(Second of two articles.)
The growth
of vineyards and wineries here, on the shores of the Finger Lakes, is not about the great views, but
about the lakes and rolling hills.
Paraphrasing from the book Culture in a Glass, by upstate vintner
Richard Figiel, the lakes act as radiators. They emit temperatures cooler than
the surrounding air in the summer and warmer than the air in winter. In spring,
the cooling influence tends to delay the emergence of tender new vine shoots
until the risk of spring frosts passes. In fall it’s the reverse: Summer heat
stored in the lakes radiates out to postpone frosts until as late as November.
Culture details how this region once lay under an inland sea, which left behind layers
of sediment, or present-day shale. Easily penetrated by roots, shale subsoil
provides grapevines with mineral resources that infuse wine with a subtle but
unique quality. And shale keeps the soil well drained.
Figiel even breaks down the Finger Lakes into sub-climates, by soil type and
lake size. European varieties (like Chardonnay, Riesling, and Merlot) flourish
in calcium-rich soil — found mainly around the bigger lakes, Seneca and Cayuga.
Native American grape varieties (Concord, Catawba, and Niagara) thrive in the more acidic soils
found around Keuka and CanandaiguaLakes.
Richard Figiel and his wife, Deborah
Pfautsch, own Silver Thread Winery, on Seneca Lake’s east side. Opened in the early
1980s, Silver Thread specializes in organically grown, European-variety, dry
table wines.
Then there’s the grape-growing
“climate” in Albany to be considered, that is, state
government. In 1985 the state legislature, responding to an economic decline in
the grape and wine industry, created legislation to strengthen the agricultural
and economic potential of what was already envisioned as an important
agri-businesses and tourist attraction. Part of that legislation created the
New York Wine & Grape Foundation, a private, not-for-profit organization
that develops and implements promotional and agricultural research programs to
support New York grape growers. The 19 years since are characterized by the
Foundation’s latest annual report as a period of “exciting growth.”
The growth curve depicted by the
graph in the report brings to mind the heydays of Kodak and Xerox: 43 new
wineries opened in the 1980s, 58 in the 1990s. And, with 40 new wineries
already opened in the first four years of the current decade, the industry is
clearly on track for record growth.
“The growth is explosive and
accelerating,” says the Foundation’s Jim Trezise. “Wineries convert raw product
to consumer product and bring value-added layers of economic activity to the
area. They process grapes, and they use tanks, barrels, and bottles. They have
bottling operations, use labels, and require transportation.” The report also
mentions employment in vineyard work, tasting rooms, winery tours, wine sales,
and an accompanying construction boom at wineries.
“Most of the growth,” says Trezise,
“has been in small, premium wineries. Its tourism and agricultural components
make wineries the fastest growing industry in the region.”
Indeed, along with Figiel and
Pfautsch and 190 other vintners who’ve opened wineries, come visitors to the
wineries by the increasing thousands.
Winery-related tourism has grown 800
percent in the last 15 years, according to the Foundation’s report, with more
than three million visitors per year to the wineries. One-third to one-half of
these come from out of state and other countries. These latter account for the
majority of wine sales. Canadian travelers alone spend more than $3 million
annually at New York wineries.
If three million people per year are coming here, word must
be getting out.
“Wineries are one of the area’s
biggest draws,” says Sally Berry of the Penn Yan-based Finger Lakes Tourism
Alliance. “They stand alone as an attraction.”
Berry’s organization promotes tourism for
the 14-county Finger
Lakes
region. “When we go out of the area to motor-coach and travel trade shows,
nationally, and even in Europe, people always ask about the wineries,” she says. “We’ve
established a ‘brand.'”
Among the Finger Lakes tourists is two-time visitor Steven
Cassidy, a Nashville-based financial advisor. As a US Navy diver, Cassidy was
once stationed on the Mediterranean, and he says of those years: “On weekends we
motorcycled along the coast, and when we’d stop for lunch, the native Sicilians
— wherever we were — would always see that we had a bottle of wine to go
with our food. That’s what I like about the Finger Lakes wineries. The proprietor himself
offers you a glass of wine and a place to sit — very friendly, a nice touch.
Reminds me of Europe.”
There are other draws to the area,”
adds Berry. “The CorningMuseum, women’s history, the Pro Bass Shop
at the Finger Lakes Mall in Auburn… but wineries have impacted
everything.”
How do wineries drive a tourism
economy? First of all, visitors have to get here. Thousands come by limo and
bus.
Scott Pizzo is a textbook example of
a business that benefits from Finger Lakes wineries as tourist destinations, and he exemplifies the
trend in upstate New York away from industrial manufacturing
to services businesses. Fourteen years ago, then a 29-year-old,
third-generation union production worker at Xerox, Pizzo bought a limousine and
went into business part-time.
“I saw Xerox on shaky ground and
wanted to have a backup plan in place in case I lost my job,” he says. “I never
expected [the limo business] to grow.”
