Don't let winter keep you from wineries

Winter is a great time to visit Finger Lakes wineries.

The wall-to-wall crowds that came out during the beautiful fall foliage season have fallen off. As a bonus, several wineries offer a treat for those who venture out in the cold, short days during January and February. It is not unusual this season to have the opportunity to taste wines not regularly offered during the busy months.

At Standing Stone Vineyards in Lodi, owners Tom and Marti Macinski quietly work their wine magic in the cold cellar. It takes 24 hours, using their new press, to squeeze 55 gallons of juice out of frozen Vidal grapes that will eventually be made into one of their dessert wines.

OK, I know watching a press drip, drip, drip for a whole day as it squeezes fruit doesn't seem very exciting. Let the press do the work while you head into the tasting room and sample some "library" wines. That's right, your reward for venturing out in the middle of winter is that you get to taste samples such as a vertical flight of Standing Stone's reserve chardonnay from 1998 through 2002.

Some of the fruit flavor had given way to the bottle aging and oak flavor. The wine took on a whole new character.

For those looking for red wines, older merlots and Pinnacles (their premium blend of Bordeaux-style grapes) are available as well.

I also learned how severely their chardonnay crop was hit because of last winter's harsh weather. The crop was drastically reduced -- from a normal harvest of 28 to 32 tons to only 500 pounds.

Despite the lack of chardonnay for 2004, Marti was still very upbeat. It took several checks on the vines, but Marti thankfully says that 98 percent of them survived the winter. Hopefully they will be back in business with a decent chardonnay harvest again this year.

You can learn about more than wine if you stop by some of the wineries over the winter. In addition to pouring some special wines at Red Newt Cellars in Hector, owner Dave Whiting could not resist telling me about what was going on in their dining area, which is closed for the winter.

It turns out that his brother John Whiting is more than a gifted painter. He is also pretty good with wood. John is building a bar in an irregular shape that will seat about 12 people when it is finished. Dave is having a special vacuum system installed that will allow him to pour about 24 wines by the glass. His wife Deb Whiting is the chef for the Red Newt Bistro, and Dave says that she "is excited about doing an extended appetizer menu for the bar tasting area."

The finely crafted surface of the bar, with row after row of long, narrow pieces of hardwood, should be stunning. They better get going though. The bistro is scheduled to reopen the first week in February. They will be open for dinners Thursday through Saturday and lunches on Saturday and Sunday. I am already looking forward to staking a claim to one of those stools and making an evening of it.

It sure will be fun pairing the available wines by the glass with each new appetizer as it pops out of the kitchen.

Jeff Richards' wine column appears each Thursday on the Twin Tiers Life Food Page. For comments or questions, he can be reached at 607/271-8279 or 800/836-8970, ext. 279, or e-mail: jrichards@stargazette.com.