How To Plan a Tour of the Seneca Lake Wine Trail

Responsibly and safely visiting the wineries, with a little homework and effort, can be a remarkably rewarding and enjoyable experience. Here are a few tips on how to make sure you have the best time possible.

- Having a designated driver is never a bad idea. While the wineries can be toured, their wines enjoyed, safely and responsibly even if you lack a designated driver, certainly having one on board removes one potential difficulty.

- Spitting is good. Of course we've all been taught from a young age to never spit. It's rude, unseemly, etc. However, when sampling wine, spitting is never a bad thing. It enables to enjoy the wine, confirm if you like it or not, but of course doesn't increase your blood alcohol levels, enabling to sample more wines and still be safe and responsible, especially if you're driving. All wineries provide spit buckets at their tasting bars though if you happen to not see one, just ask, and they'll gladly provide one for you. 

- Take your time. Oftentimes people contact the offices of the Seneca Lake Wine Trail and ask “How many wineries can we visit in a day?” The real question is “How many wineries can we enjoyably visit in a day?” Visiting wineries is definitely not about seeing how many samples you can wolf down in an 8 hour period. There are boxes of characterless wine from Australia, California and other large wine producing regions that can be enjoyed in your own backyard to satisfy that craving. Visiting the wineries themselves is intended to help you experience, and truly appreciate, the wines they labor to make, helping you evolve your personal palette, and enabling you to buy the best wine. Because, of course, the best wine is literally the wine you personally like the most! It isn’t a race, it’s a journey, to cite that tired old maxim…

- Drive responsibly. This probably seems like a foregone conclusion, but here in bucolic western New York State, many wineries are still on small two-lane roads, with lots of curves and driveways peppering the roadsides. And with a sizeable population of Mennonites in the area, it is not uncommon to see horse-drawn carriages or kids on bikes, riding alongside the roads. Remember, with only less than 10 miles between one winery and the next, driving over the speed limit really isn’t going to do you any good. Just take your time, enjoy the scenery and savor the experience.

- Eat food! Food is good. Not just because you need a balanced diet to maintain a healthy body, but also because by having a belly full of good food you’re less likely to get radically tipsy quickly. Make sure you start your touring day out with a solid breakfast, and definitely make sure you visit one of our region’s many excellent restaurants for lunch. Or, if you want to save your hard earned cash so you have more money to buy cases of wine with, bring a picnic lunch! There are many excellent parks in the area, and even wineries themselves, with picnic locations.

- Don’t drink alcoholic beverages between wineries. It never ceases to amaze us when we hear stories of, usually younger groups of people that opt to slam beers or shots between visits to wineries. When you drink excessively your palate becomes numb to flavor, and pretty soon ALL the wine tastes great! This isn’t an entirely bad thing for the wineries, per se, but they definitely don’t want you to go home, crack open a case of wine you bought in the late after a day of slamming drinks, and find out “Yowza, that doesn’t taste so good to me!”

- Ask questions. Wineries work very hard to employ and train knowledgeable tasting room staff. What separates the average tasting room server, from a bartender at your average tavern, is that they know much, much more about the wines, how they were made, what distinguishes them, etc. Take advantage of their knowledge and ask them any questions you may have. Knowing more about wine, and the wines you’re buying, not only makes you cooler at a party, but does seriously help you appreciate and even enjoy the wine even more.

- Research the wineries. Rest assured, we’re no advocating you spend countless hours in your local library to generate a dissertation on which wineries you want to visit. However, many wineries specialize in certain types of wines, types of grapes and possess various, unique features which will make one winery more appealing to you personally, and others not as much. Of course, provided you’re not traveling in a large group, you can always pop into a winery that looks interesting, that maybe you know nothing about (which itself is sometimes a fun way to find new wineries and wines you otherwise would have never experienced) but by doing a little research before you start on your tour, you’ll be assured of enjoying the most number of wines you’re most likely to appreciate. Our website at www.senecalakewine.com not only contains vast stores of information on the wineries themselves, but also keeps updated lists of awards won by wineries, which is another good indicator of which wineries specialize in, and excel at producing, certain types of wines.

- Ask friends and family members. Over the years many of your friends and family have undoubtedly visited the winery region you’ll be visiting. And, as is true with any experience like this, sometimes they can provide you with some good insight on which wineries to make sure you visit. There are also many good blogs out there, like the fingerlakesweekendwino.com, that can provide detailed, objective, worthy feedback on various wineries.

- If you’re interested in learning even more about wine than what it tastes like, several wineries on the Seneca Lake Wine Trail offer “behind the scenes” tours of their facility. Participating in one of these, often at an additional cost, will enable you to have a guided tour of the complex hardware and techniques that together result in wine.

- Empty out your car’s trunk. Most of the wines you’ll be sampling can only be readily purchased at the winery itself. And how much of a bummer would it be if you sampled some wine that really knocks your socks off, that can’t be purchased at your neighborhood liquor store, only to discover the case you purchased won’t fit in your cluttered trunk!

- Get a brochure. Most wine trails print a detailed, easy to use brochure containing maps, descriptions of wineries and other helpful information. These brochures can usually be mailed to by a wine trail office, or can be picked up at a local chamber of commerce, information center, or at one of the first wineries you visit. Online maps are fine, but sometimes a printed version of the information is most helpful.

- Don’t forget the off season. Most wineries these days are open 52 weekends a year, and a majority of the wineries are open almost 365 days per year. Few wineries are “seasonal” and close down for the winter. But of course summer is so beautiful, people will remind you! The fall foliage is so gorgeous! Those facts are true, and certainly visiting the wineries those times of the year is fine too. However, if you’re passionate about learning about the wines, the off season (generally between Thanksgiving and Memorial Day) is truly the best time of the year to tour wineries, when there are fewer customers vying for tasting room staff attention, and an increased likelihood of an owner or manager being at the tasting bar who are incredibly knowledgeable.

- Groups should make appointments. If you’re traveling in a group of 10 or more people, many wineries require an appointment be made. Why? Because they try very hard to make sure that when your group arrives, they’ll be greeted and served promptly and capably, so they will literally plan their staff levels to accommodate groups. If they know when your group is coming, but they already have a full tasting room, then they’ll, for example, bring a vineyard manager out of the vines, and have him or her serve your group.

- Have fun. Granted, most people don’t need to be encouraged to have fun, but many people mistakenly think that wine is a deadly serious business. It isn’t. It’s a complicated art and science, certainly, and some people like to pretend its incredibly serious, but it isn’t. Wine is a delicious beverage, the enjoyment and exploring of which should above all else be fun.

- And if you have more questions beyond those listed here, feel free to call the offices of the Seneca Lake Wine Trail toll-free at 877-536-2717 weekdays during regular business hours and our expert staff will assist you.