TheWines of
New York State
A SPECIAL ADVERTISING SECTION IN CORNELL ALUMNI MAGAZINE
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WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
Tasting
Success
COVER AND ABOVE: SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, A.R. MANN LIBRARY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY
BY PEGGY HAINE
There is unrest in the world of wine. The French have a glut and
have turned some of their vin de table into industrial alcohol.
Californians, riding high on the wine flick Sideways and its promotion of Pinot Noir—and trying to figure out what to do with
all that excess Merlot—have pulled up acre upon acre of vineyards to cope with their own glut. And a recent news story
reports that the Chinese have begun to make wine from . . . fish.
Meanwhile, the New York State wine industry continues to
grow and thrive, with a normalcy that seems, in light of what’s
happening elsewhere, oddly uneventful. But don’t be fooled—
there’s plenty going on, as can be seen in the mounting number of wineries across the state. Happily, and with little fanfare,
in the past year New York’s winery count rose above 200. And
more are on the way.
From Long Island
to Lake Erie,
There’s Good News
for New York’s
Wine Drinkers
Good News, Bad News
T
he Academy-Award-winning movie Sideways, filmed in Santa Barbara wine
country, seems to have boosted Pinot Noir sales not only in California, but
nationwide. The film revolves around a couple of goofy guys who go off to
have a last bachelor fling along the wine trail. One of them, a wine geek,
sings the praises of Pinot Noir, and in one pivotal scene tells his buddy before a double date, “If anyone orders Merlot, I’m leaving.”
TERRY SCHERER
Veteran wine and food writer Peggy Haine ’65, BS ’72, was editor of the Finger Lakes
Wine Gazette for ten years before joining the Ithaca real estate firm of Audrey Edelman &
Associates/Realty USA. She specializes in vineyard and winery properties and vacation and
retirement homes.
WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
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At press time, the film had cleared
more than $46 million at the box office.
In a secondary wave of profit-taking,
nationwide sales of Pinot Noir are up 16
percent for November through January,
compared with the same period last
year, according to a survey of supermarkets, drugstores, and liquor stores. And
Constellation Brands, formerly
Canandaigua Wines, recently reported
that sales of its Blackstone Pinot Noir
are up more than 150 percent.
What does that mean for New
York’s wineries? Fox Run Vineyards
owner Scott Osborne, whose Seneca
Lake operation produces award-winning
Pinot Noirs, and who in a former life
was the wine steward at one of the
film’s sites, the Hitching Post, says,
“Thirty people a day are walking into
the tasting room and asking for Pinot
Noir now. A few months ago, nobody
asked for it.”
On Long Island, which has developed a reputation for Cabernet
Sauvignon and Merlot, Steven Bates of
the Long Island Wine Council says that
he hasn’t seen any drop in demand for
the latter, but that winemakers there are
talking about producing more Bordeauxstyle blends.
Roman Roth, winemaker and general manager of Long Island’s Wolffer
Estate Vineyards and Stables, says his
winery recently planted one of its very
best sites in Pinot Noir, and that, while
they make only 150 cases per year (in a
good year) and sell it for $50 a bottle,
sales have increased. He calls Sideways
a “poke in the eye,” adding, “We make
Merlot of much higher quality than the
California Merlot, so we’ll have to work
on another movie!”
Pinot, the darling of winemakers, is
a finicky grape. Its thin skin makes it
susceptible to fungal and insect damage; it bears watching in the winery as
well, requiring careful guidance in its
vinification. Despite its fussiness, it can
do well in the Finger Lakes. It does not
require a long growing season and tolerates cold to a degree. According to
Richard Figiel, owner and winemaker of
Silver Thread Vineyards on Seneca
Lake, “There are those of us who think
that Pinot Noir is the variety that can
shine the best in this area.”
There’s cold and then there’s too
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WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
darn cold—sub-zero weather in the
winter of 2004 damaged vines in three
of New York State’s four winemaking
regions, injuring and destroying Pinot
Noir vines. And while the freeze
caused a setback for Upstate growers,
there is an upside: they can replant
with Pinot clones that are not only
hardier, but will also better express
their vineyards’ terroir. And thanks to
the hard work of a group of grape
growers and Senator Hillary Rodham
Clinton, the federal government has
made funds available to help them
replace damaged vines.
