Finding Your Wine Joy In The Finger Lakes Right Now!
Thank you Boundary Breaks for this incredible Seneca Lake view!
Wine joy!?!
Right Now?
That sounds great!
We are talking fun and delicious!
I just got back from a fantastic wine weekend in the Finger Lakes, and had to share! Hats off to my fellow wine fans that were such fun to be around! Meeting so many wonderful people was a great experience!
There are 11 major Finger Lakes, but really just 3 for wineries. We are talking Seneca, Keuka, and Cayuga.
That is more than enough by the way.
So many wineries, not enough time.
Yep! So much to talk about!
This past weekend was the Winter Warm Up and Wine 2025 on Seneca Lake! My wine drinking buddy (aka my husband) and I were there for it! WOO!
These were our tasting glasses for the event!
It really was funny seeing people getting out of cars at each winery carrying these glasses like a security blanket!
I stuffed them with black paper so that you could read the writing on them.
We bought a ticket and had 3 days to go to 13 chosen wineries for a tasting and a prepared food. The Seneca Lake Wine Trail has almost 30 wineries, but only 13 participated in this event. Very varied wine choices and “personalities” among the wineries. Choices!!!
There are also some additional wineries that are not part of the wine trail. Not sure why.
When travelling to any wine area, remember that the maps you pick up may not include all of the wineries. That was one of my mistakes when planning a trip to Paso Robles in California. Another mistake was planning to visit too many wineries. Learn from my mistakes, people!
One of the many reasons this event was so fantastic for us was that the 13 wineries were already chosen. I know that I would have totally over prepared and researched each winery I wanted to visit. I’ll save that for my next trip there.
There will definitely be a next trip!
By the way, if you are picturing this in winter and early spring, don’t.
Picture something sparser.
Maybe more like this.
Still fantastic water views and wine!
If you go in a warmer season, it may look like the first picture. Fun whenever you go!
Back to the weekend…
Well, if you only went to Seneca Lake, Why did you mention all of the Finger Lakes, you may ask.
Aha! Good question!
Keuka Lake is quite close to the west side of Seneca Lake. I couldn’t resist driving over to visit Keuka Springs Vineyards! Hold that thought. I’ll get back to describing how delicious their wines are.
Let’s talk Finger Lake wines in general:
There is something for every wine fan in the Finger Lakes. They do, however, have quite a bit of sweet wine. A lot of people like sweet wine. A lot!
Well, there is sweet, and there is WOW that is sweet! Many places will list the wine with the RS (residual sugar) percentage.
Spoiler alert: That really doesn’t tell the whole story. How sweet it will taste to you depends on a bunch of things. That’s why terms like dry, semi-dry, semi-sweet, and sweet are just guides. They are even on the backs of some of the bottles of wine.
Just like this!
One of them is dry, while the other is sweet. Follow the arrow!
If you want a deep dive into the soil and grape types grown in this area read this helpful guide. Although it was written years ago, I found it quite helpful for an overview. I’m trying not to go down a rabbit hole, so I’m not going to include all the information here.
The best way to find out about all of these wines is to taste!!
The more you know, the easier it is to find wines you may love!
Let’s get to the good stuff:
All of the wineries were fun to visit, and I will mention them all. I do want to give a huge shout out to those that we (wine drinking buddy and I that is) absolutely loved!
What wines we like and choose to buy are individual. Just saying. You do you!
Because you’ve been so patient since I first mentioned it, I will mention Keuka Springs Vineyards first. Because this was not part of the Seneca Lake group it was a very different experience.
We were able to try so many of their wines.
Dan Bissel is the head winemaker at Keuka Spring Vineyards.
Huge shout out to him for meeting with us and giving us a tour of the winery Even better, we loved almost every wine we tasted!
We also joined their wine club! That is commitment on my part. I do not do that lightly.
I even have a post about this: The top 10 questions to ask yourself before joining any wine club. You can click on this now, but I will provide it at the end, too. You’re welcome.
Value is extremely important to me. The wines at Keuka Spring punch way above their price point.
Oh, and we had originally met Dan at Cab Franc Forward. You would know about this if you were part of my email group of fantastic wine fans.
