New winery is a winner

Steve Shaw Sr.’s love affair with Finger Lakes grapes just keeps on growing. After nurturing vinifera grapes for 25 years, he’s tied it all together with Shaw Vineyard winery, located on Route 14 about 15 miles north of Watkins Glen. The tasting room opens next month, but Steve has been making wine for several years, and growing grapes for decades.

A Hammondsport native, Steve graduated from Alfred State College. His first brush with winemaking may have come when he spent three summers mowing lawns for the legendary Charles Fornier. Fornier and Dr. Konstantin Frank were the first to successfully produce vinifera grapes in the Finger Lakes.

A vineyard on Keuka Lake became available in 1980 and Steve began planting chardonnay grapes in 1981. He gradually expanded into growing more viniferas and some local Labrusca grapes such as Catawba. He now has nine acres of vinifera vines on Seneca and 5 1/2 on Keuka Lake.

Although his winery is yet to open, Steve already has produced his own wine, including an award-winning blend. When you walk into his new tasting room, you’ll have some wonderful choices to sample, including a 2002 Chardonnay; a 2005 Riesling; a 2002 Pinot Noir; 2002 and 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon; and a nonvintage Bordeaux-style red blend, Keuka Hill Red, which won a gold medal at the Finger Lakes International Wine Competition this past spring.

Steve’s move from selling grapes to making his own wine was made possible, in part, because of the help of another local winemaker, Morten Hallgren. Morten was a winemaker at Dr. Frank’s Vinifera Wine Cellars before starting his own winery, Ravines, with his wife, Lisa.

„I think that I owe him (Morten) a great debt of gratitude for helping me with my winemaking,“ Steve says. „He has artistic and technical background.“

Steve and Morten have an alternating premise arrangement for making wines. What this means is that they take turns using the same press pad for their grapes and then storing the wines in the same tank and barrel rooms.

Now, Steve is ready for others in the Finger Lakes to taste his product. The tasting room, built from the ground up, is timber-framed with Eastern white pine that was harvested just a few miles away. The 17-foot-high ceilings give the room an open feel, while the finish on the walls simulates the look of rich, dark leather. The floor is reclaimed jara wood from an old factory in Australia. Along one wall there will be a fireplace, although the work on that has not yet started. The trim also is not completed; Steve is doing much of the work himself, and his winemaking obviously comes first.

Shaw Vineyard offers several dry dinner wines – red and white. Steve expects to make a Cayuga and red hybrid this year to meet the anticipated requests for some sweeter wines. Until then, he will be offering a great selection of wines from various vintages dating back to 2002.

The 2005 Dry Riesling is light golden in color. It has a crisp citrus taste that softens as the chill from the cold wine dissipates. It has a clean dry finish with lemon and light mineral flavors.

The 2005 Semi-Dry Riesling has a pineapple nose with grapefruit and mineral taste.

The 2003 Cabernet Sauvignon is 100 percent Finger Lakes grapes. It has lots of fruit flavor – ripe plum, tart raspberry and a hint of black pepper.

The grapes for the 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon are from Steve’s Keuka Hill vineyard. Steve said that although 2002 was a rough year „I feel that the results were pretty good.“ The wine is a deep rich color, with ripe black cherry and raspberry tastes.

The 2002 Pinot Noir has a surprisingly deep red color for a Pinot. It’s a soft and supple wine with a flavor of plum and light taste of raspberry.

The 2002 Chardonnay is a light golden color. The really ripe grapes (harvested at 24 brix) resulted in a rich wine with oak flavor and a hint of butterscotch.

The nonvintage Keuka Hill Red is an equal blend of 2003 Cabernet Franc, 2003 Merlot and 2002 Cabernet Sauvignon. It has a bright cherry and raspberry flavor.

When the tasting room opens in August, all of these wines should be available for tasting for a $2 fee.

Jeff Richards’ wine column is normally published the third Saturday of the month. It also appears online at www.stargazette.com. For comments or questions, call 607/271-8279 or 800/836-8970, ext. 279, or e-mail: [email protected].

Source: stargazette.com