Folks have been making wine commercially in the Finger Lakes for 165 years. Wineries have waxed and waned, come and gone. Some have been small backyard mom-and-pop operations… or “boutique” wineries, if you want to get hoity-toity about it. Others have been huge employers and major tourism magnets.
Emerson Klees has been making wine for 35 years, and writing books about our region for twenty. Blending both varieties, his latest work is Finger Lakes Wineries: A Pictorial History. Here he covers wineries past and present in 110 pages of well-captioned photos, plus more text bringing the total page count to 160.
Much of the book covers Keuka Lake – unsurprising, given the historic nature of the work. But an entire chapter is dedicated to Widmer Winery in Naples, and the last two chapters – covering the time from Repeal of Prohibition to the present day – range all across the region.
I look at a LOT of old photos, and I was excited to find plenty in this book that I’d never seen before. One full-page 1880 image shows men and horses cutting the caves four stories deep at Pleasant Valley… it’s remarkable how sheer they’ve cut the face of the rock. In other photos men strain at a grape press, heaving on a bar that seems to be an undressed tree limb. Men riddle champagne bottles, or cap, wrap, and pack at Gold Seal. A horse-drawn wagon is laden high with filled grape flats for Empire State Wine Company in Penn Yan.
A lot of what I see in the course of my work is nineteenth-century images, so I was intrigued to inspect photos from the mid- to late-twentieth century showing, for instance, machine corking; large apparatus for pasteurizing; conveyor belts; and hydraulic presses. Governor Hugh Carey, Governor George Pataki, and Senator Robert F. Kennedy glide through the pages.
From time to time I guide tour buses through Naples on the way to Canandaigua, and I enjoy telling the passengers the Widmer’s story, which gets its own chapter here. Widmer’s has a beautiful setting, and adds a special sparkle to Naples. Mr. and Mrs. Widmer moved from Switzerland in 1882, and set about planting grapes even as they were building their home. There’s one story Emerson doesn’t mention, but which his pictures still illuminate. Mr. and Mrs. Widmer wanted expansion capital at an early stage, so they went to banker Maxfield for a loan. Since he had his own winery, he turned these new competitors down. The Widmers thrived anyway, and in 1940 their son had the great satisfaction of buying the Maxfield Cellars and folding it into the business his parents had begun and built.
Several of the wineries have their own interesting stories or offerings. Eagle Crest in Conesus was founded by Bishop McQuaid to supply communion wine for Catholic churches. Ray Fedderman in Prattsburgh was the first African American vintner. Earle Estates brews mead (a honey-based alcohol) as well as wine. At Cayuga Ridge, enthusiasts may lease, tend, and harvest ten, twenty, or thirty vines.
Of course there are many familiar faces, for the story of the wineries is, like all the other stories, a story about people. The Taylor family is here, from Walter through Greyton, Fred, and Clarence down to Walter S. So are the Franks, from Dr. Konstantin down through Willy and Fred. So is Paul Garrett, who watched his family name die out and created Garrett Chapel to preserve its memory.
Also valuable, especially for us non-specialists, is a TWENTY-PAGE appendix briefly describing grape species (some with regional names such as Aurora, Steuben, and Cayuga White), plus a ten-page glossary of grape and wine terms. The whole thing makes a very useful and enjoyable introduction to Finger Lakes winemaking. Thank you, Emerson – again!