​The heavy rain continued until we were nicely ensconced in the car.  Of course it did.  Anyway, our small team left Three Brothers to head out for lunch – the Three Brothers Café was not open – and then on to other wineries in the same region as Three Brothers, the area between the two largest Finger Lakes, Lake Cayuga to the east and Lake Seneca to the west.  This brought us to Swedish Hill.
Unfortunately, Swedish Hill had just been sold.  Fortunately, it was sold to Martin Family Wineries, which owns and operates several other wineries in the area with the intent of continuing the wineries label and products.

​Two wines stood out.  One, Marechal Foch (accent over the e), is a hybrid of a hybrid.  Created in the early twentieth century, it is perfect for cooler climate zones, ripening early, cold hardy, and resistant to fungus.  For most grapes, the pulp has no color.  Marechal Foch is one of the few whose pulp is reddish, something the wine maker really needs to know.  Long story there….   Very nice wine, though it was served at room temperature, somewhere around 72 F.  Hopefully, the Martin Family Wineries will realize that red wines should not be served at room temperature, but chilled to around 60 F.

​The second wine we liked is, well, really different.  I mean, really, really different.  You see, in making this sweet red wine they add a few seasonings – cinnamon, cloves, cardamom and ginger.  Warm it up a bit, add orange slices, almonds and raisins and you have a perfect mulled wine!  Actually tastes good at room temperature without the orange slices, et al.  So bring on the Glogg!

​The University of Minnesota has produced a hybrid grape named Marquette that can be used to make a very nice wine.  As with Marechal Foch, it was developed for cool, damp climates.  Unfortunately, Swedish Hill has a version aged in bourbon barrels that really sucks!  So, as a last note to the Martin Family Wineries, free the Marquette!

​We completed our wine tasting at Three Brothers Stoney Lonesome Estates and headed off to their second winery, Bagg Dare.  We passed through an archway, and then something strange began to happen as we walked down this path to the entrance of the winery.  Perhaps it was just my imagination, but I felt like time was running backwards.  Then we came to the front counter and the feeling grew:

​and grew:

​Then we looked at the tasting menu.  Very different, you might say.  As it turns out, Bagg Dare produces mainly sweet wines, many made from grapes native to North America, i.e., grapes belonging to a species different from the European grapes that we all know and love (Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot, et al.).  As it turns out, North America is home to four grape species, none of which have been found to make particularly good wine.  However, the roots of these vines are protected from a very nasty root louse, which, when let loose in Europe, destroyed 90% of the vines (circa 1880).  Fortunately, an American viticulturist, Thomas Munson, successfully grafted roots from American wine species to vines from the European wine species and saved the wine industry.  To this day, the root louse remains such a problem that few vines are planted that do not have North American grape species roots.

​Now Bagg Dare wines were not our bag, so to say, so we moved on to Three Brothers third winery, Passion Feet. Nice place, so-so wines.

​We did not try their café, as it was closed, nor their brewery.  Instead, we headed out to other wineries – despite a heavy downpour that drenched us in our short walk to the car.  And you wonder why the Finger Lakes of New York are dreaded….

​As you can see, there are a lot of wineries in the Dreaded Finger Lakes of New York because the climate in the Finger Lakes is relatively mild compared to the surrounding area, such as Buffalo to the west which gets a gazillion feet of snow every winter and they are all very, very thirsty all of the time... 
​The lakes look like they’ve been gouged into the land by long fingers, hence the name.  These lakes keep the temperature mild and, with a nice Indian summer, the fall as well.  Perfect climate for northern Europe grapes – Riesling, Gewurztraminer, Gruner Veltliner, Zweigelt and Blaufrankisch, noting that I have left off the umlauts which is to be expected since I also leave off accent marks.

The most important grape of this region is Riesling.  Riesling is a German grape which is used to make wines that range from dry to very, very sweet.  Indeed, the Germans have names for the wines made from Riesling with different sugar content at time of harvest.  I list them from lowest to highest:

• Kabinett
• Spatlese
• Auslese
• Beerenauslese
• Trockenbeerenauslese

The first three wines in the list above can be anywhere from perfectly dry to very sweet, whereas Beerenauslese  and Trockenbeerenauslese wines are always very sweet, and most often made from grapes that have been attacked by noble rot (bortrytis).  Noble rot dries out the grapes, increasing sugar levels, and adds unique flavors to the wine.  Not having ever tasted either of these wines, the first winery we visited in The Dreaded Finger Lakes of New York offered their version of a Trockenbeerenauslese.  But before telling of our experience there, I shall go off on a tangent about Riesling for no reason whatsoever.
Riesling is a German grape that has the important properties of growing well in cooler climates, i.e., it buds late and ripens early.  It makes for a very aromatic wine with wonderful fruit flavors.  Now for most grapes the acidity of the grape falls off as the grape ripens.  Not so with Riesling.  Hence Riesling wines can be both very fruity and highly acidic.  This is a very desired characteristic, and hence great care should be made in making wines from the Riesling grape to prevent oxidation of the wine and remove any chemicals that can add other flavors.  Post-fermentation processes such as oak aging, malolactic fermentation, and exposure to dead yeast (lees) are usually avoided.
​Now on to our first winery in the Dreaded Finger Lakes of New York, the makers of a Trockenbeerenauslese wine, Three Brothers Winery.  Their history is shown in the picture below.

​They have broken down their winery into three separate wineries, and also have a brewery, with all four tasting rooms at the same site.  We started out at the traditional winery, Stoney Lonesome Estate, where we could find the Trockenbeerenauslese.  As you can see in the tasting menu below, they make a range of Riesling wines with different sweetness levels, from dry to sweet to, of course, the very sweet Trockenbeerenauslese.  In addition, they make one wine in the German Kabinett style.  We tasted the zero degree, third degree, Kabinett-style, and, of course, the Trockenbeerenauslese, which cost an extra $10 per taste.  Our sweet wine expert hated the zero degree, liked the third degree, and fell in love with the Trockenbeerenauslese.

​I should add that their Trockenbeerenauslese is not quite the same as the German Trockenbeerenauslese.  You see, the Three Brothers Trockenbeerenauslese is made by picking the grapes that have turned into raisins on the vine.  In Germany they depend on Noble Rot to dry the grapes, which adds other flavors to the wine.  Hence Three Brothers Trockenbeerenauslese is not exactly the same as German Trockenbeerenauslese.  It is, however, a very good wine, by far the best of the Three Brothers offerings.  As noted above, Livia, who I repeat is not the first Empress of Rome, really loved the Trockenbeerenauslese though she did comment that it was not quite as good as the Falernian White from her favorite wine shop in Pompeii….

​I will end this blog here and leave my musings on the other parts of the Three Brothers Winery for my next blog.  Be sure not to miss it!