Gimme one Rieslin’ to stay here: Wining down the trail on Cayuga Lake, Part One
PUFFY, COTTON CANDY clouds stretch out overhead. My Driver smiles through his sunglasses as we fly down the highway. “I wish things were ‘just the way it is’ less often,” he cracks, and we share a laugh. Welcome to the party.
We’re driving out Route 79 towards Ithaca. Cayuga Lake is the destination for my wine tour, for eminently practical reasons: 1. It’s the closest of the Finger Lakes wine trails to me, 2. I’m going to a Driftwood show at the Ransom Steele Tavern this evening, and it leaves Route 96 and Apalachin for the way home, and 3. My obsessive desire to make as many circles in my life as possible.
If you didn’t know, there is a freshwater spring on the way to Ithaca on Route 79, just past Lisle. I had planned on bringing my water bottle, both to fill with the majestically sweet water of the spring, and because drinking a bunch of water on a wine tour on a hot day is a great idea. I forgot the bottle. You should NOT forget your water bottle.
On to the wineries, but with no plan. I’d done research, but I’ll be franc - I’m not a true blue wine connoisseur. I enjoy wine; I’ve been drinking wine for ten years. My aunt, who could border on something of a connoisseur, taught me about ‘good’ wine, and years of cheap wine in college taught me about ‘bad’ wine.
So I can tell you about the wine, but you’re going to have to experience it yourself. That’s the point, the whiff, the rancor, the reason! Be bourgeois, if only for a day. Join the dog lovers who run around with Pomeranians and golden retrievers! Spit the wine out in the jar, at least once, for dramatic effect. Flirt with wine pourers, who are inevitably going to France, or Jamaica, or South Africa, to work with the impoverished or learn about grapes. But most of all, really take in the art of making a fine wine in one of the most beautiful places on earth.
(Quick background: We’re going to be discussing one of three wine trails in the Finger Lakes region: the Cayuga Lake wine trail. The Cayuga wine trail is the oldest organized wine trail in the nation. Out of the three, Seneca Lake’s is the largest with 35 wineries, Cayuga sits in the middle with 16, and the Keuka Lake wine trail is the smallest, with eight. The wineries on Cayuga’s trail sit all around the lake, and have won national and international awards, as well as Winery of the Year three times consecutively at the New York Food & Wine Classic. So the wineries we’ll be visiting are experienced and lovely.)
Now that the scene is set, imagine you’re in the car with me - really feel it - the wind blowing across your face, the smoke pouring out of the windows, My Driver and I discussing performance art on Election Night: yes, imagine how you feel, as we pull into the parking lot of Six Mile Creek Vineyards, just before Ithaca.
“Beauty will be here in just a second,” I gasp to My Driver between drags on a Turkish Royal. “That’s fine with me,” he responds, closing the car door as Beauty pulls into the lot. She’s ecstatic, though confused by the parking lot. She ends up parking below us. As I wait for her to scale the hill, I look out over the gorge-ous back acres of the vineyard. They stretch out beyond sight from the parking lot, but from the veranda you can see that the grapes go on for hundreds of yards, and that there is an event space (for weddings, probably).
Six Mile Creek’s tasting room is stunning, done in a traditional fashion, with exposed wooden beams. Aside from an impressive collection of wines to taste, they also produce house-made grape vodka-based liquors and liqueurs. Beauty, feeling adventurous, opts for two spirit tastings, while I order both a wine and spirit tasting.
We find ourselves under the care of a gregarious Cornell student, who, at the ripe old age of 23, is starting to feel the ennui of life. We take care to show her that even at the wizened age of 25, you can still have a little fun. She informs us the vineyard now produces 10,000 gallons of wine, expanded from the first run of 250 gallons. The cabernet franc is the standout to me. It hits your mouth with a lighter flavor than many francs, but the finish is peppery, making it pop against others I’ve digested. It’s delicious. Their bellismo wine is their ringer, tasting like rose-colored memories of white grape juice when I was a little kid.
