Seneca Lake Wine Country
Near Watkins Glen, New York
The hills running down to Seneca Lake today hold dozens of wineries, and the Finger Lakes of upstate New York has become one of the most respected wine-producing regions in the United States. That wine country has roots reaching nearly two centuries back. The first person to plant wine grapes in the Finger Lakes was the Reverend William Bostwick, who grew vines in his rectory garden in the village of Hammondsport on Keuka Lake in eighteen twenty nine.
Commercial winemaking developed slowly over the following decades. The first bonded winery in the entire United States, Pleasant Valley Wine Company, was established near Hammondsport in eighteen sixty. Seneca Lake entered the picture in eighteen sixty six, when the Seneca Lake Grape Wine Company planted one hundred acres on the western shore, at the time the largest vineyard in New York State, and began producing the lake's first commercial wine by eighteen sixty nine.
The wine industry contracted severely during Prohibition and then rebuilt itself as winemakers planted European grape varieties. The Seneca Lake Wine Trail, an alliance of wineries along both shores, was formally established in nineteen eighty six. The lake's length and depth moderate temperatures across the surrounding hillsides, protecting vines through cold upstate winters and producing conditions particularly suited to Riesling, the variety for which the region is now internationally recognized.
