Canandaigua Wine Tasting

We were so proud of finishing the installation of our new Dirt Devil central vacuum cleaner, that we decided to celebrate by doing some local wine tasting.  It is one of those unfortunate facts that, although we first visited the Finger Lakes in 2012 (between Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake), and again three times this year (in Watkins Glen on Seneca Lake, then on Keuka Lake for Birthday Weekend earlier this month, and finally here near Canandaigua Lake), we hardly had time to sample the local wineries - just a brief tour of wineries on the north end of Seneca Lake's eastern shore in 2012, then two wineries on the southern end of Seneca Lake's eastern shore in Watkins Glen, one arbitrarily-chosen winery on Keuka Lake.  So we thought we would add to the list today.

Interestingly, though, there are only three or four wineries on the north end of Canandaigua Lake, and all but one are on the western shore, nearly an hour's drive from our campground. We decided, therefore, to visit Wilhelmus Estate Winery on the northern end of Canandaigua's eastern shore - just a short drive for us.

The winery is unpretentious looking:

However, because it is a small winery, we had the good fortune of being served by the owner, Boud Kuenen.  He and his wife Karen opened the winery in 2007 and named the winery in memory of Boud’s father, Wilhelmus Kuenen.  A Dutch immigrant, Wilhelmus brought his family to the New World when his son Boud was only 7 years old. Wilhelmus started making wine in 1958. He became a very serious wine maker after his retirement in the 1970’s, winning awards across the Northeast.  Thus, this wine estate has been in the family and in operation for 56 years, and is the oldest vineyard and winery on Lake Canandaigua.

However, due to a fluke of history, most of the towns around Canandaigua Lake have been "dry" since early times and, while a vineyard or winery might theoretically be established, they were not permitted to open tasting rooms or serve or sell wine until several years ago, when our own Boud and Karen filed a lawsuit against the state liquor control agency to win the right to serve and sell wine on Canandaigua Lake as a "farm winery" that was exempt from local municipal restrictions.

As a result of this history, there are, so far, very few wineries on Canandaigua Lake, which is both good and bad for Wilhelmus Winery.

But as for the wines, they were very good!  The dry red wines, which we prefer, are unique in having 0% residual sugar.  Because the winery ferments in smaller batches and is not driven by production schedules, they have the luxury to ferment the wine until all the sugar has been turned to alcohol.  The result is a very distinctive, different taste to those of us who are used to buying commercial wines having residual sugar content.

Wilhelmus Winery grows its own grapes for most of its wines, although it does purchase merlot, syrah and cabernet sauvignon, but those are nevertheless purchased from local vineyards.  It turns out that vineyards on the eastern shore of Seneca Lake have a unique micro-climate that is much better for growing red-wine grapes of these varieties.

We found the wine tasting with Boud to be really informative.  We bought a bottle of each of his dry red wines, and a couple extra.

Then it was on to do a more broad-based wine tasting at the New York Wine & Culinary Center in downtown Canandaigua.  First, however, we took a stroll along Canandaigua's lakefront near the Center.  The lakefront boasts some marinas and parks --

-- and many marine birds --

-- not to mention boats of all types, including sailboats:



The Canandaigua City Pier, on this lakefront, boasts Canandaigua's historic boathouses.  The Canandaigua City Pier was built in 1848, and the first boathouses were built there during the 1850's. The simple wooden boathouses contained mostly small skiffs while larger ones housed sculling shells, sailing and steam yachts. In 1903, the pier was enlarged to accommodate train and trolley tracks to service the steamboats transporting farm produce and passengers along the lake. At that time the village built the "finger piers" to accommodate the boathouses, which were either moved across the ice or demolished and rebuilt in their present location. This was done in the winter of 1903-1904. By 1905 the third finger pier was built and new boathouses were being constructed there.  A Boathouse Owners' Association was formed to help protect and enforce rules and regulations prohibiting people from living in the boathouses or using them as cottages. With their rustic nature, they are an attraction for artists, tourists and photographers.  The boathouses were finally added to the Canandaigua Historic District to preserve their heritage in 1990.

Here is a photo looking down one of the piers between the boathouses --

-- and here is a detail of one boathouse that creatively used red "Solo" cups for lighting:

-- and here one of the more rustic looking boathouses:

The rears of the boathouses boats garage-door-like openings into which boats are driven, and then hoisted out of the water in the shelter of the boathouse:

Having sampled some of the local color, we walked back over to the New York Wine & Culinary Center to start our tasting:

While the Center boasts a bistro and various showcases for New York foods as well as wine, the tasting room was our destination.  It is unique in that it offers tastings of New York wines, beers and liquors.

Here, you can see that Kathy very much enjoyed her tasting of four beers and a hard apple cider.  David, in turn, enjoyed his tasting of five different wines from the Finger Lakes and Long Islands regions:

Nothing induces a person to buy wine or beer better than tasting it and succumbing to its charms, and so, we, too, succumbed and brought home samples of our favorite beverages.  David limited his choices to dry red wines from the Finger Lakes Region.  Kathy limited hers to beers she liked.

Cheers!