Evan Dawson - Summer in a Glass: The Coming of Age of Winemaking in the Finger Lakes

Summer
in a
Glass

THE COMING OF AGE OF WINEMAKING
IN THE FINGER LAKES

by Evan Dawson
Foreword by James Molesworth

STERLING and the distinctive Sterling logo are registered trademarks of
Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Available

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

Published by Sterling Publishing Co., Inc.
387 Park Avenue South, New York, NY 10016
2011 by Evan Dawson
Endpaper map by Joanna Purdy
Chapter opening photos by Morgan Dawson Photography/
www.morgandawson.com

All rights reserved

Sterling ISBN 13: 978-1-4027-8962-5

For information about custom editions, special sales, premium and
corporate purchases, please contact Sterling Special Sales
Department at 800-805-5489 or specialsales@sterlingpublishing.com.

For Sgt. Hall
Thanks for changing my life and setting
me on a path to the Finger Lakes.

Contents

by James Molesworth

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W INE WRITING CAN BE EASY. MANY WHO CALL THEMSELVES wine writers are often offered press junkets to travel to well-known regions, during which time they easily coast along while penning positive prose. This, however, tends to do little to truly enlighten the reader about what is really happening on the ground or behind the scenes.

The hard work is when a writer takes his or her own time, fueled by a unique passion for a less-heralded region, to delve deep into the subject matter before presenting the reader with a story. And its when that story successfully conveys the everyday drama and struggle that goes into growing grapes and getting a wine into the bottle that someone can really be called a wine writer. Its an important distinction to be made, because the typical consumer doesnt see or even think of all that is entailed in getting grapes turned into wine when they grab a bottle off their retailers shelf. Its up to the wine writers to convey this story and only a few do it well.

Here, Evan Dawson gives you the back story of an emerging, still unheralded regionthe Finger Lakes of upstate New York. Born of a volume-first, quality-second (if at all) industry that crashed and burned a generation ago, the Finger Lakes today is trying to retool itself so that it can compete on the world stage. A handful of winemakers are trying to change the regions image by changing the way they work, right down to changing the very grapes they grow. And theyre doing all of this without the major outside investments that powered the growth and development of big-name wine regions like Napa Valley and Bordeaux.

But while the Finger Lakes wine industry is still a cottage industry, located in a cold and remote corner of New York State, it doesnt lack for warm and passionate people. From Sam Argetsinger, an Iroquois-speaking former lumberjack who was drawn out of the forest by the duty to keep his familys vineyard going, to transplanted European winemakers Morten Hallgren and Johannes Reinhardt, who were lured by the areas frontierlike feel, which offered an escape from the stifling rules of tradition, from the multigenerational history of the renowned Dr. Konstantin Frank winery to the tale of the young startup winery Heart & Hands of Tom and Susan Higgins, Dawson tells stories that will have you wondering, Will they make it? right through to the end.

Yes, Dawson prefers to tell the back storydetailing winemaker passions and back-room dramas that are as much a part of making the wine as the grapes themselves. But he tells these stories in a way that seasoned wine geeks and novices alike will appreciate. Its not too technical, with just the right amount of explanation when needed, while always staying focused on the personas rather than just the numbers. Its a sneak peek into a history that is being written right now by a cast of characters driven to put the Finger Lakes on everyones wine map.

James Molesworth

T HERE IS NO PRETENTIOUSNESS IN THE DIRT UNDER A WINE-MAKERS fingernails. Some people like to argue that wine is inherently pretentious, but that misses the point entirely. Wines image suffersparticularly in the United Statesfrom the stigma of pretense that emanates not from a glass of Merlot but from the braggart who announces that he keeps a case of 82 Petrus in his cellarjust so you know. But wine is not a trophy; it is an agricultural product.

I was finding all of this out on a day when I made the terrible mistake of forgetting to put on my long underwear.

Any notion of pretense melts away in the presence of a winemaker in the maelstrom of harvest. Or, I should say, that notion doesnt melt but rather freezes like my fingers had done on a miserable October day in the Finger Lakes. I had surrendered a week of my vacation to work harvest, thinking it would be easy. Every day for the preceding month had been seasonably warm and glorious. But my arrival at the Anthony Road Wine Company on Seneca Lake coincided with a plunge in temperatures and a soft, steady mist. I was there to learn, and my first lesson was that while wine might be romantic, making it is decidedly not.

And yet the harvest crew maintained a gregarious energy that made even the most menial tasks enjoyable. Every once in a while Id feel the cold sting of a Riesling grape bouncing off my cheek. When I misjudged the amount of wine that I needed to transfer out of an old oak barreland it resulted in a geyser of juice spraying across the wineryI feared I would be chastised for being careless. Instead, all I could hear was side-splitting laughter. And every night during that long harvest week, when the rest of the crew had gone home, Id stay late with the winemakers to chat. They were tired, but they loved to talk about what might become of those grapes. We would punch down the caps of red grape skins, our shoulders screaming but our spirits strong. By the end of the week I had worked at a handful of wineries on three different lakesand I wasnt ready to stop.

This was only one week in what became a two-year odyssey. I had first considered writing a book after meeting many Finger Lakes winemakers through my job. Since 2003 Ive been a news reporter and anchor for the ABC News affiliate in Rochester, which is just over an hours drive from the heart of Finger Lakes wine country. I elbowed my way into covering most of the wine and tourism stories for my station, and that role introduced me to the industry. I also became the Finger Lakes wine editor for the New York Cork Report.

I found that much had changed over the past twenty-five years, and particularly the past decade, and that few people were aware of it.

If the Finger Lakes region was once known for producing candy wines, it had evolved to become something much bolder. The iconic image of the Finger Lakes is a summers day, dotted with Adirondack chairs on the waters edge, a happy homeowner holding a glass of world-class cool-climate wine. And while no one can truly define what world class means, there is no doubt that the men and women who had been drawn to the Finger Lakes in recent years had come with a goal of achieving it.