Today, Pizzo operates 18 limos,
vans, and mini-buses under the name of Park Place Limousine &
Transportation, one of the largest such services in this part of the state. His
cars have transported thousands of visitors throughout the region, including
Walter Cronkite, Bill Cosby, and former Secretary of State Madeline Albright.
Does he think the wineries have
helped the economy?
“Absolutely,” he says. “It’s now 20
percent of our business. In fact, we’re structuring our marketing and the
vehicles we buy based on the wine business.”
Tensions do come up between the
different sectors of this new economy. Pizzo, who says limo and bus firms
helped spur the wineries’ growth, complains that some wineries now want to charge
fees for large groups.
“They want us to make reservations,”
he says. “That just doesn’t work. They sent notices out warning us of possible
repercussions if our people get out of hand. They’re even talking of banning
us.”
Vintner John Martini, co-owner of
the Anthony Road winery on Seneca Lake, sees limos and some bus tours in a
positive way. “Most importantly,” he says, “they are designated drivers, and
our visitors can travel safely. They bring us patrons. At Anthony Road, we do ask for scheduling for
groups of 15 or more, and we charge a $2 tasting fee for each person. This way
we can have staff available and give the group a separate and special
experience.”
“We do get frustrated when large
groups show up unannounced and expect red carpet service,” says Martini. “Some
of the drivers know we do a good job with their patrons and happily comply with
our requests. Some drivers ask for a complimentary bottle of wine…not part of
the deal and not provided.”
Just as some Finger Lakes vintners look to their peers in California as models of commercial success, so
do New YorkState limousine operators eye their West
Coast peers.
“There’s a wine tour business in the
NapaValley that started 10 years ago,” says
Pizzo, “and they now have 150 buses. It’s nice to see something like that
taking off here.”
Many folks who come here to sample New York wine are also looking for a special
place to stay, and that has spurred another entrepreneurial segment: bed and
breakfasts. They’re “a good fit” with wineries, says Finger Lakes Tourism
Alliance’s Berry, “as far as the types of people
they draw.”
Donna and Hugh Cunningham’s personal
career backgrounds and the history of their bed and breakfast both mirror the
shifting regional economy from industrial manufacturing to services and
tourism.
Both 50-something graduates of Kodak
down-sizings, they now operate Yale Manor Bed and Breakfast, an
early-20th-century homestead on Yale Farm Road, on the eastern shore of Seneca Lake. Hugh also sells real estate for Nothnagle
Gallery of Homes’ Canandaigua office.
As with many bed and breakfasts,
Yale Manor is a one-of-a-kind house with a story behind it. Struck by the grace
of the home, you might never notice it is built of solid concrete. First-time
settlers to the area operated a large farm here for decades. Then a state
mental-health institution took it over and operated it as a residential
facility.
This home, which could easily be on
the cover of an interiors or bed-and-breakfast-magazine, is heavily booked and hosts
guests from all over the world.
“They come for the wineries and for Hobart and WilliamSmithCollege,” says Donna. “We have so many
international guests that sometimes I’m the only one speaking English at the
breakfast table.”
The day we visited Yale Manor, there
were three separate couples from Toronto staying there. Commented one guest:
“This place has more wineries than France.”
If vineyards and wineries are the foundation of an economic
upturn, and B&Bs and limo services are the second tier, an event like the
long-running and increasingly successful Naples Grape Festival might be
considered the icing on the cake.
This annual event held in the Village of Naples, at the foot of Canandaigua Lake, has had two geneses. It was first
started in 1961 by the late Robert Vierhile, who, like the first upstate
vintners, got the idea from Germany, where he witnessed grape festivals
when he was stationed there during World War II. The first incarnation of the
festival, which included a parade, flea market, and carnival, lasted about 10
years.
“Young people started coming,
disruptive, on motorcycles,” says Bill Vierhile of his brother’s festival, “So
we stopped doing it.”
In 1989, spearheaded by a group of
community leaders organized by Naples resident Susan Farley, the festival
was re-launched. It was so successful that within four years organizers had to
eliminate the parade because it was causing traffic jams. The second year drew
about 35,000 people; 1997 broke the 100,000 mark.
The festival, which drew 125,000
this year, now includes a juried art show, food, two stages of live
entertainment, and “is outrageously beautiful,” says Farley, the festival’s
executive director. “We take in about $65,000 in booth rental —we sell out
all 230 spaces — parking, corporate funding, and festival merchandise. Our
cost is about $30,000. The remaining $35,000, [60 percent], goes to the Naples
Rotary Club and Naples Historical Society. Over the last 15 years, we’ve given
back $200,000 to the community through these two organizations.”
Farley estimates that the festival
has a $1 million economic impact on the region, which is likely conservative
given that the Festival has established Naples as a solid coordinate on the map
of Finger Lakes tourist destinations — a virtual upstate Woodstock and
year-round host to dozens of boutiques and artisan’s shops.
