Wine and Spirits Travel

I didn’t get quite as much sleep as I would have liked to start my first full day in Finger Lakes, but I was not about to let it get me down when I had such a great schedule ahead of me.  Meg from the Finger Lakes Visitors’ Center picked me up in Canandaigua bright and early, immediately improving my mood with a stop at the South Bristol Overlook. It was the first of many breaktaking views of lakes, mountains and valleys I was to see here and, even though I would have been content to explore it all day, I had wine to get to. The first winery of the day was a perfect choice. It was only 9:00 am so my mind wasn’t quite in tasting mode, but Tim and Diane quickly changed that in their laid back winery where they told me “we wanted to imagine more in life.”  Each bottle is a journey, not just by its name, but in the creative quotes and unique etches of their children on the bottles.  It all started – appropriately – with “Love,” Imagine Moore’s semi-dry Riesling, their most popular

I grew up in New York and spent most of my adult life there, but have never made it up to the Finger Lakes Region .   I had heard of the beauty of the lakes – Canandaigua, Keuka Park, Seneca, Cayuga, Owasco, Skaneatles and Orisco.  It wasn’t something I put high on my priority list, preferring to spend most of my vacation time heading south, west, or in the Caribbean.  Then I heard about the wines.  Not only were the wines from this region becoming well-known, but I was starting to hear more and more wineries around the country that were getting grapes from the Finger Lakes.  I knew it was time to check this place out. First of all, visiting the Finger Lakes wine country isn’t something you do for the day (unless you live in the area).  The region spans through over 600 miles of shoreline and includes over 100 wineries.  I would never attempt such an endeavor by myself so I called in the reinforcement which, in most cases, is the convention and visitors’ bureau and Finger Lakes has