On the night of the Academy
Awards, grape grower Jim Hazlitt ’60
gathered a group of winery folk to see
an early show of Sideways at a small
local theater. They were planning to
enjoy a case of Finger Lakes Pinot Noir
during the show. (You can probably get
away with that in a small, grape-growing, winemaking town.) And there’s
more for wine-drinking film buffs: look
for an upcoming murder mystery
filmed in the vineyards of Glenora Wine
Cellars and at Watkins Glen’s
Wildflower Café, in which Glenora CEO
Gene Pierce ’67 is found dead among
his vines. Rumor has it Pierce plays
himself.
Put a Cork in It!
W
ith an estimated 15 percent of cork-sealed
wines falling victim to
cork taint and cork failure, many wineries have switched to
composite or synthetic corks. A few are
boxing their higher-end wines—or even
using cans. But many winemakers
agree that the closure most likely to
afford their product its best protection is
the screw cap.
Why, then, isn’t every winery using
screw caps? It’s a matter of image.
Screw caps are associated with cheap
swill, and most American wineries fear
that using them will hurt sales.
Meanwhile, Australia and New
Zealand have embraced the screw cap,
and West Coast winemaker Randall
Graham—who conducted a funeral for
the cork a couple of years ago—is bottling his entire line under artfully
designed screw caps.
WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
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Best in Class
Millbrook wines were big winners
in the Great Hudson Valley Wine
Competition held last November.
The Millbrook 2003 Proprietor’s
Reserve Special Reserve
Chardonnay—held here by winemaker John Graziano ’81—was
named Best Wine of the Hudson
Valley, and three other Millbrook
wines were honored with gold
and silver medals. “We are
thrilled that our wines continue to
receive world-class recognition,”
said Millbrook Winery proprietor
John Dyson ’65. “Our staff has worked hard to consistently produce high-quality
wines from our Hudson Valley grapes.” The tasting panel at the competition—
sponsored by the Hudson Valley Wine and Grape Association in cooperation with
the Culinary Institute of America and Cornell Cooperative Extension—evaluated
fifty-two wines from thirteen Hudson Valley wineries.
According to Professor Thomas
Henick-Kling of Cornell’s Geneva
Agricultural Experiment Station, who
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WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
now bottles all the Station’s experimental wines under screw caps, there is
interest among some Long Island
wineries; and while some topflight
Finger Lakes wineries such as
Sheldrake Point and Dr. Konstantin
Frank still swear by their corks, others
have begun the shift, among them
Glenora Winery and Swedish Hill
Vineyards.
But movement is slow, partially
because of the cost of the machinery,
partially because of the limited availability of screw cap-adaptable bottles, but
also because of marketing issues.
Glenora winemaker Steve DiFrancesco
says he’d like to use screw caps but
notes, “I’m not sure our customers
would understand it yet.” Trent Preszler,
MS ’02, who is vice president for operations at Bedell Cellars on Long Island,
says, “I think it’s a good idea and I think
the industry’s headed in that direction,
but it’s something we’re not even considering. In the bigger picture, Long
Island and Finger Lakes wines have to
fight one battle at a time. First we have
to convince the world that we’re global
players—and screw caps would give us
just one more battle to fight.”
Wine: New York’s
Shining Star
W
ine trail folks in every
one of New York’s wine
regions—from the
westernmost Lake
Erie/Chautauqua region to the eastern
tip of Long Island—report that visits to
wineries have increased substantially in
the past few years. And the number of
wineries is also growing, up by fortynine in the last decade, nineteen in the
last three years alone.
Toting up revenues from taxes on
wine sales, and the spin-offs in tourism
dollars—winery visitors have to stay
someplace, and they have to eat, fuel
their tanks, and bring T-shirts and
coasters home to friends—the industry’s impact on the state’s economy is
far-reaching. In addition, visitors fall in
love with winery areas and return year
after year, bringing others with them.
Some even buy vacation homes nearby.
Susan Wine, whose New-York-only
TERRY SCHERER
wine shops, Vintage New York, were
included in Saveur magazine’s 2005
“Saveur 100—favorite foods, restaurants, recipes, people, places, and
things,” is also the proprietor of
Rivendell Winery on the Hudson’s
Shawangunk Trail. She says her area is
seeing enormous growth in terms of
events and recognition. “That market is
so clearly out there, and everybody is
selling everything they make.” Clinton
Vineyards’ Phyllis Feder agrees that visitor numbers are up. (Feder is president
of the Dutchess Wine Trail, the state’s
smallest wine trail with only three
members—Alison Vineyards and Millbrook are the other two.)
