Merging Ancient Vessels with Modern Techniques

Six Eighty Cellars 2020 Cabernet Franc Appassimento

Within the modest exterior of Six Eighty Cellars, you’ll find every winemaker’s dream: A facility that boasts one of every kind of fermentation and maturation vessel imaginable. Not only that, but the winemaker, Ian Barry, also has the opportunity to work with varieties that are uncommon to the Finger Lakes region and treat them with processes most commercial wineries wouldn’t dare to use.

This experimental winery is the brainchild of Dave and Melissa Pittard, Finger Lakes natives and the owners of Buttonwood Grove Winery. Agriculture has always been in Dave’s blood; he grew up helping on the family orchard, Beak & Skiff Apple Farm in Lafayette, NY, which produced apple wine, cider and vodka. It led him to pursue an education at the Cornell College of Agriculture.

In 2014, Ken and Diane Riemer, the former owners of Buttonwood Grove Winery, decided to sell the property and the brand. The Pittards saw this as their chance to enter the wine business. Since then, they have continued the legacy by building a new winemaking facility, expanding the vineyards and creating new hospitality opportunities with a summer music series and on-site cabins for overnight stays.

Departing from the norm, Pittard also wanted a brand that was devoted to creativity, to playing with offbeat vinifera varieties as well as winemaking techniques and vessels. He looked to a piece of land just down the road from Buttonwood Grove that rises 680 feet from Cayuga Lake and in 2020 purchased the perfect spot to establish Six Eighty Cellars.

The Pittards are committed to farming sustainably, even in such an extreme environment. While spraying is a common, and necessary, practice, Dave is trialing an organic, algae-based fungicide to protect the grapes. The hope is to preserve the land for his kids and boost the reputation of the Finger Lakes.

Centered on the premise that the past can inform the future, the Pittards and Barry are determined to use traditional winemaking methods and vessels and bring them into the 21st century. While there are some barrels and stainless steel tanks, the beauty of this cellar is in its wide array of fermentation vessels: A terracotta cigar, cocciopesto opus, clay clayers, and a concrete tulip from Italy; vin et terre sandstone vessels in egg and jarred form from France; and an appetite to trial any vessel they can get their hands on.

Some of those offbeat varieties (for the region) that the two plant and ferment include Chenin Blanc, Gruner Veltliner and, in the future, Gamay. The hope is to not only differentiate their portfolio but to see what else the region has to offer. Barry uses minimal intervention on these varieties to highlight the bracing acidity and fresh fruit inherent to the grapes and the region.

Of course, Chardonnay, Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc and Riesling are also planted; but in these typical Finger Lakes varieties they use atypical methods to produce rather unexpected styles. Think a semi-carbonic Cabernet Franc, a Merlot made as a Pet-Nat, or a Riesling that was wild-fermented in a sandstone egg.

Take the 2020 Cabernet Franc Appassimento, for example. In the traditional Valpolicella style, grapes are partially dehydrated prior to fermentation. The wine is then split between two older French oak barrels and an Italian terra cotta “cigar” before being blended again. The Cabernet is mostly dry, with just 2.2 percent RS.