Finger Lakes Wineries

Before vintners were making European-style wines in Ohio, Dr. Konstantin Frank was making them in New York, with New York-grown vinifera grapes.  He envisioned better wines than the eastern US concords and catawbas, and developed methods for cultivating vinifera grapes in the Finger Lakes, whose climate is temperate because of the deep grooved glacial lakes. Dr. Frank of Keuka Lake brought in vine stocks and started producing wine in 1962.  During an interview with Mike Linehan of Keuka Lake Wine Trail, I found out that 10,000 Delights, a B&B on the Keuka, will reopen this year--it's time to again stay at the 10,000 Delights lakehouse and sit on the dock with my feet in the water and a glass of wine in my hand. And it will be a bottle of wine from Dr. Konstantin Frank Vinifera Wine Cellars. While the Keuka Lake article has not yet been published, I wrote an article about the nearby Seneca Wine Trail for Long Weekends. The beautiful vineyard-covered hills of the Finger Lakes are beautiful all year round.

Wineries in Winter

I couldn't participate in the Tannenbaum weekends in the eastern wineries, but the idea of receiving a miniature Christmas tree at the first stop and ornaments from each of the wineries intrigued me.  Even though I was trying to make the book deadline, I wrote about Tannenbaum Weekends for Cool Cleveland.  Visiting the wineries dressed up for Christmas must have made the holiday season special, and visitors could enjoy the decorated tree when they arrived back home.

I also wrote about wineries around the state for Insider Ohio.  I have visited only the wineries along the lakeshore and Wolf Creek in Akron, so it was a challenge to write about wineries around the state I've never visited.  I would especially like to visit those wineries along the Ohio River, where the wine trail is named after the father of Ohio wines:  Nicholas Longworth.