Bill Merritt, president of the
WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
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Country Inn
Extraordinary!
Three miles south of Ithaca on 70 acres
of beautiful countryside. 35 spacious
air-conditioned guest rooms.
Hiking trails, tennis, banquet facility
& outdoor canopied patio. Adjacent to
John Thomas Steakhouse.
800-765-1492 • 607-273-2734
1150 Danby Rd., Rt. 96B
www.latourelleinn.com
info@latourelleinn.com
To your health !
According to a study of more than 12,000
women aged seventy-one to eighty conducted by Meir Stampfer, an epidemiologist at
the Harvard School of Public Health, and
published in the New England Journal of
Medicine, those who consumed a daily, light
dose of alcoholic beverages reduced memory
loss and cognitive dysfunction by about 20
percent compared with teetotalers. Stampfer
also cited ten other studies that reported
moderate drinkers did better on cognitive
tests than nondrinkers.
Visit our friendly winery for a tasting
of our award-winning wines and a
lovely view of Seneca Lake.
Hours: Mon–Sat, 10am–5pm
Sun, Noon–5pm
www.lakewoodvineyards.com
4024 State Route 14
Watkins Glen, NY 14891
607-535-9252
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WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
Chatauqua/Lake Erie Wine Trail and
proprietor of Merritt Vineyards, says
attendance increased 50 percent this
year for their trail’s February wine and
chocolate event. He believes there is
“lots of room for expansion” in western
New York’s winemaking regions. Their
small wine trail has over thirty associate
members—restaurants, B&Bs, and
hotels—who buy event tickets for their
guests. “To be full in February is pretty
remarkable,” he says.
Dollar-wise, what’s the impact?
According to Jim Trezise, executive
director of the New York Wine and
Grape Foundation, his organization is
completing a survey of the industry
that’s measuring vineyard acreage, wine
capacity and production, and value of
the harvest, and it has commissioned a
Napa Valley-based wine economics firm
to conduct a comprehensive economic
impact study. The findings should
encourage greater state support of the
industry, which Trezise calls “the shining star of the agriculture, tourism, and
manufacturing sectors” in New York.
A New New York
Wine Course
T
he folks at the New York
Wine and Grape Foundation
have just released the New
York Wine Course and
Reference, a comprehensive look at the
state’s wine industry, from its earliest
days—beginning in 1647, when the
Dutch planted grapes on Manhattan
Island—to the present. The richly illustrated CD-ROM includes information
on soils, climate, viticulture, and winemaking technology, as well as the history and characteristics of all of New York
State’s viticultural areas. Written by Jim
Trezise, coordinated by Susan Spence,
and designed by John “Book” Marshall,
the course includes descriptions of the
state’s major grape varieties in terms of
origin, acreage, growing and winemaking characteristics, and wine flavor profiles. A section on viticulture discusses
vineyard establishment, pruning and
training, soil management, disease control, and harvesting, while the section
on winemaking explains the basics for
producing both still and sparkling
WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
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Three Vineyards, Two Tasting Rooms, One Winery,
World-Class Wines...
“Perhaps more than any other winery, Bedell raised Merlot
to the forefront of Long Island viticulture during the
1980s, which in turn lifted the fledgling district into the
world wine arena. Bedell Merlot remains a benchmark wine
for the area.”
– Jancis Robinson, The Oxford Companion to Wine
wines. It’s all there—and in this format
it can be easily updated as New York’s
wine industry grows.
Targeted at wine educators and
other wine professionals, the CD-ROM
offers two options: a single-session, twohour course and a three-class, six-hour
course. It’s available from Susan Spence
at the Wine and Grape Foundation:
SusanSpence@nywgf.org. A PDF version can be downloaded at
www.newyorkwines.org (click on
Information Station, then News to Use,
then NY Wine Course and Reference).
To Your Health!
