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Left: Dr. Konstantin Frank was a pioneer of wine making in the Finger Lakes; right: the author, Cezar Kusik, and Chef enjoying glasses of Rkatsiteli on the stoop at 25 Lusk in San Francisco.
of finding me in the most unexpected places. It all started with The Great Spirit. To Native Americans, it was a place of special beauty and mystery and to bless it, the Great Spirit placed his hands on its surface, thus leaving 11 indentations that eventually filled with water, adorning the area with 11 pristine, elongated lakes. He must have had 11 fingers; he was The Great Spirit after all. Another, less interesting version of their origins is that the lakes were formed during the Ice Age, carved out by the advancing and retreating glaciers. You pick your interpretation. The AVA (American Viticultural Area) of Finger Lakes was established in 1982, but the history of wine making in the region dates to the middle of 19th century when William Warner Bostwick, an Episcopal minister, planted Vitis labrusca vines in his rectory garden. In 1855, the first commercial winery was founded on Keuka Lake. Initially, German immigrants took lead in vine cultivation in the region. Later, the two major
Champagne houses of Louis Roederer and Moët & Chandon established their operations there. Their success resulted in an estimated 24,000 acres of vineyards and over 59 wineries. By the end of the 19th century, more than three-quarters of all American sparkling wine was made on Keuka Lake. The period of Prohibition had a devastating effect on the Finger Lakes’ wine industry – as it did on all American wine regions. The recovery was marked by the founding of two sizable wine companies. Taylor Wine Company, which specialized in sparkling wines, and the Canandaigua Wine Company. The latter’s Richards Wild Irish Rose was introduced in 1954; by 1980s, eight million cases of it had sold. These mega wine conglomerates, with their focus on high volume production of usually inferior quality wines, brought about a decline in the demand for Finger Lakes wines. Grape prices tanked and the vineyards began to disappear. Then in the second half of the 20th century, a new model of wine business
for the area emerged: estate wineries. Their focus was a full control of the whole process of wine making from farming to vinifying. Smaller operations, usually family-owned with a “quality-over-quantity” philosophy led the way. Two pioneers of this new trend stood out: Walter Taylor’s Bully Hill Vineyards and Dr. Konstantin Frank’s Vinifera Wine Cellars. A group of ambitious vintner pioneers followed. It is impossible to talk about the Finger Lake AVA without paying tribute to Dr. Frank. After WWII, the Frank family emigrated from Ukraine and settled in New York state. It was on the banks of Keuka Lake that in 1958, Dr. Frank planted his first Vitis Vinifera vines starting what has been since known as the Vinifera Revolution. Vitis Vinifera, aka the common grape vine, is of Mediterranean origins and is associated with most grapes used in the production of quality wines. Before Dr. Frank, there had been many attempts at cultivating the specie in Central New York, but they all failed page 143