when you think about America's great wine regions you might think about Napa
Valley and Sonoma you probably don't think about northern New York thanks to
the development of cold climate grape varieties that can withstand the
region's low winter temperatures it's time to start thinking about great wine
in northern New York my name is Lindsay Pashow and I'm the Ag business development
marketing specialist for Harvest New York. I work with farm based averages and
local food and distribution across northern New York so I'm working with
cold climate grapes and wineries to expand the market opportunities for the
region in northern New York. We have about 15 wineries that are looking to
either expand and a couple more to come on over the next couple of years. Like
Sonoma and Napa Valley, northern New York has been designated as a distinct
American Viticultural Area with its own distinct geographical features grape
varieties and wine styles. It really is a very exciting time for the wine and
grape industry in northern New York.
I'm Colin Read and Natalie and myself have a
vineyard up in Moore's New York just about a mile from the Canadian border
and we use the tasting room down in downtown Plattsburgh as our main place
for customers to come visit with us. Many people know of Napa Valley and Sonoma
Valley, Finger Lakes, etc. These are all known AVAs and one of the most recent
AVAs in the country is the Champlain Valley of New York State.
the AVA helps to designate the types of grapes and hence the types of wines we
can expect from a region. Each AVA tends to specialize in certain types of grapes
ours, obviously, given how northern we are, are cold hardy varieties for the most
part. Two varieties most often developed through the University of Minnesota, but
also developed in Michigan or some at Cornell University as well. You know
when people come here I don't think they want to just visit a region just drink
California wines- they want to have a sense of regionalism. So by offering them
something with an AVA designation you're sending out the message this is locally
grown and the wine is produced from local
grapes and people seem to really get a kick out of that.
My name is Dan Vesco my wife and I own Vesco Ridge vineyards we are just
finishing our eighth season. We have a small vineyard we have
approximately five to six hundred vines. Because of being a farm winery we do
purchase grapes throughout the state of New York and produce
everything here. At this point right now, we're approximately doing around eight
to nine thousand bottles a year. Being a small winery we don't have the luxury of
having a lot of equipment in the lab. We don't have a lot of employees that are
well-versed on the science of wine. We basically have me - so when I do run into
a situation there are individuals from Cornell who help out with a lot of the
problems and get back to me very quickly so I can eliminate the problem.
I think for me having a team like Cornell is great because of the
financial burden that I don't have to incur because they take care of a lot of
things for us. I'm Chris Gerling and I'm an extension associate with the Department
of Food Science based at the New York State Agricultural Experiment Station in
Geneva. I do statewide enology extension so I work with wineries across
New York State. Along the shores of Lake Champlain we've got a lot of new
wineries and so my lab has been mostly focused on the wine production part of
this so while growing grapes is probably the biggest challenge they have, making
wine is is another big challenge and so we've been trying to support them
through our usual statewide Extension efforts. All the Minnesota varieties
have nice fresh fruit aromas the red wines you get cherry and you get dark
fruit and all these nice thing, the whites are very fruit forward and
luscious, you have melon you have a tropical fruit, you have all sorts of
nice aromatics that you can work with. We have seen these wines do well at
competitions. We have seen these wines accepted by consumers. We've seen these
wines starting to really make a name for themselves. It's been especially
rewarding to be a part of the emergence of this dynamic new wine production
region in New York State. Cornell Cooperative Extension is able to
support the growth of the wine industry in northern New York in so many ways.
We have agricultural specialists to help people start vineyards and grow their
grapes. We have enologists in Geneva to help bring out the best characteristics
of these varieties. And through Harvest New York, we have specialists such as
myself who can help to establish wineries, navigate regulations and market
these wines.
In northern New York the future of the wine industry looks bright.