Beauty is housing the spirits. As I finish my wine, I mentally prepare for my short spirit tasting by yelling, “Who’s a good puppy? You’re so cute!” repeatedly at the house Pomeranian, Moose. In my defense, he really was a good puppy, and so freaking cute that Beauty chased him around the tasting room for nearly ten minutes.
The grappa is a hell of a drink. It’s for the brave. The Cornell student tells me that when she once came in with a sore throat, a senior employee prescribed a drop of grappa, which brought her voice back to life. I interrupt her to ask for a glass of water, because my delicate stomach is not attenuated to the unique flavor, and it’s far too early to vomit. I finish off trying the amore, and am in love with its hazelnut flavor, decidedly perfect for a delicious Irish coffee. I ‘accidentally’ finish off Beauty’s too.
Meanwhile, My Driver has discovered a map of the wine region. I quickly look, and deduce that our next stop will be Americana wineries. It’s just after Trumansburg, and with a cafe, will satisfy both my thirst and My Driver’s grumbling stomach. Beauty says she’ll meet us there, so we hop in, find Route 96, and start making our way towards Americana Vineyards.
It is here, at Americana, that I learn two important things about wineries. The first is that for some reason, there will be dogs at them. Perhaps they belong to the owner of the place; perhaps they’re brought by a drunk (I mean wine taster). But, if you build a winery, there will be dogs. The second is that there is a high probability that, as well as a vineyard, you’ve built a wedding space. Weddings and dogs: that’s what wineries are made of.
I thoroughly enjoy a well-rounded Riesling, which I’m informed has undertones of mangoes and grapefruit. While my palate isn’t quite so refined to be able to identity the slightly fruity taste that hits my tongue, I take the tasting guide’s word for it. After all, she is going to Trinidad after the summer is over, and what am I doing? You win some, and you wine some.
Beauty is hung up on the reds, and I can’t blame her. They are excellent. I require something sweeter to satiate myself, however. I decide to try the “Crystal Lake” wine. Wine-not? It tastes like a magician managed to bottle the taste of a white grape; not the wine kind of white grape but the kind you putout with cheese and crackers when you feel fancy, while somehow also making the drink 11% alcohol. A bottle of it seems dangerous. I mean delicious. This is when the Trinidad guide informs us about wine slushies. They sound good to me, and Beauty picks up on the fact that they have them in-house, so I follow her lead and order one.
It’s while we’re sitting on the front porch discussing the intricacies of love, hope, heartbreak, and recovery that one of the most surreal things I’ve ever experienced happens. Beauty has given up on her slushie, and hands it off to me. As I sit double fisting wine slushies, the golden retrievers across the way start barking, and the air is filled with the chuka-chuka-chuka of helicopter blades. I turn to my left just in time to see a helicopter descending into the field by Americana’s barn-style tasting room. Some bastard flew his helicopter to the vineyard. God save us all.
Watching this, I decide it’s time to move on to the next winery. Beauty’s beat; she decides to stay behind, catch some sun, eat some food, and sober up before returning. I give her a hug and tell her that someday I’ll be a pirate. Or I think I say that, but she kinda looks at me funny and tells me to be careful, so I nod, hop in the passenger’s seat, and scream, “Onward to Bellwether!”
My Driver complies, and we take off down the lakeside road. I can’t emphasize enough how stunningly beautiful this drive is. Bellwether Cider is just around the corner from Americana. My Driver parked slightly awkwardly, “trying to get in the shade.” I, being a little tipsy, let him have it, but insist upon smoking a cigarette before entering.
I decide to go for both a cider tasting and a wine tasting, as the wine was all Riesling. Riesling is my favorite wine in the whole world, and Bellwether’s Rieslings are fine examples: smooth and fruity, with a bodacious back end that leaves you craving more.
