The empire state strikes back: as states stand on the cusp of relaxing interstate shipping restrictions and ground breaks on an ambitious wine and food center in New York State, serious Finger Lakes winemakers prepare to transcend their sweet reputation.

The Finger Lakes Region, encompassing eleven glacial lakes in northern New York State, has been a wine-producing area since the early 1800's, when a minister in the town of Hammondsport began to make his own sacramental wine. The name comes from the Iroquois Nation tribes who once populated the region's rolling hills, and who saw in the pattern of the lakes the handprint of the Great Spirit. Although the area is noted for long and particularly cold winters, the three deepest lakes (Keuka, Seneca and Cayuga) and the steep hillsides that surround them provide excellent insulation against subzero temperatures and frequent fall and spring frosts.

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Before Dr. Konstantin Frank successfully introduced vinifera grapes to the area, it had been home to only native varieties and French-American hybrids prized for their winter hardiness and phylloxera resistance. Frank, who earned a doctorate in plant pathology and propagation in his native Ukraine, arrived in the region in 1951 with a driving desire to prove its suitability for vinifera cultivation. Initially hindered by his lack of English, Frank secured a job as a janitor at the Cornell University Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, NY, and soon sought a word with Charles Fournier, who had come from the house of Veuve Clicquot to consult for sparkling wine producer Gold Seal. The late Dr. Frank's son Willy, who now runs his father's eponymous label with his own son Fred, says that his father approached Fournier and, in perfect French, began a conversation about the noble European grapes that led instantly to a consulting job for Frank, and what his son now refers to as "the vinifera revolution in New York State." He established Dr. Konstantin Frank Vinifera Vineyards on Keuka Lake in 1962, the same year that he bottled his first Riesling. So opposed was Frank to native varieties that, in his later years, he would show off his collection of deformed chicken embryos to tasting room visitors, claiming they'd been miscarried by hens who'd been fed "toxic" wine made from native grapes.

Frank was virtually alone with his noble European grapes until Hermann J. Wiemer established his nursery and vineyard on adjacent Seneca Lake, in 1973. A German native whose family had been making wines in the Mosel Valley for 300 years, Wiemer first arrived in the States in 1968, and spent a handful of years working for Walter Taylor. Taylor was the proprietor of Bully Hill, whose outrageous antics got him ousted from his family's winery, and whom Wine Spectator called "... an ardent anti-vinifera propagandist." Unceremoniously fired by Taylor one Christmas Day in the early 1970's, for reasons that have never been determined, Wiemer eventually bought a 140-acre soybean farm and planted it with Chardonnay, Gewurztraminer and, as insurance, the native Seyval Blanc, which he later replaced with Johannisberg Riesling.

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Frank and Wiemer worked for a time in quiet counterpoint to New York State's four dominant labels--Gold Seal, Great Western, Taylor and Widmer--whose sweet and often foxy blends made up the vast majority of the area's output. In the mid 1970's, Seagram's purchased Taylor and promptly moved it to California. Farmers, scrambling for a new market for their grapes, invested in equipment and lobbied successfully for producer-friendly state laws, actions that eventually gave rise to the area's small-scale wine industry. Playing to the preference of the local market, these farmers-turned-wine-makers continued to produce the native blends that had come to largely define the taste of the region, ensuring minimal interest outside northern New York State. Eventually, the nascent winemakers began to take their cues from Frank and Wiemer, hedging their bets on Riesling, the grape that, among the viniferas, had proven the most successful and winter-hardy in the area.

"Historically, people thought of Finger Lakes wines as being sweet," says Susan Wine, co-owner (with Robert Ransom) of Vintage New York[TM], a Manhattan-based retail store that traffics exclusively in wines from the Empire State. "They didn't know what made them that way, but they associated it with native flavors, and to a large extent they confused the Rieslings with the [native blends]." Eric Russo, general manager of Six Mile Creek Vineyard in Ithaca, agrees, saying, "Fifteen years ago, everyone just assumed Riesling was sweet, but now everyone produces a dry Riesling in the Finger Lakes. A lot of people who don't know about it are really surprised at how it tastes." Oddly, for all the attention and praise being deservedly lavished on the area's Rieslings, Wine says, "... there's not much Riesling being produced. There are not that many total acres planted to Riesling, and there's not enough wine to meet the demand--but people are slowly getting the picture. I think [they're] startlingly good and qualify in the world class. That's true of the bone-dry Rieslings, it's true of the off-dry Rieslings and it's true of the late-harvest Rieslings. And, I think that, to the extent that it's feasible, the Gewurztraminers can be spectacular as well." Although his vineyard is planted with a small amount of the grape, Willy Frank admits to being wary of Gewurztraminer, explaining, "It's a little bit too tender for the winters here. Some people lament the fact that we don't grow enough of it, and it is a fantastic little wine, but it's just that--little. Plus, the wild turkeys love it, and do a number on it. Between the turkeys and the cold, I lose a crop every second or third year."

