Cultivating A Wine Market In N.Y.'s Finger Lakes

Grapes hang in a vineyard overlooking Canandaigua Lake in the Finger Lakes region of upstate New York.

MELISSA BLOCK, host: You're listening to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED from NPR News.

The Finger Lakes region of New York is named for its 11 long, skinny lakes, and the surrounding hills provide fertile ground for grapes. The area is gaining recognition as a wine region. But Finger Lakes wines are not that easy to buy, as we hear from Julie Philipp of member station WXXI.

JULIE PHILIPP: Grapes have been growing wild in the Finger Lakes for untold centuries. The vines are hardy, able to withstand occasional sub-zero temperatures. But the small purple fruit they bear doesn't lend itself to the making of wine.

EVAN DAWSON: You're not going to make a wine out of native grapes that is meant to be consumed in the same meal with some of the great wines of the world.

PHILIPP: Evan Dawson is author of a book called "Summer in a Glass: The Coming of Age of Winemaking in the Finger Lakes." He says the great wine grapes - those centuries-old European varieties - didn't arrive here until the 1950s. After a lot of trial and error, vintners started making things happen. But for decades, the rest of the wine industry failed to take notice. When it came to wine scores, nothing made here earned that coveted 90 points or above until 2008.

DAWSON: There was a 90-point score for one wine, and then early in 2009, three more. And now, it's happening with regularity.

PHILIPP: Once a wine hits that mark, it gets a lot more attention. This year, Wine Spectator and two other popular wine magazines published big feature stories about the region.

DAWSON: To have all three of those in one year is an indication that there's something hot going on. There's something really finally starting to turn when it comes to public awareness.

PHILIPP: The interest and accolades are welcome, but they don't necessarily translate into sales. It's early on a Friday morning, and John Martini is in the warehouse at Anthony Road Winery. He's loading cases of his wine into a big black van. Martini is taking them here to the Union Square public market in lower Manhattan. It's a 10-hour roundtrip.

JOHN MARTINI: It does mess up my weekends, but as I tell people, the money is good and the show is great.

PHILIPP: Martini sells about 20 cases of wine at the market each week. He calls Brian Lewis his best customer. Lewis buys a lot of wine here. He likes to uncork it when he entertains.

BRIAN LEWIS: It disappears.

(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)

MARTINI: The best reaction there is: empty bottles.

LEWIS: It's excellent. It's excellent.

PHILIPP: But this market is the only place he can find it in New York City. Winemakers in the Finger Lakes typically expand their markets face to face, one customer, one restaurant, one retailer at a time. There are a lot of reasons for this. Jim Trezise is president of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation. He says the region still only makes two-tenths of 1 percent of the world's wine. So there's a lot of competition out there. International distribution is just a dream at this point, and only a few Finger Lakes wines can be found in other states.

Because every time you cross a state line, you're dealing with a different country when it comes to wine marketing. It's a different bureaucracy, tax structure, paperwork, headaches and so forth.

Because well-known wines sell faster, even some local restaurants and liquor stores don't carry many, if any, Finger Lakes wines. You can't find it at local grocery stores either. It's against state law for them to sell wine. But still, new wineries open every year. There are more than 100 now. Martini says he sometimes feels like he's part of a grand experiment.

MARTINI: But when you get a good crop, and you get - in our case now, get a great wine, you don't have to smoke anything to feel good.

PHILIPP: In addition to making wine, he says, he's making history. For NPR News, I'm Julie Philipp.

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