A Visit to the Lake Ontario Wine Trail

This article was originally published in the August/September 2017 issue of THE WEDGE newspaper

Feel like getting out of the city for a day? The Lake Ontario Wine Trail (lakeontariowinetrail.com) has wineries, cideries, a distillery, shopping, and dining without the traffic in the Finger Lakes. Stops span three counties, but the trail is a close and easy drive through orchard country.

Joined by friends Diane and Bill from Walworth, we headed for a couple of new stops and revisited others along the trail.

Since they live off of Route 441, our first stop was JD Wine Cellars (jdwinecellars.com) at Long Acre Farm in Macedon. Owner Joan Allen told us that the farm began with her husband Doug’s grandfather, a traditional farmer in the 1920s, with dairy cows and standard produce. His son moved away from the dairy farming to focus on cash crops like corn.

Today Long Acre Farm is a popular family-friendly destination with the farm market, ice cream stand, children’s educational and play activities, hosting weddings, live music events, and new food menu. According to Joan, a fourth generation is coming on deck with new wine and food experiences.

Joan and Doug opted to add grape vines to their fruits and vegetables repertoire in 2010. The results have been tasty and award-winning.

We began our tasting with the Dry-Riesling with flavors of citrus, light apple, and lime. Next we tried Traminette with crisp, lime flavors and floral qualities which would be good with herbed chicken.  The Trilogy is a blend of Cabernet Sauvignon, Cabernet Franc, and Merlot that is smooth, slightly tart and has a hint of black pepper. Cranberry Riff is a 100 percent cranberry wine that tastes like cranberry juice with a kick and would be an excellent holiday wine for sipping or punches. JD Wine Cellars expects to release three new wines in the coming weeks.

Our second stop was the Old Goat Cidery (see their Facebook page,) which opened in June, at the Apple Shed Farm Market in Newark. Since 1907 Maple Ridge Farm has produced fruits and vegetables. Three generations later, in 1973, Gary Wells and wife Barb put up the landmark Apple Shed and cider mill. Now their son Matt and his wife Jessica are at the helm of the new cidery, and Gary is master cider maker. With 30 varieties of apples grown on the farm, flavor and combination prospects are exciting.

The day we visited, five ciders were on the tasting menu. Old Goat’s Heritage is a dry cider made from heirloom apples with just a hint of sweet flavor that would be good with a fish fry, a pasta salad, or a Waldorf salad. Bearded Old Goat, a gluten-free cider made with New York cascade hops, is off-dry with floral qualities. Macintosh apples blended with New England cranberries give Berry Old Goat its combination of sweet and tart flavors and pink color. Gary blends cider with New York apple blossom honey to make Sweet Mama Goat, his personal favorite. The last offering, Old Goat’s In-Law is a very limited batch cider in which Golden Delicious sweet cider from the Apple Shed ferments in oak bourbon barrels, semi-sweet, a nice sipper with flavors of apple, wood, caramel, and fall swirling in the glass.

Jessica noted that the cider bar itself is a piece of farm history, made from barn planks and old apple cider presses. The stain on the wood is, of course, apple cider.

Joan Allen welcomes visitors to JD Wine Cellars for tastings of their award-winning wines. 

Colloca Estate Winery (colloca.com) in Fair Haven was the relative new-comer on the trail. Dr. Christopher Colloca began purchasing parcels of Lake Ontario acreage in 2008 where he has planted Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, and Riesling. His Sicilian great-grandfather and grandfather made wine in their basements. Driving back and forth to college in the Finger Lakes and discussions with his older brother sparked Dr. Colloca’s interest in the wine industry. He began pulling pieces together for his own family winery as he traveled throughout the world for his chiropractic business.

Eventually connections in Australia enabled him to source and bottle bolder, warm-weather reds there under the Colloca Estate label and ship them to his New York tasting room. Today his initial 12-acre plot has grown to more than 100 acres, and he is continually expanding the services and attractions. There is a large tasting room, store and an outdoor barbeque area. The winery also hosts estate tours, several festivals, live music, weddings and corporate events.

Tastings on this day included a Dry Riesling with hints of lemon followed by the medium-bodied Riesling, a 2015 Double-Gold winner in a Finger Lakes competition. We tasted an estate Chardonnay that starts with crisp apple flavors and softens on the finish. For reds, we tried a classic Pinot Noir, with light spice and flavors of cherries and the Australian Old Vine Grenache that was smooth with lots of red berries, light spice, and slightly sweeter than expected.

All three stops on the Lake Ontario Wine Trail offered some sort of food menu, whether for lunches, dinners, or special events. We opted for the newly-renovated Mill Street Tavern in Sodus for lunch and,  since we were making a day of it, Dockers in North Rose on Sodus Bay for dinner. Mill Street Tavern serves up tasty burgers and sandwiches and had a full house for lunch. Dockers’ menu was Italian-American with generous portions and a choice of indoor or outdoor seating with views of the marina and bay.

There are other wineries to try, as well as antique shops and farm markets along the trail, so leaving in the morning and returning after dinner offers a lot of options for pacing and spending the day. The Lake Ontario Wine Trail and many of the wineries host special events throughout the year, which are posted on individual websites and Facebook pages.

Article and all photos by Glynis Valenti