Finger Lakes Riesling

Finger Lakes Riesling has to be reckoned with. After two hundred years of grape jelly made from Vitis labrusca and French hybrids grapes, the Finger Lakes is now making serious quality wine from vinifera varieties. It is not a surprise that Riesling, which thrives in cooler climates, finds the right conditions on America's East Coast. Ranging in style from bone dry to sweet and unctuous dessert wines made from botrytized grapes, it has gained more than just respect beyond the borders of New York.

Vineyards at Keuka Lake
Photo courtesy of Vinifera Wine Cellars

Vineyard area: 3,713 ha (9,174 acres)
Riesling area: 220 ha (543 acres) = 6%
Soils: Sandy silt loam and clay over calcareous and non-calcareous bedrock

When immigrants from Europe arrived in the Finger Lakes region in the early 19th century, they must have been pleased, at first, to see vines growing wild on the hills surrounding the lakes. The abundance of American native grape vines was ample proof that viticulture was possible in this climate, for making wine was one of the reasons why they had come here. They started cultivating both, the wild-growing native Vitis labrusca vines and the European Vitis vinifera, which they had brought with them from their homeland.

But things didn't exactly work out the way the newcomers had hoped. Most of their European vines didn't survive the harsh winters of the east coast. Those that did mysteriously died after a couple of years (the first victims of the phylloxera louse, which would start its devastating world tour a few decades later).

Map from 1808. Today's Keuka Lake
was then called 'Crooked L.'

Native varieties such as Concord or Catawba were hardy enough to withstand the cold New York winter months, but as robust as they were in the vineyard they soon turned out to be a problem in the winery. The wine made from the Vitis labrusca grapes had a weird 'foxy' taste to it - too weird for the European palate. The idea of exporting wine from the Finger Lakes to Europe had to be abandoned. For the next hundred years the Finger Lakes focused on the production of grape jelly and grape juice with the main businesses operating from the towns of Hammondsport, Penn Yan and Naples.

Hope springs eternal in the human breast

It was not until the 1950s that a second attempt of making quality wine was under way, this time with French hybrids (crossings of hardy American vine species with European vinifera vines, in the hope of non-foxy wines). They had originally been developed in France for their pest resistance and winter hardiness. Seyval Blanc has been the most promising of these new varieties. Other crossings introduced were the red varieties Chambourcin and Baco Noir.

Dr. Konstantin Frank

Most important for the future of the Finger Lakes wine region, however, was the arrival of an immigrant from Ukraine. Konstantin Frank found work at the Geneva Experiment Station of the Cornell University when he arrived in 1951. He spoke six languages fluently, albeit not English, and thus was assigned only minor field work tasks. Nobody knew or seemed to care, that Mr. Frank was actually a Dr. Frank, with a PhD in viticulture who held a professorial chair in plant science in Ukraine.

When Charles Fournier, a winemaker from Champagne in France, who at the time was also the president of Gold Seal Vineyards at Keuka Lake met Frank, they communicated in French. Fournier immediately realized that Dr. Konstantin Frank had a profound understanding of the climate and soils of the Finger Lakes region. He helped promote Frank's seemingly heretical opinion (after more than 200 years of failed attempts!) that European vinifera vines could be grown in this cold climate given that the right rootstocks are being used. In 1961 Frank was able to buy his own vineyard on a hill at Keuka Lake. He planted only vinifera vines and aptly named his farm Vinifera Wine Cellars. Dr. Konstantin Frank is the father of quality wine from the Finger Lakes.

A continental climate, tempered

What made Dr. Konstantin Frank choose the Finger Lakes? The climate is decidedly continental. Which means that it is marked by significant temperature variations between the winter and summer months (as opposed to the more mediterranean climate of California, where summer months are hot and dry and the winters are mild). In the midst of heated discussions about hangtime and physiological ripeness of the grapes one tends to forget that some of the most famous wine regions on this planet are so-called cool climate regions: Burgundy, Champagne, the Mosel. Average temperatures in January are below those in Mosel region of Germany. Almost too cold, were it not for the moderating effect of the lakes.

Air drainage

Influence of the lakes on the region's climate

Carved out by ice masses over millions of years, the deep canyons filled with water after the glaciers' withdrawal during the last Ice Age roughly ten thousand years ago and eventually became today's eleven lakes. Long and narrow they lie next to each other like fingers of a hand and thus gave the region its name.

Cayuga and Seneca are two of America's deepest lakes and as such have a significant impact on the microclimate. Without these large bodies of water viticulture would be near to impossible in this cold climate. Their influence on the vineyards is crucial at two points of the growing season.

