I have never been a huge fan of wine, it just really is not my thing. My girlfriend asked me if I wanted to go with her family to the Finger Lakes to visit wineries. While I’m not really a wine person I opted to go along as it is always good to get away.
The Finger Lakes are in Upstate New York and are a collection of Lakes that look like fingers. All around the lakes are wineries, breweries and distilleries. We stayed in a small town called Hammondsport, which is right on Keuka Lake. Apparently Hammondsport is “America’s Coolest Small Town”. We stayed at the Park Inn, which is a little place right in town. It only has 5 rooms, and each room is different.
Most of the wineries are open from 10-5 daily. You can go in and do a tasting, normally $5 (make sure you bring cash). Some wineries allowed you to pick the specific wines you wanted others opted for you to pick Dry or Sweet. I think this is the best way to actually know if you like wine or not. You get to taste all different types of wine and really find out what wine you like. I found out that I really enjoy sweeter wines. Most of the wineries have more than just wine there, but since it was off season most of the other things were closed. I did end up buying wine from Bully Hill and Glenora.
We went to 2 pretty nice restaurants while we were in Hammondsport. The first was Union Block Italian Bistro. It was very nice inside and there was a lot to choose from. I opted for the Lobster Mac & Cheese which was on special.
It was great and had quite a lot of Lobster inside!
The second place was called Snug Harbor and was right on the lake. Here I had “The Stripper” which is a New York Strip steak with black pepper Gorgonzola crust, served with McGregor Vineyards demi-glaze and chef’s potatoes.
It was very good and cooked perfectly.
I really enjoyed the weekend trip to the Finger Lakes and I would love to go back in the spring or summer when there is more going on. If you want to learn about wine and see if you actually like it a trip to the Finger Lakes would definitely help out!