North Fork of Long Island
COREY CREEK
V
Rt 25, Main Road, Cutchogue, NY
(631) 734-7537
www.bedellcellars.com
I
N
E
Y
A
R
D
S
Rt 25, Main Road, Southold, NY
(631) 765-4168
www.coreycreek.com
FULKERSON WINERY
on Seneca Lake
A study conducted by Dr. Janet Stanford of
the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center
in Seattle and published in the International
Journal of Cancer adds to mounting evidence that drinking red wine may reduce the
chance of prostate cancer. In a study of 753
middle-aged men diagnosed with prostate
cancer and a control group of 703 healthy
males, while there were no evident associations between the risk of prostate cancer and
overall alcohol consumption, the study said
that “each additional glass of red wine consumed per week showed a statistically significant 6 percent decrease in relative risk” of
prostate cancer.
WELCOMES ALUMNI
Stop by my winery and enjoy a tasteful
experience! We handcraft 20 quality
wines, including 7 dry reds. I’m sure you’ll
find something to delight your palate.
Sayre Fulkerson ’75
Steven Fulkerson ’08
www.fulkersonwinery.com
OPEN YEAR-ROUND
RT. 14, 8 MILES NORTH OF WATKINS GLEN
607-243-7883
Finger Lakes
Winery Tours
NY's most complete
full-service wine touring
company!
• Group or individual
•
•
•
•
10
transportation for wine tours,
weddings, or graduation
Motor coaches, limousines,
buses, vans, and sedans
Specialized weekend packages for couples or groups
Experienced wine guides available
Tours rates starting at $25.00 per person
WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
For more information
call (585) 329-0858
or visit
www.flwtinfo.com.
Cornell Enology
and Viticulture
Program Under
Way
W
hile CALS dean Susan
Henry and the departments of food science
and horticulture press
to fill one last faculty position, Cornell’s
Enology and Viticulture Program is up
and running—and attracting enthusiastic interest from both students and the
wine industry. In fact, the upper-level,
seniors-only course, Understanding
Wine and Beer, drew 120 applicants to
fill its eighty seats.
According to Professor Joseph
Hotchkiss, chair of the Department of
Food Science, wineries have already
begun to offer internships to students in
the program. “Food science students in
general have multiple internship
offers,” he says. “We’re quite convinced
that the wine people will love to have
them.” In fact, industry giant E. & J.
Gallo Winery recently accepted two
undergraduates for salaried internships,
flying them to California and finding
them housing.
With an advisory council representing top players in the international food
and wine industries as well as New
York State’s wineries and regulators,
students in Cornell’s program—one of
the few academic offerings in the country focusing on cool-climate viticulture
and winemaking—will be well positioned for both internships and jobs.
Students take courses not only in
winemaking technology, wine science,
wine flavor development, viticulture, and
grape pest management, but also find
study options outside of horticulture and
food science. These include the farm
management class in the Department of
Applied Economics and Management,
with special modules for vineyards and
wineries, as well as courses in management, marketing, finance, food law, beverage management, food preservation
and processing, wine and food pairing,
SPECIAL COLLECTIONS, A.R. MANN LIBRARY, CORNELL UNIVERSITY
WICK VALLE
WAR
Y
WINERY, DISTILLERY & ORCHARDS
Home of award-winning wines and hard apple ciders
only one hour north of New York City, in the the Hudson Valley.
Free live music every weekend. Pear and apple picking in season.
Hearth-baked breads and farm-fresh pies and pastries from the Winery Bakery.
P.O. Box 354, 114 Little York Road, Warwick, New York 10990
Tel. 845.258.4858 Visit our website at www.wvwinery.com
WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
11
and wine in culture and history.
Core courses are taught on both the
Ithaca campus and at the Geneva
Agricultural Experiment Station.
Professor Thomas Henick-Kling, who
teaches several courses and is headquartered in Geneva, says, “While primary
lectures are in Ithaca, they are livebroadcast in Geneva so students here—
both graduate students and undergraduates working on projects—can participate in the class.” A teaching assistant
in Geneva distributes tasting samples.
The system is also set up so that
Experiment Station staff can teach from
Geneva if weather conditions make travel unadvisable. For more information
on the Program in Enology and
Viticulture, go to: www.fruit.cornell.
edu/eandv.
The Great Riesling
Shortage of 2005
W
hile vineyardists elsewhere are coping with
gluts, 2005 finds us
with a shortage of New
York State Riesling. Temperature
vagaries in the winters of 2003 and
2004 injured vinifera vines in the
Hudson Valley, Lake Erie, and Finger
Lakes regions. As a result, the last two
Riesling crops were low, especially in
the Finger Lakes, which produces some
of the world’s finest Rieslings. On the
positive side, low yield in the vineyard
usually means higher quality. What
does this mean to the consumer? If you
want Finger Lakes Riesling, buy it now!
