Swedish Hill-Goose Watch team win gold

The gold medals just keep coming. Last year was an exceptional year for Finger Lakes wineries in competitions all over the country, from here to California and Florida.

Several regional grape types won awards, from viniferas, such as the dry and semi-dry Rieslings, to French hybrid dessert wines made from Vidal grapes. And labrusca wines (using Catawba and Niagara grapes) continue to earn awards.

Results are filtering in this year from the Florida State Fair Wine & Grape Juice Competition, and Jerry D. Mead's New World International Wine Competition in California. Swedish Hill Vineyard, Inc., in Romulus, and sister vintner Goose Watch Winery, about five miles south, have teamed up to earn several gold medals in these two competitions.

The Goose Watch 2001 Viognier earned a double gold in Florida judging, along with gold medals for their 2001 Traminette, Diamond and Golden Spumante. Goose Watch also earned gold medals for its Diamond wine and its 1998 Blanc de Noir sparkling wine at Jerry D. Mead's competition.

Swedish Hill collected gold in Florida for its Cynthia Marie Port and Spumante Blush sparkling wine. Their 2001 Reserve Chardonnay earned a Jerry Mead's competition gold medal, going up against many California chardonnays.

When they started, co- owners Dick and Cindy Peterson crushed enough grapes from their first harvest in 1985 to produce 1,300 cases of wine. The wineries have grown considerably since then, now producing about 65,000 cases between them.

There have been several building expansions. Swedish Hill quickly outgrew its first tasting bar and a second, larger tasting area opened in 1988. They soon outgrew that space also and eventually two more additions to the tasting area were made to accommodate the ever-increasing number of visitors each year.

There have been challenges during the growth of the sister wineries. During a visit with Dave Peterson, Dick and Cindy's son, I got a glimpse of how things are done at Swedish Hill.

The business is broken down into different areas of responsibility. Dave spends a lot of his time working with 29 area growers who provide 80 percent of the wineries' grapes. "We work hard at the relationship with our growers," Dave says. "It is important to our future and the quality of our product."

Winemaker Derek Wilber has been making wines in the Finger Lakes for 20 years. He says there's been a big improvement in the past 10 years in the quality of fruit coming to the winery, and the difference between a good year and a bad year is much less that it was then. He attributed the better harvests largely to improvements in vineyard management.

Tracy Harris performs quality control checks on the wine up to the time it is bottled. Don Clark handles the machinery end of the facility, making sure everything is in good running order.

Here are some tasting notes on the fruits of their labor:

The Spumante blush uses the tank approach to making sparkling wine, with a blend of Catawba Delaware, Muscat and Vincent grapes. This method allows the sparkling wine to maintain a fresh, fruity taste. The 2001 Viognier is a soft, dry white wine with tropical fruit flavors and very pleasant finish.

The 2001 Taminette is very good, with bold spicy flavors up front and a crisp, clean finish. To sample them all, make a third stop -- many of the sparkling wines are poured at their third location, the Finger Lakes Champagne House, on Route 414 in Hector.

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: thewineguy