How do the sales of New York wines stack up against wines from
other markets in our own area retail liquor stores?
Jeff Bencus, manager of Whitehouse
Liquor Store in Brighton, says that while New York wine sales have increased, so have
all wine sales, across the board. New York wines still make up less than 10
percent of wine sales, and in the last few years the state’s ranking has
probably fallen from second place — after California — with the advent and growth of
other wine-producing regions and countries.
“California is overwhelming,” says Bencus.
“They have the volume, and with that comes quality, lower cost, and more
advertising.”
The issue of lower wine prices from
other markets is a thorny one for Richard Figiel. “Finger Lakes winegrowers begin with a climate
that is more challenging than California or Australia,” says Figiel. “It’s simply more
difficult to grow grapes here than in hot, dry climates, where per-acre yields
are generally higher. Our growing conditions are more similar to Germany and northern France, and consequently the wines — as
they are from those areas — are somewhat more expensive. Australia and other countries heavily
subsidize their wine industries. How else could Australia — not a low-wage nation — grow,
produce, and ship wine halfway around the world and sell it for the [lower]
prices we see in stores?
“Folks who buy locally produced
wines will hopefully understand that they are contributing to the viability of
food production and farming in their own region, which has important
implications for the health of our economy and environment,” says Figiel. “In
this world, ‘cost’ is a word with expanding meaning.”
There does exist a “sprinkled demand
in other states for New York wines, if consumers were able to
get them directly,” says Jim Trezise, referring to the small wineries. “Our
wineries aren’t big enough to go through wholesalers and distributors.”
Actually, 85 percent of wine
produced in the state is sold out of state. This surprising statistic is
heavily skewed by the existence of large wine companies, like Taylor, and the
huge Constellation Brands (formerly Canandaigua Wine), who ship vast quantities
to other markets.
In spite of the great growth in the
wine industry, New York state government’s support has been
waning. However, all other performance numbers for New York’s grape and wine industry are very
good. They show a strong growth history, a projected future growth equally as
strong, and a spin-off tourism-related business that is strong and growing at
an even greater rate than the wine industry itself.
More
tasting
For more information
about the businesses and organizations mentioned in this article:
<p<Park Place Limo Service,Rochester: www.rochesterlimousine.com
<p<Naples Grape
Festival,Naples: www.naplesvalleyny.com
<p<Silver
Thread Winery, east side of Seneca
Lake: www.silverthreadwine.com
<p<Anthony
Road Wine Company, west side Seneca
Lake: www.anthonyroadwine.com
<p<New York Wine &
Grape Foundation, Penn Yan: www.UncorkNewYork.com
<p<Yale
Manor Bed and Breakfast, east side of Seneca Lake: www.yalemanor.com
The big picture
<p<• The US is the fourth largest wine-producing country after Italy, France, and Spain.
<p<• Commercial wine production now occurs in
all 50 states.
<p<• California accounts for 90 percent of US wine production; New York 4 percent; Washington, Oregon, Idaho collectively for 3 percent.
<p<• New York has 33,000 acres of grapes on 928 farms and 194 wineries,
producing 200 million bottles per year, or two-tenths of one percent of the
world’s wine production.
<p<• New YorkState government invests in agricultural research and marketing
programs to benefit the grape and wine industry at the rate of $22 per acre per
year. Virginia invests almost $400 per acre; Indiana, $2,600 per acre.
The state picture
<p<• 67 percent of New York’s grape crop is used for grape juice and other
non-fermented products, 30 percent is used for wine, and a small percentage is
sold as fresh fruit.
<p<• The majority of grapes used in grape
juice are grown in the Chautauqua region, home of the National Grape
Cooperative, which owns Welch Foods.
• The majority of wine grapes are grown in
the Finger Lakes region, home of Consolidated brands, as well as 80 other
(smaller) wineries.
• Wine grapes are also grown in smaller
quantities on Long Island and along the Hudson
River.
Two decades of dynamic
growth
•
There are nearly 200
wineries and more than 1000 grape vineyards in the Finger Lakes region.
• While the New York wine industry has existed for 170
years, more than three-quarters of the area’s wineries have opened since 1985.
•
The decade of the 1990s
was the strongest growth period for New York wineries, with 58 opening. The
present decade is already on track for exceeding this.
•
In 2000, wine
production was 65 percent higher than in 1985 and 29 percent higher than 1997.
•
Wine-country tourism
has increased 800 percent since 1985.
•
One-third to one-half of
tourists are from out of state and other countries; these account for the vast
majority of wine sales. Canadian travelers alone spend more than $3 million
annually at New York wineries.
•
Winery-related
employment has grown at wineries 10-fold since 1985. There has been an
accompanying construction boom at wineries.
•
State support for
wineries and grape growers, while present since 1985, has gone down since its
initial jumpstart in 1985 and is currently at approximately only one-third of
its highest point.
This article appears in Jan 5-11, 2005.
