Finger Lakes, July 1-4, 2012

Posted: October 18th, 2012 | Filed under: Out Of Town

Sunday, July 1

It’s always a treat to get a rental car because then you can go get good coffee on the way out of town. The place we wanted to go in Long Island City didn’t open until 10 a.m. — who ever heard of a coffee place not open early? — so we went to Cafe Grumpy in Greenpoint instead, mostly because Goober is such a huge Lena Dunham fan. So anyway, we got a later start than we hoped and things became complicated when an exit on the Thruway was missed, which meant that we went the long way to the Finger Lakes, but which also meant that we got to drive through Seneca Falls.

A word about the car we got: We were initially very skeptical about being saddled with a Ford Crown Victoria. I went cheap with the car rental and got some “super secret” surprise upgrade for the price of a compact or something, but that car ended up being a Crown Vic. When we saw it we were like, oh hell no, but then part of me wanted to cruise around in a Crown Vic, no matter what its gas mileage. As it turns out, the gas mileage wasn’t terrible — maybe low 20s MPG — and it did cruise along like you were rolling between Tampa and Orlando — but the true value of a white Crown Vic was that it looked like a police cruiser, so it wasn’t long — maybe east of Syracuse — where we finally realized that people were actually slowing down when they saw us in the rear view mirror. Never mind that the plates were from Florida and there was a giant baby car seat in the back with two women flanking it — in the rearview we apparently totally looked like the fuzz, which gave us a huge thrill: “You’ve been Crown Vicked!” we’d guffaw as we passed some would-be scofflaw going 72. It was hilarious.

Then of course we ended up needing the trunk space in the end for all the hooch we bought:

I will always love the Finger Lakes because it was the first place that we ever really tasted wine. That said, it took me a while to figure out that listing the “residual sugar” in a wine is not a common practice, and it was kind of funny this time noticing that people pouring first sized you up by asking whether you like “sweet” or “dry” wine. They don’t ask that one at Opus One.

Anyway, from Seneca Falls, we followed New York State Route 89 along Cayuga Lake to Sheldrake Point Winery and Bellwether Hard Cider (with a stop between at Thirsty Owl):

We got into Ithaca later that afternoon, had dinner at Bandwagon Brewpub, showed the baby some sights around around downtown Ithaca (where none of us went to school) and hit the Wegmans to buy beer to drink back at the hotel (since we don’t really go out at night nowadays).

Monday, July 2

We got breakfast in Ithaca before heading out to Seneca Lake, driving up New York State Route 14 through Watkins Glen, hitting Wiemer, Shaw Vineyard, Miles Wine Cellars, Anthony Road Wine Company and Red Tail Ridge Winery. The west shore of Seneca Lake may be my favorite part of the Finger Lakes, wine-wise, what with Wiemer and Miles especially. Miles might be my favorite New York State wine, though I’m speaking out of turn for the rest of the group. Plus, it’s pretty there:

We got into Geneva late that afternoon, settled into the hotel (we’re now big fans of Microtels) and went to dinner at Beef & Brew before heading over to the Wegmans to get more beer for the evening. You may be wondering, “Why all the beer?” Honestly, after a day of tasting wine, that’s kind of what you want to drink. That, and Wegmans has a bomb-ass beer selection:

Also, this was around July 4th:

Tuesday, July 3

The next morning we drove down New York State Route 14A toward Penn Yan:

We ate breakfast in Penn Yan. Do you remember those Seth Thomas clocks that were in like every classroom? No? Well, I do:

Also, I was curious about the griddle used to break pancake world records (see, for example):

From there we went to Ravines Wine Cellars where we came face-to-face with our own mortality:

Then to McGregor Vineyard where they are super-nice and where we tried the super-weird Rkatsiteli-Sereksiya wine they make (Sereksiya is some Eastern European grape that they figured out grows well in the Finger Lakes). Then we drove through Hammondsport toward Dr. Frank, where they were celebrating their 50th anniversary (and it’s still good!). We were running out of day, but we made it back over to the east side of Seneca Lake via Tyrone . . .

. . . in time to visit Finger Lakes Distilling, which makes really good alcohol, especially whiskey (and offers quite a tasting, just so you know).

It took a while to get back to Ithaca no thanks to the Crown Vic, which got us into a slow-jam when some Honda saw it behind him/her and decided to slow down to precisely 54 MPH on State Route 79 until he/she eventually pulled to the side. We made it back — eventually — and had dinner at The BoatYard Grill:

And then dessert at Purity Ice Cream:

Wednesday, July 4

In case you’re wondering, wineries are open on July 4. We started the day with coffee from Gimme! Coffee (which started in Ithaca but which has expanded to Brooklyn and Manhattan) before driving out to the east side of Seneca Lake via Trumansburg. There are some great wineries on the east side of Seneca Lake, too — maybe we should just say that Seneca Lake has many good wineries — and we began at Standing Stone Vineyards before heading up to Lamoreaux Landing. One thing the east side of Seneca Lake has going for it is the striking beauty — I don’t know that there are many other wineries we’ve been to that are as picturesque as Lamoreaux and Standing Stone:

Farther down toward Watkins Glen is Red Newt Cellars, which in exchange for not having “estate-grown” grapes (the land is too far up the hill apparently) has the flexibility of making excellent wine that never suffers from bunk growing seasons. That was a great place to end four days of wine tasting. (Also, the baby crapped up a storm while we were in the middle of a tasting, and while I don’t totally know whether the lady pouring caught wind of the stink, we were very lucky there wasn’t a total blowout; for months since then we’ve compared poo-splosions on the “Red Newt Scale”; I somehow avoided soiling the driver’s seat; suffice it to say, it was probably a good time to wind down our trip.)

On the way back to Ithaca we stopped at Taughannock Falls State Park. Speaking of which, I’m forever grateful to the nice young lady at McGregor who hipped me to the correct pronunciation of “Taughannock,” which, if I remember correctly, sounds like “tuh-cannock” and not “tuck-a-nuck” as I was led to believe. Anyway, it was kind of dry this year, I guess:

Then we headed home, back through Whitney Point, which we always seem to stop at, before getting on New York State Route 17 which they’re still converting into an Interstate Highway:

The mighty Susquehanna:

And did you realize that’s where the store got its name?

And then the signs about restricted parking at the Roscoe Rest Area suddenly made sense:

The Tappan Zee is still there:

As is the Major Deegan:

And 13 wineries, one cider place and one distillery later, we were home.