As for the area's reds, whose grape production is somewhat limited by the cool climate and brutal winter temperatures, the last few years have seen marked improvement in their quality, thanks in part to research conducted at the Agricultural Experiment Station that first employed Dr. Frank. Perhaps because of its growing consumer appeal, the Station has undertaken a particularly focused effort with Pinot Noir, one of the few vinifera reds that has shown relatively consistent promise in the region. Russo notes that Pinot is not without its problems, saying, "The big negative for Pinot around here is the humidity, because of its tight fruit cluster. You really need a loose bunch to avoid mold and rot. At the Station, they're working on developing a Pinot with a looser bunch that's still cold-resistant." Wine writer Jay McInerney marveled over the region's offerings following a 2003 visit with Willy Frank, saying in a House & Garden article that "... what astonished me was the quality of the Pinot Noirs ... I'm going to go out on a limb and say that this region could have a great future with this most temperamental, sublime--and lately fashionable--red grape." Hosmer Winery, on the western shore of Cayuga Lake, has won gold medals from the Tasters Guild International Wine Competition for its Cabernet Franc and its Estate Red, a blend of Cabernet Franc and DeChaunac, a native grape.

Constellation Brands, in conjunction with the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, Rochester Institute of Technology and Wegmans Food Markets chain, has recently announced plans to open a New York State wine, culinary and agriculture center on the shore of Canandaigua Lake, in spring 2006. Modeled partially on Napa Valley's Copia, the center will be a "gateway to the wine and agricultural offerings of New York State," according to Barbara Pierce, the center's spokesperson. While wines will be available for retail sale, the planners do not expect the center to detract from the tourism that sustains individual wineries in the Finger Lakes Region, as only a limited selection from any given producer will be offered. "It's not our intention to be a retail outlet for wine," says Pierce. "We just want to get people started, show them what New York State has to offer and give them the information they need to get out into the state and experience it themselves." The planners hope to attract out-of-state visitors with culinary courses, wine pairing seminars and an exhibit hall, a goal that dovetails nicely with the pending state legislation surrounding interstate shipping.

In May 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that individual states' refusal to accept wine shipments from other states is unconstitutional, and called on states to life interstate shipping bans. At press time, New York winemakers were lobbying for the passage of the Winner/Farrell Bill, which would free state wineries to ship to all 50 states. In a press release from the New York Farm Bureau, Pete Saltonstall of King Ferry Winery, producers of the Treleaven brand, predicts that his business will increase by 20 percent, adding, "At least a third of the visitors to our winery are from out-of-state. For 15 years I have been forced to turn down follow-up business from those customers simply because they live in another state." Wine, who also co-owns Rivendell Winery, in the Hudson Valley, with partner Ransom, is cautiously optimistic about the lift of the ban, saying, "It will be opened up no matter what, but the distributors are the ones that have kept it from happening in the first place, and they have yet to unleash their shock and awe campaign against it. Even though we represent a tiny fraction, they don't want us to have any share of the market. They're pigs."

Distribution has historically been one of the biggest obstacles to Finger Lakes wines' emergence in the national market, although Eric Russo of Six Mile Creek thinks that outdated ideas, perpetuated even by those who should know better, have also held the region's wines back. Russo was enjoying dinner at an Ithaca restaurant when he overheard a gentleman at the next table asking the waiter to recommend a good local wine. The waiter flippantly replied, "There are no good wines from this region," and went on to suggest a California Chardonnay. "I couldn't believe this, in our own backyard," says Russo. "You go to Texas, and Texas wines head up the list. You go to Virginia, and Virginia wines head up the list. Here, in New York, a lot of people still believe that all Finger Lakes wines are sweet, white, and not very good, and that's just not the case."