A Guide to Finger Lakes Wineries

There are eleven Finger Lakes and well over a hundred wineries between them. That is a lot to sort through for a first visit, and most guides answer it with a list of names. We'd rather answer the question underneath it: which lake suits the trip you have in mind, and how many places should you really try to see in a day.

We make wine on the east shore of Keuka Lake, near Hammondsport. Guests ask us this constantly — often from the terrace, halfway through a weekend they are still planning. So here is what we tell them.

The number sounds daunting until you realize nobody visits the region as a whole. People visit one lake, sometimes two. The practical decision is not which winery — it is which lake, and that decision makes itself once you know what each one is like.

• Seneca Lake — the deepest and longest of the eleven, with the highest concentration of wineries. Its own trail circles the whole lake, which takes more than a day to do properly.
• Keuka Lake — the one shaped like a Y, the only lake in the region that branches in two. About a dozen wineries, most within twenty minutes of each other. This is where we are.
• Cayuga Lake — home to the first organized wine trail in the United States, and the closest to Ithaca, Cornell and the gorges.
• Canandaigua Lake — the westernmost of the four, nearest to Rochester, with a shorter circuit that suits a day trip.

The lakes are close enough that people often do two in a weekend — one per day, rather than half a day each. The driving between them takes longer than it looks on a map.

The lakes were carved by glaciers, and their depth is the whole reason wine grows here at all. A large body of water holds warmth into the fall and cold into the spring, which protects the vines at both ends of the season. On our slope above Keuka, the lake works a little like a refrigerator with the door cracked open — the fruit stays cool and often ripens into the third week of October.

According to the Finger Lakes Wine Alliance, Riesling is the signature grape of the region. That has been true for decades and remains the best single answer to what the Finger Lakes do well.

We will not pretend to rank a hundred and thirty wineries — nobody who tells you they have visited them all is being straight with you. What we can do is describe the lake we know, and say honestly what the others are like.

On Keuka Lake, the names you will come across include Dr. Konstantin Frank, the historic estate credited with proving European vinifera grapes could survive Finger Lakes winters; Bully Hill and Heron Hill on the west arm, both long-established with wide views over the water; Keuka Lake Vineyards and Keuka Spring at either end; and a handful of smaller family operations along both shores. We are on the east side, at 13920 State Route 54, ten minutes north of Hammondsport. Our full guide to the lake covers every winery on Keuka, arm by arm.

On Seneca Lake, the trail is longer and the selection wider, with well-known estates spread along both the east and west sides. Cayuga runs the oldest organized trail in the country. Both are worth their own day rather than a detour.

Winter has its own case to make: fewer guests, more time to talk, and the people who made the wine usually pouring it. We go through the calendar month by month in our guide to the best time to visit the Finger Lakes.

1. Pick one lake per day. The drive between lakes eats more time than the map suggests.
2. Choose three or four wineries, not eight. A tasting is not a checkbox.
3. Book seated tastings ahead on summer and fall weekends.
4. Arrange a designated driver or a booked tour — the roads wind and tastings add up.
5. Base yourself in one village. Hammondsport on Keuka, Watkins Glen on Seneca, Ithaca on Cayuga.
6. Leave the last stop of the day open-ended, so you can stay a while.

We are Céline and Sébastien LeSeurre. Sébastien is the sixth generation of a winegrowing family from Champagne; Céline grew up on a family vineyard in the foothills of the Pyrénées. We met in 2009 on a French-owned vineyard in New Zealand, fell for Keuka Lake in 2012, and founded the domaine here in 2013.

What we make is Finger Lakes wine, made with a French mindset. Our sparkling wines follow the méthode champenoise, the same slow bottle-by-bottle way Sébastien's family has worked for six generations — each bottle handled at least sixty-eight times before it leaves the cellar. French roots, Finger Lakes soul.

If Keuka is on your list, come sit down with us. The tasting room is open daily from 10 to 6, with the last tasting at 5.45.