In a region sometimes known better for its severe winter snow blizzards, New York State is home to the largest wine producer in the world, Constellation Brands, headquartered in the Finger Lakes District at Victor, New York, about 10 miles northwest of Canandaigua, the town (and lake) which in the year 1945 gave the company its original corporate name, Canandaigua Industries Company.
Its current name, Constellation Brands (NYSE: STZ, STZ.B), was a renaming from the later names Canandaigua Wine Company and Canandaigua Brands. At the Constellation Brands website we can read:
"Constellation is the largest wine company in the world; the largest multi-category supplier of beverage alcohol in the United States; a leading producer and exporter of wine from Australia, New Zealand and Canada; and both a major producer and independent drinks wholesaler in the United Kingdom."Constellation began business as Canandaigua Industries Co. in the year 1945 by selling bulk wine in barrels to bottlers in the Eastern United States. 60 years later, in 2004, Constellation Brands bought the famous California winemaker Robert Mondavi Corp. for $1 billion - in cash.
The bulk wine origin of Constellation Brands in the Finger Lakes District was possible because the area was favorable for winegrowing and a lot of grapes were grown there (including also many of the grapes used in the famous Welch's brands of grape juice).
Indeed, the largest wine-producing region in New York State today is the Finger Lakes District, a development enabled in part by the 1976 Farm Winery Act, which permitted small wineries to sell wine directly to the public (as is customary in Europe). As written at "Finger Lakes winemaking industry matures, produces world-class wines", CNY Business Journal (1996+), FindArticles.com, 26 May, 2009 :
"Grapes have been grown in New York State for as long as there have been farmers here. There are four wine regions today: Lake Erie, Finger Lakes, Hudson River, and Long Island....In 1976 there were only 19 wineries in all of New York State. Today that number is around 250, with many of those wineries on the shores of the Finger Lakes.
[T]he soil and climate of the Finger Lakes region are especially favorable for growing many of the European grape stocks. The lakes are deep and usually do not freeze over in the winter, so that winds coming across the lakes bring humidity and warmth to the vineyards.
[I]n 1976, the New York State Legislature passed the Farm Winery Act. This act made it economically feasible for farmers to have small wineries, because it allowed them to sell directly to consumers, liquor stores, and restaurants, instead of through a wholesaler or distributor.
Shortly after the passage of this bill, the largest of the wineries around the Finger Lake-Taylor, Widmer, and Great Western--were absorbed by the Canandaigua Wine Company...."
As written in the reply affidavit of Robert Ransom (Index No. 08-275) to the Supreme Court of the State of New York, County of Ulster in a recent matter involving Rivendell Winery, LLC in the Hudson Valley ("1." is missing since paragraphs are numbered from the beginning of the affidavit and not from the "A"):
"A. THE FARM WINERY AS A BUSINESSThat reply affidavit supplies us with a lot of information about wine in New York, but the Rivendell Winery has thus far lost that case and has closed its doors because of the cost of the contested and bizarre zoning decision by the already infamous Hudson Valley town of New Paltz (see New Paltz in fiction), a decision confirmed in an unconvincing opinion by Gerald W. Connolly of the New York Supreme Court, County of Ulster, the lowest court in the New York Court system, which declared absurdly that winemaking was NOT agriculture. As written at the Wine Spectator:
2. The sale of wine and other products in a winery tasting room are fundamental and foundational to the entire winery business. Like so many farms in different industries, without direct sales, there would be no business. Petitioner Rivendell relies on its direct-to-consumer sales for more than 99.2% of its sales. We have virtually no wholesale business.
3. The farm winery industry was founded on the concept of direct sales.Thirty years ago there were no farm wineries. In those days to be a winery in New York State legally required the sale of wine produced to be made through a series of distributors – what is commonly referred to as the “three tiered system” (producer sells to distributor who sells to retailer who sells to consumer). It was not legal for a wine producer to sell directly to the public. Also, a winery was allowed to procure grapes from any source, not restricted to the use of New York State-grown grapes.
4. In the early 1970’s a large upstate winery moved its production to California, effectively stranding several hundred grape growers for whom they were the largest customer. After several years of watching their grapes literally die on the vine, a number of grape growers got legislation enacted in New York State which allowed them to make wine and sell their wine directly to consumers. The NYS Farm Winery Act of 1976 was the enabling legislation that has since been emulated by virtually every State and is the basis for the Farm Winery or “boutique winery” industry that we belong to. N.Y. Unconsolidated Laws § 71, et seq. In 1985, the New York State
legislation was broadened to allow additional privileges to Farm Wineries and to further define allowable sources of raw materials. In that legislation it was clearly established that NYS Farm Wineries were required to utilize 100% New York State grown grapes to produce their wines, but were not required to grow the grapes themselves.
5. Without the ability to sell wine directly – through a tasting room or retail shop on the premises, virtually no farm winery in New York State would be able to economically survive....
24. The New York Farm Winery Act has become a model for winery legislation all over the country. Today, there are farm wineries, selling from their own tasting rooms, in every state of the United States. In New York today there are more than 250 farm winery licenses and every one located in an agricultural zone is permitted a tasting room (through which it makes its sales)."
