While Gloria and I were visiting hmm, fourteen Finger Lake, Canadian, and one other New York state winery in September, I decided it would be interesting to provide our experiences, much like we do for our Texas winery visits. Not only would it give hopefully an interesting perspective to non-Texas wineries that might provide encouragement for people to visit, but it could give an intriguing comparison between Texas and non-Texas wineries.
Before our visit to my home state of New York, I discovered one thing about the Finger Lakes. There are a LOT of wineries!! Unfortunately we only had a day and a half of visiting wineries in the Finger Lakes so I had to get suggestions from people who have visited before and other experts in the area. Following are the people who helped me provide a travel itinerary for our visit and I would like to thank them very much and encourage you to follow them on social media:
- Lenn Thompson – New York Cork Report. Lenn is the publisher and executive editor of the website and provided valuable feedback. You can also find him on Twitter at @lennthompson
- Debbie Gioquindo of Hudson Valley Wine Goddess had some suggestions. You can follow her on Twitter at @hvwinegoddess
- Amy Gross of VineSleuth Uncorked offered some suggestions. You can follow her on Twitter at @vinesleuth
- Alissa Leenher of SAHMmelier has visited the Finger Lakes. You can follow her on Twitter at @sahmmelier
Our winery itinerary was complete and we were ready for the trip. The Finger Lakes is west of where I grew up and since I moved out of state before I discovered wine, this was going to be a new experience for me too so we were both excited.
You can read an overview of the Finger Lakes and our trip here. We heard visiting Finger Lake wineries on the weekend is similar to visiting Texas wineries in the Hill Country where you are among many other wine lovers and tour groups. Our schedule put us at the wineries during the week and most wineries are open during the week too like in the Hill Country. This also meant there were going to be less people visiting in the wineries when we visited.
And now it’s time for our mini-series of Finger Lake and Canadian wineries!
Looking forward to the mini-series Jeff. I also grew up in NY (Rochester area) and spent a lot of time camping, hiking, and picnicking in the Finger Lakes area. Mostly around Seneca Lake. Like you I knew nothing about wine at the time. I’ll surely use your posts as a guide of where to visit when I make my next trip “home.”
Jim, I hope I can offer some insights to the wineries to better help make your decisions.