755. Finger Lakes

Where: Finger Lakes, NY
When: March 11-13, 2011
With: Dave

When Dave and I knew we'd probably be leaving the New York area for London before the year was over, we decided to start focusing on local travel. After our road trip the year before through Connecticut, we decided to follow a similar pattern and travel somewhere close enough to drive to in the Book. So we decided on a beautiful region of upstate New York called the Finger Lakes. 

However, the hard part about living in New York City was not having a car for said road trip. As in, road tripping, while simple in theory, can become a huge hassle. To rent a car from the city is insanely expensive, sometimes triple the price of a normal rental, plus neither of us had car insurance, so we always had to grapple with the should we or shouldn't we of paying for the extra coverage. On this trip, we discovered a neat little trick, which was taking the train to Newark airport, and renting a car from there. It saved us a ton of money, but adds the extra hour onto the trip to get out there. But, once we got the car, there was no need to drive through the city, which helped us get the show on the road. 

When driving to upstate New York, it's amazing how quickly the urban buildings and cities disappear and are replaced with farmland and trees. The state of New York is so often equated simply to New York City, yet it is so big and has so much more to it than that. And we were headed pretty far north, where it became absolutely bucolic. Even the highways are two laned! A far cry from the metropolis that gives the state its name. 

We got in after dark and in the middle of a snow storm. We are so far north that there's heavy snow even in early March! But it made the scenery around our hotel, Geneva on the Lake, absolutely beautiful. 

Christmas decorations in a place like this feel like they can stay up forever. 

Enjoying a nighttime view of Seneca Lake. 

We woke up the next day ready to explore the area. The Finger Lakes consist of eleven long, skinny lakes snaking through the northwest part of the state. They are incredibly deep and were most likely carved out by glaciers millions of years ago. Now there are several adorable towns along their shores, making them a popular summertime destination. This is an aerial view of the Finger Lakes from above. 

However, being that it was basically the dead of winter, the draw that pulled us in was the  wine region that has developed around them. While the wineries are pretty small and produce mostly sweet wines, we were up for trying it out. We hired a driver to take us around the Seneca Lake Wine Trail, grabbed our "passport" and we're ready to go!

The first winery we headed to was a four-for-one, with three wineries on one property, plus a brewery. Each winery is run by a different brother of the same family and as such, the property is appropriately named "Three Brothers Wineries and Estates". We had about an hour to explore the property and try whichever ones we wanted, each one having its own unique character. 

We started with War Horse, their brewery. 

Then we couldn't help but try Bagg Dare, their very crazily decorated winery. 

The names of the Bagg Dare wines were the most unique and interesting.

Next up, we headed to Zugibe Vineyards. The most striking thing about this vineyard is its porch with a view on Seneca Lake. It was a bit too cold to really enjoy the view, but I have no doubt it's gorgeous in the summer.   

We then headed to Ventosa Winery & Cafe, and after all this tasting, we were feeling pretty tipsy and ready for some snacks. The details start becoming hazy here. 

And then, it happened, as it always does after a day of wine tasting. You've had one too many sips, and go to an amazing winery and you want to buy ALL THE WINE. This happened to us at Billsboro Winery. It was amazing. Fantastic. We enjoyed every single one we tasted. We bought a case. We couldn't stop. We still talk about Billsboro Wine. 

Thankfully, our tour was pretty much done at this point (minus one more stop at Belhurst Castle and Winery, but honestly, I don't remember any of it). So we headed back to our hotel and decided to...of course! Keep drinking! We bundled ourselves up, grabbed a bottle of Billsboro and headed out to the lake to enjoy in the view. 

That evening, we had a delicious dinner at our hotel, and then everything else was a blur until we left the next morning to head back to New York with just a couple bottles in hand...

We soon learned another downside of renting the car in New Jersey: we had to somehow carry all this wine on the train back to the city with us. Needless to say, we made it, but it definitely made us think twice about renting a car from Newark in the future. 

The Finger Lakes were beautiful in the hazy blur that I remember them. I'd love to see them in the summertime, and perhaps next time I'll cool my jets with the wine so I can take it all in a bit more.