Home or Something Like It

       We just returned from a 3 day tour of the Finger Lakes wineries on Lakes Cayuga and Seneca.  It was a great opportunity to get away and learn about what is happening in other vineyards and wineries.  Wwe we're able to talk to tasting room employees, winemakers, owners and vineyard managers while sampling their wines and comparing our practices to theirs.  It was quite an enlightening experience.  One of the highlights of the trip was returning a bottle of our 2010 Cabernet Franc to the place of its roots quite literally.  In 2007 I contacted them about grafting their clone of Cabernet Franc to a rootstock that would work well in our area.  The resulting 800 vines were the basis of our first planting in our vineyard.  We harvested our first real crop in 2010 and then put it into French Oak for 8 months and aged it for two years.  The resulting wine is our first 100% estate grown Cab. Franc.  It was great talking to the nursery manager and seeing the surprise on her face when she realized why we were visiting.  

  Our other visits were to several outstanding wineries a cheese maker and a Port Wine store.  The Port of New York in Ithaca was one of the most enlightening of our visits as owner Fredrick explained to us the 5 year process which he uses to make his amazing quality port.  I hope to get back to visit Fredrick again to let him try our Cassel Vineyards Chocolate Port.  That will be another story!