Now would be a good time to get on that list:
Back to Seneca Lake and the winter warm up:
We already know that the views from Boundary Breaks are beyond beautiful. Their wines are fantastic too! Win-win!
Each winery handled the event differently. At Boundary Breaks, as soon as they realized we preferred less sweet wines, they offered tastes of some of their many choices.
I greatly appreciate any winery that wants to educate you so that you can make the best choices for yourself!!
This chart was extremely helpful. Note the comment about “when you taste wine.” Balance is so important with wine!!
I have to admit that we joined this wine club, too. There were so many delicious wines we wanted to buy, joining the wine club made so much sense. Again, I do not make that choice lightly.
I am always thinking value. Boy, do their wines provide that!
Next up…
Lakewood Vineyards was not new to us. We had first tasted their wines years ago and loved them. We still love them.
Shout out to Chad who is a fantastic educator about all things wine. He really knows his stuff and is such fun to talk to.
When we mentioned Gewürztraminer wines that weren’t listed, Chad directed us to a different area so we could try them!
Lakewood has two different options for a wine club. One of these is a discount once you spend a certain amount. No commitment necessary. We were in!
Toast Winery was the first one we visited for the Winter Warm Up event.
They offered a great selection to choose from for the 3 wines we could taste.
We had a fantastic conversation with Jayne Gibbs who is the owner/general manager. She really knew her stuff and was a pleasure to talk to.
Toast Winery also has pickle and wine pairings on some weekends that you can check out.
A favorite winery for many wine fans was Three Brothers Wineries and Estates
They really have something for everyone.
There is a tasting room for sweet wines, one for hard ciders, and one for “passion wines” that range from semi-dry to sweet. The winery is known for their wine slushy.
Then there is the Stony Lonesome Wine Cellars tasting room for drier more classic wines.
They set up the tasting beautifully with a wide selection of wines. Shout out to “The Kims” who were so knowledgeable and helpful. Fun place!
For many of the wineries my husband and I chose different wines so we could try as many wines as possible. Sometimes we deliberately matched wines to compare to each other.
This is Fulkerson Winery and Farm
They too offered a wide selection to taste. We compared the Syrah and the Reserve Syrah as two of our choices. The Syrah won for me! Delicious!
Idol Ridge Winery was fun and relaxed.
Not a wide selection for the tasting but we did buy 2 bottles. At $8 each you really couldn’t go wrong. The sweet one we will use as a dessert wine. No downside!
Western personality at Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards.
Very different feel to this very popular winery.The wines weren’t our favorites, but taste is personal.
Here is the answer to the question: Which wine would you choose with your silver dollar banana chocolate chip pancakes?
They didn’t match it for you. You had to choose. I chose the Cayuga White. Not a bad choice, but I am not much of a breakfast wine drinker. You do you though! Relaxed and fun atmosphere. Pancakes were delicious!!!
The food offered at Tabora was chicken stew. The matched wine was a Baco Noir.
Only winery to have us sip the wine, then taste the food before sipping again. Wow! What a difference! Hat’s off to them for that!
By the way, Tabora has a deli/bakery/market connected to it. The small dishes offered at each winery were quite good. With all that wine tasting you need more food. We bought sandwiches and went back to the tasting room to eat them.
Hydrate and eat when you are tasting! Those little tastes add up!
Red Newt winery was educational for me in a lot of ways.
One young woman near me was so excited to have a wine described as tasting like white grape juice.
Also, the description “spicy tannins” was meaningless to most people.
Wagner was the only winery that didn’t offer a wine with their food item. I guess they didn’t get the memo, so to speak.
There is an affiliate restaurant on the property. Eat up! Those wine tastes need food!
A lot of choices at Glenora! Some people absolutely loved the sweet wine choices. The fruit series wines were really popular.
This was an incredibly fun event that reintroduced me to a winemaking area that I will keep revisiting!
GO!!
HAVE FUN!
Exactly!!
Cheers!
Related post:
The top 10 questions to ask yourself before joining any wine club
Click on the title or this conveniently located button:
I’m assuming you know that I am not paid for any of these opinions!! They are all mine!!