"Does processing and producing wine count as agriculture? Apparently in a small town in New York state it doesn’t. For nearly two years, Hudson Valley-based Rivendell winery fought a legal battle to build a mixed-use winery in the town of New Paltz, N.Y., but a recent court ruling, coupled with the rising costs of legal fees, has forced the winery to close. The winery’s founders, Robert Ransom and Susan Wine, were planning to move their 20-year-old winery to a property in New Paltz, with the intent of renovating an existing building into a winery and tasting room. Their plans came to an abrupt halt when a New Paltz building inspector determined that the proposed plan was not permitted under local agricultural zoning laws. When the town’s Zoning Board of Appeals supported the inspector’s ruling, the couple appealed their case to the New York Supreme Court. But Ulster County Supreme Court Judge Gerald Connolly recently ruled that the couple’s proposed farm winery was not permitted agricultural use. According to the Hudson Valley's Daily Freeman, New Paltz resident David Porter applauded the decision. "Rivendell doesn't even grow its own grapes," he said. "They're not agriculture, they're commercial." Unfiltered can only wonder how the négociants and cooperatives of Burgundy feel about this." [LawPundit: emphasis added - in Europe, wine is agriculture, and in most cases, wine is agriculture also in the U.S.A. - with the exception of New Paltz]Given the judicial opinion by Gerald W. Connolly in the Rivendell case, it would, by the logic of the reasoning in that case, be nearly impossible to put up a winery anywhere, because you can't farm grapes on residentially zoned property, and you can't process them on agricultural land. The New Paltz zoning interpretation essentially makes it impossible to have a winery in their jurisdiction and that can not be the law now can it?
See also the comment about this matter at Hudson River Valley Wineries.
Thankfully, the Finger Lakes District presents us with a much more positive picture of the New York State wine world. There are several websites online devoted specifically to the wines of this region:
Finger Lakes Wine Festival (July 17-19, 2009)
FingerLakesWineCountry.com is an excellently designed website about the wines of this region and more.
Finger Lakes Wine Alliance
Finger Lakes Wine Guild
FingerLakes.org is the official site of NY Tourism & Travel.
Finger Lakes Wineries & Tours
The Seneca Lake Wine Trail
The Canandaigua Wine Trail
The Cayuga Trail
The Keuka Lake Wine Trail
Finger Lakes Wineries
Finger Lakes Winery Tours
The Middle Finger Lakes Wine Guide
Finger Lakes Wine Tour Trolley
If you want to get straight to reviews of New York Finger Lakes wines, one place to go is LennDevours: New York Vines, Dines and Wines. See also things such as e.g. the March 11, 2009 posting by By Melissa Dobson, Finger Lakes News Correspondent, First Social Media Basics Workshop Held in Finger Lakes Wine Country. If you can not find what you want there, take a look at the large list of wine blogs linked at LennDevours.
The Wikipedia writes:
"The Finger Lakes is New York's largest wine producing region. Numerous wineries and vineyards are located in the region, prinicipally centered around Seneca, Cayuga, Canandaigua, and Keuka Lakes. Because of the lakes' great depth, they provide a lake effect to the lush vineyards that flank their shores. Retaining residual summer warmth in the winter, and winter's cold in the spring, the grapes are protected from disastrous spring frost during grape formation, and early frost before the harvest. With the passage of the Farm Winery Act in 1978, countless numbers of wineries have opened their doors to visitors from all over the world."
As written there further about New York:
"New York is the nation's third-largest grape-producing state, behind California, and second largest wine producer by volume. In 2004, New York's wine and grape industry brought US$6 billion into the state economy. The state has 30,000 acres (120 km²) of vineyards, 212 wineries, and produced 200 million bottles of wine in 2004."
We were also substantially surprised to read that New York State ranks among the top five states in America in agricultural production generally:
"New York State is an agricultural leader, ranking within the top five states for agricultural products including dairy, apples, cherries, cabbages, potatoes, onions, maple syrup and many others. The state is the largest producer of cabbage in the U.S. The state has about a quarter of its land in farms and produced US$3.4 billion in agricultural products in 2001. The south shore of Lake Ontario provides the right mix of soils and microclimate for many apple, cherry, plum, pear and peach orchards. Apples are also grown in the Hudson Valley and near Lake Champlain. The south shore of Lake Erie and the southern Finger Lakes hillsides have many vineyards."
The glacial Finger Lakes when viewed on a map look like long fingers of a hand, whence their name. There are numerous lakes counted to the Finger Lakes (see map and list of lakes), of which the largest are Cayuga Lake and Seneca Lake, both of which are also quite deep, with Seneca Lake reaching a maximum of 618 feet. Mysterious are the booming sounds which periodically come from the lakes and are called the Guns of Seneca.
Interesting is the history of this region, which has made some substantial contributions to US life (quoted from the Wikipedia):
"On the northern end of the Finger Lakes is also Seneca Falls, the birthplace of the Women's suffrage movement, Waterloo, the birthplace of Memorial Day, and Palmyra, the birthplace of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, also known as the Mormon Church."
The 1788 Phelps and Gorham Land Purchase (the 6 million acre tract was later also known as The Holland Purchase) west of the Finger Lakes District was in its day the largest such land transaction in the world. The land was later purchased in part by Robert Morris, known as the "financier" of the American Revolution and at that time the wealthiest man in the United States, and later from him by the Pulteney Association and the Pulteney Estate, (see also here), which gave rise to substantial land problems in New York State.
In subsequent years, Morris lost his fortune and was even imprisoned for three years for his debts, which, in view of his contributions to the formation of the United States, was scandalous. Indeed, "Morris and Roger Sherman were the only two people to sign the three significant founding documents of the United States, the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and the U.S. Constitution."
A study of Morris's life shows that it is money - more than anything - that drives revolutions and guides politics.
In vino veritas. There is truth in wine, but usually less elsewhere.
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