The name Bellwether, I’m told by the lovely tasting guide, comes from the name for the sheep that leads the flock; a bell is placed around its neck, so that shepherds could tell when their sheep were on the move. Much like that first sheep, Bellwether was the first cidery on the Cayuga wine trail, joining in 2003. The best of the cider is Black Magic. It’s made from their original cider and housemade blackcurrant syrup. Blackcurrants had been outlawed in New York for years, but with the development of disease resistant varieties, they have been reintroduced. I’m happy about this, because something about the Black Magic makes me believe that love may yet exist in the world.
Finishing off the last of the ciders, I tell My Driver to hurry, as it’s 5 o’clock and the wineries will be closing within the hour. We jump in the car, only to have him stop and take 15 minutes to eat a burger from a roadside shack.
We’re off to Lucas Vineyards, a short ten-minute drive from Bellwether. There’s no Riesling to miss a winery; we’ll make it to them all. Or at least five. Once again, we have to “park in the shade”, which I’m starting to come over to with my increasing BAC. More than slightly drunk, I stumble to my stool and tell the gorgeous tasting guide to make all of my decisions for me. She complies.
My favorite of all of the wines at Lucas is the gewürztraminer. Like a fine Riesling, the gewürztraminer is an ice wine. Ice wines are harvested after the first frost, so that the grapes are literally frozen (the freezing expunges some of the sweetness from the grape). Ice wines are typically found in Germany, which echoes our Upstate temperament. I tend to believe that if you are a Finger Lakes winery and you can’t produce a good German wine, you probably aren’t a very good vintner.
On the fun side, Lucas produces a line of wines called “Miss Nautie.” They’re sweet and fruity, which is reflected in the art on the bottle. Lucas is a family-owned winery, and they’ve depicted their three daughters as pin-up art on the sides of the bottle. It looks really cool and old-fashioned and totally reminds me of something that was vaguely pornographic in the 1950s. Sitting at the bar in the suburban-esque tasting room, thinking about a family business and pin-up girls, my wine-addled mind feels a little funny. It’s 5:30 though, so it’s time to hit our final winery. My Driver steadies me, and we rush to the Thirsty Owl Wine Company.
…Which closed at 5:30. We jump back in the car, and I see a sign for Hosmer Vineyards. We pull in, and jump out of the car. Two ladies are sitting in front of the tasting room. “We’re closed”, she says, “We close at 5:30 every day.”
“Is there anyway he can still do a tasting?” queries My Driver, “He’s a writer. He’s been tasting wine all day. I’m the driver.” I grunt in agreement.
To my surprise, she says yes, and I take a seat at the bar, and learn all about the wonderful place that is the Hosmer Winery. A family vineyard, the matriarch Maren takes great pride in their wine, and with good reason. It’s the best I have had all day. I’m reasonably sure of that, despite it being the last winery. My palate, at this point, is refined. The dry rose is a standout, made from cabernet franc grapes, but much milder and in a real way drier than the first at Six Mile Creek. Maren tells me her son Ian is practically the Johnny Appleseed of grapes, planting up and down the eastern United States, from Tennessee to Vermont.
The Vinters Reserve Riesling is delightfully dry, with hints of grapefruit and lime that play on your tongue to the edge of ecstasy. That’s what I was thinking at the time. I’m a pretty cute boy, and it’s that feeling when an older man or woman gives me a playful wink. Like you know they don’t mean anything more than you’re a good looking person, and you just do the “Oh, stop.” I don’t know if that’s a taste or not, but it sure seems like one. Swirl it around your mouth a little bit.
My Driver and I end up getting really engaged in a conversation about how to increase the positivity in the region. I think we should all go on wine tour every weekend. Who’s driving?
What a weekend it was! I spent all of my money, and had one of the best times of my life. To plan your own trip, with maps and information about the Cayuga Lake wine trail, visit cayugawinetrail.com. If you’d like to take a trip on the cheap, gather a group and consider any of the numerous transportation options available on the wine trail’s website. Each of the wineries listed also has a website, which I’ll be visiting after my wallet recovers to get some delicious wine. Delectable, delightful wine. Stay tuned for part two.
