News and Notes

© Charles Harrington

Our tasting room experience is the result of the varieties of grapes we grow and the weather during each growing season. Because we chose to be licensed by the Federal Government, in 1982, as an Estate Winery we can use only the grapes we grow on our property to make our wines. Thus, all of our wines are truly Appellation Finger Lakes / Cayuga Lake!

There are two ways you may taste wines at Frontenac Point Vineyard. 

One is the traditional way of choosing five wines from our list and get a 1-oz pour of each, in sequence, in the same glass. We serve cubes of local artisan bread for these tastings to refresh your palate in-between tasting each wine.

A bottle of Seyval, Chambourcin, and Chardonnay set between two Frontenac Point glasses and a cheese plate on a sunny day winery deck with Cayuga Lake in the background.

The other way is our Fights. They are also popular to compare four wines side by side. This provides time and more wine in each glass to taste differences. The Flights we offer are: Dry Red, Dry White, Sweet – or – you can choose four wines from our list to customize your own Flight. To complement our wine, we have local artisan cheese, charcuterie along with pita crackers or gluten free crackers available for purchase.

Did you ever wonder what happens with the wines, in the winery cellar in the winter?

Wine barrels stacked in two rows

Being a limited production winery and open only 2-4 days 6 months of the year, we can age our wines before offering them for tasting and sale.

One tank of 2019 Riesling is resting for six more months before it will be bottled. It will be released as a Reserve Riesling. So part of this vintage has been ‘reserved’ to see how, with more time, it will develop. Now it has mild notes of lime with a crisp, clean finish.

The 2020 Vignoles/Traminette is unoaked and will be aged 8-more months before being bottled.

The 2020 Chardonnay is unoaked. The wine has lime and pineapple flavors developing. This will be bottled in the early summer 2024 and then released for tasting room visitors and sale.

The 2020 Pinot Noir is a classic, old-world Pinot – gentle. It will be fined and bottled in June and ready for visitors in the tasting room in the late 2024 summer. The 2021 Chambourcin was fermented by ‘carbonic maceration.’ It has berry, almost liquorish notes. This wine will be left in the barrel one more year before bottling.

Seated and standing guests enjoy wine and company on the deck, with Cayuga Lake in the background

When we re-open the tasting room for 2024, in May, you can learn about the various methods of winemaking as well as walk in the vineyard. Tours are available when one of the owners is in the tasting room. Tour or not, you’ll learn about wine-growing and making wine while talking with our professional staff.

You can bring a picnic, add a glass of Frontenac Point wine and enjoy the view from the covered deck. But due to limited space if people are waiting to be on the deck, your time may be limited to one hour.

Jazz and Boots

We adopted our 13th and 14th vineyard dogs, Jazz and Boots, from Paws of Valor Animal Rescue in Tennessee in 2017.  They were together for more than five years growing up in Detroit. Their story is full of love and tragedy.  Now they enjoy life in the vineyard!

A large black dog with white feet and a large black dog with with accents on its face stand together under grapevines.