Tag Archives: winemaking

The Farming Story Part 4: Grapes, Dairy, and Potatoes

The 1860 gazetteer told us that Steuben folks annually produced over 1.5 million bushels of grain; 60 thousand tons of hay; more than a quarter-million bushels of potatoes; almost 300 thousand bushels of apples; 2 million pounds of butter; and 200 thousand pounds of cheese.

*So what’s missing? Grapes. The 1860 gazetteer gives grapes exactly three sentences, in a footnote, saying that in 1857 Urbana had 30 acres in vineyards, and double that the following year, with about 2000 acres suitable for the purpose.

*Eight years later the county directory shows 117 related opreations… vineyards, wineries, boxmakers, etc. – in Urbana along, plus 36 in Pulteney and 15 in Wayne.

*Folks started experimenting commercially with grapes just as an Ohio grape region was wiped out by blight, leaving immigrant workers and winemakers from Europe available. This may help explain the European feel of the earliest wineries. Grapes and wine became a very big deal in Steuben, Yates, and Schuyler Counties, with Hammondsport and keuka lake being the heart of the region.

*Another feature of late 19th-century agriculture in Steuben was the appearance of small creameries and cheeseries scattered across the map, and often run as co-ops. As ever, the original producer got the least out of his efforts, while those higher up on the chain got more. These small operations were a way of keeping some of that in the community.

*Tobacco too became a noteable product at this time.

*Likewise we experience the advent of Grange, or the Patrons of Husbandry. (Francis McDowell of Wayne was one of the eight original founders.) While out west Grange was an active political force, here in the northeast it often served more of a social purpose. But Grange worked hard to educate the farmer and improve practices, AND it fought a decades-long battle for Rural Free Delivery. Until that was well in place, a little after 1900, the only way you could get your mail was to go to the post office and ask for it. It’s hard for us to recognize how isolated the farm family was. R.F.D. helped change that.

*The second force for education was the Steuben County Fair. It’s been continuous since before the Civil War, when the new Ag Society took it over, and bought the curremt sire while the war still raged. In the next few years the first permanent facilities went up, notably the gatehouse, the fair building, and the track. Hornell, Troupsburg, and Prattsburgh also maintained annual fairs for many years.

*And, of course, there was Cornell University, thanks to the Morill Land Grant College Act, providing federal support to help each state create a college for the teaching of agriculture, mechanics, and the useful arts.

*By 1900 or so there were over 8000 dairy farms in Steuben County, and Steuben was the second county in the United States for potato production. But the small family farms on the hilltops had become uncompetitive, and people started walking away from them, not even attempting to sell because there were no buyers. Many of these were eventually taken for taxes, and formed the basis of our vast system of state forests and state game lands.

Finger Lakes Wineries Books, Part 1

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When people think of the Finger Lakes, they often think of grapes and wine – rightly or wrongly. There’s a lot going on here BESIDES wine, after all.

*But wine is, in fact, very important to our region economically, and even in forming the “viewshed” of the Finger Lakes. Personally, I don’t drink at all. But I don’t mind those who do (in moderation), and I know that wine is important to our heritage (going back almost 200 years) and to our finances (delighted Pulteney folks, around 1860, found that grapes were the first thing that justified the taxes on their property).

*In recent years quite a few books have been published on Finger Lakes wines. Here’s a little wine-book tasting (wasn’t that clever?). Some of them can only be found on the used market these days.

*KEUKA LAKE AND THE GRAPE, by Richard Sherer. Dick was Steuben County historian for years prior to his death, and he dug deep into grape and wine history. He labored for years to identify every winery that had ever operated on Keuka. He told me that one, for which he found only a single reference in a newspaper, gave him fits. He finally discovered that a bank had accepted a vat of wine as collateral on a loan, then foreclosed on the vat. In order to sell the wine off and recoup their losses, they needed to be licensed as a winery. So that’s all that that winery ever did, is sell the single vat.

*Dick listed the wineries in chronological order, threading through all the intricacies of corporate changes. His book has plenty of photographs, including brightly-colored rape labels.

*CULTURE IN A GLASS: REFLECTIONS ON THE RICH HERITAGE OF FINGER LAKES WINE, by Richard Figiel. Rich doesn’t actually reach the Finger Lakes until chapter 2 and page 16, starting out with the ancient roots of winemaking. But that’s a really good foundation for telling the story of grapes and wines throughout the entire region, with lots of great historic photos and engravings.

*Then comes a chapter on the geography of the Lakes Country (and why it matters to the grapes), a chapter on the types of grapes, and “The Winemaker’s Calendar,” following the process through the year, with lots of photographs to help understanding. If you want an easy-to-digest (53 pages) introduction to the process and the history, this will probably fill your bill.

*CIRCLE OF VINES: THE STORY OF NEW YORK WINES, by Richard Figiel. Rich also did a much longer statewide history, in which of course the Finger Lakes loom large. An appendix lists 19th-century wineries still standing at the time of publication, and the uses they were being put to.

*FINGER LAKES WINERIES: A PICTORIAL HISTORY, by Emerson Klees. First of all, I’ll be up-front about a problem with this book. A dozen or so pictures are distorted, either stretched horizontally or compressed horizontally… unfortunate in a pictorial history.

*However, none of them become unusable – it’s more an annoyance than otherwise – and dozens of other pictures look just fine.

*Em has written extensively for Finger Lakes tourists and travelers, including specialty volumes on the wineries. He’s also well-known as a historian for the region, and here he blends the two interests.

*And does it well, using photos and other illustrations to tell the tale from the earliest days right through and including the current day, plus 20 pages describing numerous grape varieties, and an 11-page glossary of grape and wine terms. (Which is very useful for the neophyte in a field that prides itself on arcana for those who’ve been admitted to the mysteries.)

*May I add that both “Circle of Vines” and “Finger Lakes Wineries” gratefully acknowledge the assistance of Steuben County Historical Society? And we’ve got more books yet! Come back next week!