Book Review: Seasons of a Finger Lakes Winery

Book written by John C. Hartsock

Reviewed by Dick Rizzo

You make and enjoy good homemade wine to share with your friends. You enter a few competitions and win some medals. Since you make such good wine and everyone likes it, you keep expanding your workspace and increase production to the legal limit. You're having fun and many say you should sell the stuff, but you can't because of the law. Secretly you have the desire to take the plunge and become a professional winemaker and start your own winery. Why not? It's a glamorous lifestyle. The wine you entered in a national competition wins a gold medal and you have your justification. Now all you need is money, lots of it, and the guts to quit your job and live your dream. How hard could it be?

Does this sound familiar? Is this your inner desire? Many of us see ourselves in parts of this description. This is a story of Gary Barletta, a former Syracuse home winemaker, and his wife Rosemary. In 1998, he took the plunge, purchased seven acres of land, “went all in” and started Long Point Winery on the east side of Cayuga Lake.

John Hartsock, a personal friend of the Barlettas, worked through the seasons with them and writes a fascinating narrative about his experience as well as the Barlettas' struggle to start a family estate winery. Each section is filled with problems and dilemmas as well as the promise of success depending upon the vagaries of the weather. Many of us can relate to all of them, but multiply their effect by tons of grapes and thousands of gallons and bottles instead of the amounts with which we are familiar.

Monsters do indeed exist. An unexpected secondary fermentation that put a pleasant tang in their most popular variety during the coolness of the tasting room in early winter grew into a monster as the weather warmed the following spring and early summer. Bottles were exploding not only in the winery but on the shelves of area wine shops as well as in customer's homes. An expensive lesson was learned early about bottling a sweet wine after bottling a dry one using the same equipment. Thorough sanitation is a must. Dormant yeast cells become quite active when given a fresh sugar source.

The author tells the story of the winemakers, grape growers and winery owners in the area who help each other through the difficult times, with a personal perspective that involves the reader in the process. Hartsock focuses on Long Point Winery, but many names throughout the book are familiar to us. This is the perfect companion book to Evan Dawson's Summer in a Glass. Where Dawson discusses the backgrounds and thoughts from several winemakers and owners, Hartsock focuses on the entire wine making process through the experience of this family winery. It is not too technical for the average person to enjoy. We, however, can relate to and have experienced many of the highs and lows of what is our hobby and thankfully not our business.

Seasons of a Finger Lakes Winery is published by Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY; March 16, 2011; 200p, $22.95.