The Supremes
Come taste our wines, share your thoughts and
help us write the next chapter in our history.
Tasting & Sales
Monday-Friday 12-5
Saturday 11-6
Sunday 11-5
Just five minutes south of Geneva
on the east shore of Seneca Lake
623 Lerch Road, Geneva, NY 14456
315-585-4432 or Fax 315-585-9881
www.nagyswines.com • info@nagyswines.com
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WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
Sales and tastings at Windmill
Farm & Craft Market, Penn Yan,
(Saturdays 8 am-4:30 pm),
and the
Syracuse Regional Market
(Saturdays 7am–2pm)
R. Mattucci
www.stoneagewinery.com
P.O. Box 305
Liverpool, NY 13088
(315) 457-6718
A
s we go to press, several
issues of great importance
to New York State’s wine
industry are in the hands of
the federal government. President
George W. Bush has submitted a proposed budget that cuts agricultural programs by nearly 10 percent, a deeper cut
than any other in his budget. Not only
are farm programs being slashed, but
the budget proposes to take back $1.5
million previously approved by
Congress for grape research, and it
eliminates funding for construction of
new research facilities at Cornell’s
Agricultural Experiment Station in
Geneva.
On a more hopeful note, because
New York State’s legislators (and those
of twenty-three other states) have been
unwilling or unable to turn the battle
over shipping into anything positive for
their small, family-owned wineries, a
suit to permit interstate shipping has
reached the U. S. Supreme Court. In
December justices heard arguments
from small wineries and consumers on
one side and from the solicitors general
of the states of New York and Michigan,
supported by powerful wholesale liquor
interests, on the other. The arguments
pitted restraint of trade issues against
the post-prohibition system granting
states the right to control liquor distribution.
While winery owners like John
Brahm ’64 of Canandaigua’s Arbor Hill
Vineyards and Peter Saltonstall ’75 of
King Ferry Winery/Treleaven on
Cayuga Lake have been vociferous in
their advocacy of allowing wineries to
ship, others have held their tongues,
fearing retribution from the wholesalers
upon whom they rely to get their products into wine shops and liquor stores.
In arguments to the court, the solicitors general, backed by the wholesalers
and joined by the National Association
of Evangelicals, Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle
Forum, and other conservative groups,
cited the threat of underage ordering
and states’ loss of tax revenue as reasons for maintaining the status quo.
Small wineries and consumers, supported by such lobbying groups as Free the
Grapes! and WineAmerica, countered
that the wholesalers simply fear loss of
monopoly control. By prohibiting interstate shipping, the states limit the market for small, family-owned wineries,
whose output is too small for the wholesalers to carry, thus preventing the
small wineries from participating in
free trade. Kathleen Sullivan ’76, former
dean of Stanford Law School, presented
the case for wineries and consumers
and did “an incredible job,” according to
Saltonstall. “Our guys did a good job,
and the justices went for the jugulars [of
the other side]. Justice Scalia asked
them, ‘Where’s your case? I don’t get
it.’ ” A ruling is expected in June.
WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
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WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
100% New York State
Wines
Grown, Vinified and Bottled in
the Chateau Tradition
New York’s Oldest Estate Winery,
Since 1961
Founded and Operated by
three generations of Cornellians
Fred Johnson ’01
Fredrick S. Johnson ’43
Fredrick S. Johnson, Jr. ’75
Elizabeth E. Johnson ’76
Anthony S. Johnson ’80
Tasting Room Open 10-6
Every Day, All Year
Johnson Estate Winery, LLC
PO Box 52, 8419 West Main Road
Westfield, NY 14787
Telephone: 1-800-DRINKNY
Visit and order from our website at
www.johnsonwinery.com
®
Seneca County
Finger Lakes Region
Cruise the Cayuga-Seneca canal.
Sip a perfectly aged wine along our wine
trails. Enjoy a unique shopping
experience. Visit the Women’s Rights
National Historical Park and Hall of Fame.
Seneca County Tourism
One DiPronio Drive, Waterloo, NY 13165
1-800-732-1848
www.visitsenecany.net
WINES OF NEW YORK STATE
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WINES OF NEW YORK STATE