently – the first Finger Lakes wine we had on our trip. We stopped in a Watkins Glen wine shop to grab a bottle to enjoy our first evening there & ended up with a Dr. Frank Semi-Dry Riesling – & loved it. So we were thrilled to actually visit this beautiful winery & see how the Finger Lakes’ best known wine is made. Dr. Konstantin Frank might as well be called the Godfather of Finger Lakes wine, as it was his research that allowed European vinifera grape varieties to be successfully grown in the Northeast.
We joined George DiTomasso on the winery’s peaceful back porch, overlooking Keuka Lake, to learn all about Dr. Frank’s innovation & taste some of his amazing wines. George’s energetic personality & great food pairing recommendations made the tasting fun & lively – it felt less like a wine tasting & more like learning something from an old friend.
We sampled a dozen wines, including varieties which are only available to members of Dr. Frank’s wine club. The 2012 Pinot Gris was made from grapes grown in the oldest living vineyard in North America & the 2012 Rkatsiteli, a wine I had never ever heard of, is made of the oldest known grape varietal in the world. Once again, we love the Semi-Dry Reisling, but also enjoyed tasting a very special 2010 Merlot Reserve, which I can officially say is the first Merlot I’ve ever liked.
Dr. Frank’s award-winning winery has a bit of a cult following in upstate New York, & rightfully so: the wine was darn good. It’s definitely worth a stop on your Finger Lakes wine tour.
Our visits to Heron Hill Winery & Dr. Frank’s Winery were arranged by the Corning & the Finger Lakes Tourism Board; however, you can have the exact same experience we did by just stopping by. Blaine, George & their teams are all extremely knowledgable about wine & can point you toward the perfect bottle – which is exactly what they’ll be doing when we drop by unannounced this weekend. All opinions are, of course, my own.
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