Fingerlakes Fun (Oct. 8-10)

Riiiight… so I wrote this all up literally the day we got back. That was what… a month ago? Then I never finished downloading all of the pictures and putting the post together to share…. Better late than never I guess, right?

Well we had a wonderful trip… I can’t say enough good things about the area, really. Good food, good wine, perfect fall weather…. I’ll just start at the beginning…I have to warn you – this is very long and boring but I wanted to write out my impressions of the wineries for future reference for myself… you can totally just skip all the words and look at the pretty fall pictures if you want. I won’t be insulted!

We left on Sunday and checked into the B’nB at around 3:30ish leaving us just enough time to hit up a few wineries before they closed...

Keuka Spring:

This winery had a hell of a view. I can’t really give a good honest opinion of their wine b/c when we were there I was just so excited to actually be at a wine tasting that my judgement may have been a tad clouded. We did really, really like their syval blanc though. Nice and dry and crisp.

McGregor Winery:

This winery is also on the Eastern side of Keuka but they are set back a little further from the lake. The tasting room was set up so that you sat down and were served each type of wine. Much more relaxed than standing at a counter which was nice. We loved their 2002 Pinot – and it was really cool to get to taste it next to their 2004 Pinot. I’m not sure if it was the growing season or the age of the wine but the ’02 was way, way better.

The next day it was all about the wine… we spent the whole day on the Eastern side of Seneca lake....

Fox Run Vineyards:

Yeah… we liked their semi-dry Reisling the best even though we usually like the dryer ones…. Matt liked their blush wine but I didn’t. I’m not really a blush wine kindof gal, though.

Seneca Shore:

This place had a ton of wines to try. We really liked their Gewürztraminer … and they had a couple of different ones to taste. However, we ended up buying the Traminette because it has a cool story – It essentially was a gewurzt grape that the people at Cornell messed with so that it would be hardier in this region. I thought that was cool. It tasted similar to the Gewürztraminer (spicy) but with a different finish. Yes I actually know what that means now!

Anthony Road:


This place had the really cool feature of a garden overlooking the lake. We got to try several different varieties of the grapes straight off the vine! Their wines were kindof eh though. We liked all of them but didn’t flip over any of them.

Prejean:

This place was weird b/c all of their wines tasted spicy to us. That worked out really, really well for some varieties and not so much for others. I loved their Cab Sauvignon and Matt loved their Chardonnay (the oak barrel one, not the steel barrel one).

Miles Wine Cellers:
This place was really cool. Literally right on the lake… check out the view...

And the people there were super-friendly and nice. I actually really liked their Cab Franc and I usually don’t love those…. But picturing it with a steak dinner.. mmmmmm. We also liked their Wisteria blush – again I don’t usually like blush wines but this one was by far the best we tasted. It didn’t leave that super-fruity taste in my mouth at all. I could picture it being real good on a 100 degree day in the middle of July.

From there we were a little tasted out so we just asked the ladies at Miles where we should go next. They recommended several places to get some variety into our trip. We ended up going down to Glenora to see what a more commercial Finger Lakes winery was like. It was a zoo. Tour busses and all. Exactly what we expected. So all we tasted was their Raspberry Spumante b/c that sounded fun. It was fun. That’s about all I got on that. We did eat lunch at their restaurant outside with this view:

Beautiful. Oh and yes that is Adamas I'm wearing.

From their we skipped down to Lakewood Winery mainly because of the name…

This place was ok… we liked their standard wines b/c we figure anyone would like them. We actually drank the red we bought here on Halloween – goodstuff…. Also we tried a port here and it was pretty phenomenal.

From there we were done with the wine. I can’t believe it but we were. So we went hiking in the Watkins Glen Canyon. Here’s some pics:





Very cool.

Then it was back to the B’nB for a nap before a fancy schmancy dinner at the Esperenza Mansion. Worst picture ever of us taken at dinner:

Seriously. We’re not that unattractive usually.

The next day we were exhausted and had to drive home. So we took it easy and drove to Keuka State Park and hung out there for awhile. That place has some beautiful views:


And the Keuka Lake water is so clear!


From there we decided that we were only going to go to one more winery before headed home….
Dr. Konstantin Frank’s Vinifera Wine Cellars:

This place was probably my fav. It’s located really high up just south of the fork in Keuka Lake which made for some more spectacular views.

I liked that they were commercial without being a frickin’ tourist trap… and their wines seemed very well thought out (if that makes any sense). Anyways we went nuts over their reserve Reisling. Best Reisling we tasted all trip by far. Unfortunately that was a tad out of our budget so we settled on their Salmon Run Dry Reisling to take home with us. Not a bad compromise. We also liked their pinot (and their fleur de pinot – both were good) and really enjoyed trying their different varieties of champagne back to back.

After that we lost all will power and stopped at just one more winery…

Heron Hill:


This one we thought was closest in feel to a California winery – probably because of the fancy tasting room and swanky architecture. I really wanted to love either their eclipse red or their eclipse white because the bottles are so cool… unfortunately they were just ok. Their Late Harvest Vidal Blanc dessert wine, however was fantabulous.

Here’s some more pretty pictures from atop Keuka lake:




It was a great trip.

Whew that was a loooooooong frickin' post!