Profile: Finger Lakes

The Rieslings of Finger Lakes in up-state New York are looking to expand awareness of their wines in export markets and are pioneering the use of a sliding scale of sweetness.

With roughly 110 producers and 8,000-9,000 acres of land under vine, Bob Madill, president of the Finger Lakes Wine Alliance, admitted that significant volume would be hard to achieve.

However, speaking to the drinks business, he stated that a great many producers were keen to move their wines beyond the limits of wine tourism to the region and more into the on- and specialist off-trades in markets such as the UK.

He said that “bits and pieces” were already brought over but that he had noted very positive interest towards the wines during the course of the London International Wine Fair and had already seen strong interest from northern European and Scandinavian countries during ProWein earlier this year.

With nearly three quarters of Madill’s wine being sold to the 30,000 or so tourists that visit the region each year, he said that the producers did not really need to export but it was an attractive proposition.

With the majority of his wines sold between US$12 and $18 he was confident of being able to sell wines for the equivalent in pounds sterling.

Although Madill did acknowledge that Riesling was a hard sell in the UK market due to the Liebfraumilch effect, but he thought that the niche market for German and Austrian Rieslings was one that would, hopefully, be able to support the small quantities he and other Finger Lakes producers could provide.

Madill said that most producers in the area followed the Germanic tradition of producing a variety of styles from dry to sweet.

To help what he called “discerning drinkers figure out what they’re after in terms of style and flavour”, he talked to db about the dry to sweet sliding scale that features on the back label of all New York Rieslings.

It is a system that has been agreed upon by a number of bodies governing Riesling worldwide. Madill stated that it had a wide following in the US, Australia and even Alsace but was “difficult for Europeans to implement”, depending on the country’s wine laws.

German Rieslings from the Verband die Prädikatsweingüter for example cannot use the scale.

Madill admitted it was “not a perfect system but it is good and even Gewürztraminer producers, at least in the states, are looking at using it too.

Rupert Millar, 19.05.2011