Foremost in the fall, during the end of the growing season, when the grapes accumulate their sugars and flavor compounds. The lakes store the heat of the sun and create a so-called air drainage. As the warmer air above the water surface rises, it creates a gap which is filled with the heavier cold air, which thus drains off the vines. The influence of the lakes on the vines is of opposite effect in the spring. The lakes, still cold from the winter months, cool the vineyards as general temperatures rise in the vineyards. In cool climate wine regions, late spring frosts are a major hazard every year. They can kill the still tender buds and the vines won't produce any fruit. The cold lakes delay the budding of the vines and thus protect them from possible late spring frosts.

The soils around the lakes are quite varied, ranging from well-drained sandy loam to iron-oxidised red clay. The bedrock underneath can be calcareous or non-calcareous, thus having a significant influence on the acidity level of a particular vineyard.¹

Riesling the most popular vinifera grape

After initial suspicions other growers followed Frank's example and planted vinifera vines. Today there are close to 60 wineries in the Finger Lakes AVA (which encompasses the two smaller appellations Cayuga Lake AVA and Seneca Lake (AVA). Concord is still the most widely grown variety, accounting for 26% of the total 9174 acres (3713 ha) of vines.² Riesling is fifth on the list, the first vinifera, trailing Concord, Niagara, Catawba and Aurora (in that order). With 543 acres (220 ha) its share is a modest 6% of the total Finger Lakes wine acreage, but according to a survey of the United States Department of Agriculture from 2006 Riesling is also the fastest growing grape variety in the Finger Lakes whereas Concord is significantly losing ground.³

With most wineries being very young (there were only 5 in the Finger Lakes by the end of the 1970s)⁴, the process of matching vineyards with the right grape variety is still ongoing. Growers evidently have had excellent results so far with Riesling⁵. But Chardonnay (in particular for méthode champenoise sparkling wine), Cabernet Franc and Merlot can also reach levels of very good quality. Pinot Noir still seems to be a hit or miss, though.

Wine styles

German Expressionist style:
the Hermann J. Wiemer winery

At almost every winery you can find a dry and a semi-dry version of their Riesling. Occasionally a Riesling-based sparkling is offered. And in a cold climate like this icewine is a possibility in most years. Hermann J. Wiemer, who immigrated to the US from the Mosel region in 1968, also makes late harvest and dessert wines in the German tradition. For his 2006 Bunch Select Late Harvest Riesling (which is Wiemer's term for the German Trockenbeerenauslese style) all of the grapes were botrytized. The fungus botrytis cinerea finds perfect conditions near the lakes, where the mornings are often foggy and the grapes can dry in the afternoon sun. The result are intensely sweet and aromatic wines (with 130 g/l of residual sugar), which can be aged for 20 years or more.

Sometimes a producer may add the word "Reserve" to a bottling made from the best parts of a vineyard. But the vineyard names themselves are not mentioned on labels. The best sites still need to be studied and identified. However, some growers are thinking of releasing single vineyard bottlings in the near future and label them as such.

And don't expect that all Finger Lakes Riesling is made from young vines. Dr. Konstantin Frank planted his first vines in the 1960s, Wiemer in 1973 and at Lamoreaux Landing some of the Riesling vines are also over 30 years old. It would be interesting to see separate bottlings from these old vines. If the Finger Lakes want to compete with the world's best Rieslings some flagship wines are needed. The whole region would benefit from them.

But even without mentioning single vineyard names on the label, the best of the Finger Lakes Riesling can already compete with wines from the Old World. Hermann J. Wiemer and Dr. Konstantin Frank are still the finest producers who are able to make fine wines in the both dry and off-dry styles. Other estates close ranks with Rieslings that have both a lively acidity and juicy fruit profiles, all well balanced with alcohol levels around 12%. These are not cheap mass-produced wines. These are serious Rieslings.

Click here for tasting notes

Literature

"Greetings from the Finger Lakes" by Michael Turback. A wonderful little book that can make your trip to the Finger Lakes much more rewarding as he features wineries as well as restaurants with good wine lists.

Read part 2 of this article

¹ Soil Acidity in Vineyards of the Finger Lakes of New York, Benjamin Linhoff, Boise State University 2005 ² New York Fruit Tree and Vineyard Survey 2006, Natural Agricultural Statistics Service
³ ibid
⁴ 2004 Winery Report, Natural Agricultural Statistics Service
⁵ It should be noted that because the name "Riesling" has been used in the US for all kinds of cheap white wines, which had little to do with the Riesling grape, wineries in the Finger Lakes often label the true Riesling as "White Riesling" or "Johannisberg Riesling", in order to differentiate it from the bulk-produced unworthy imitations.