Award-winning wines from Airy Acres Vineyard, Interlaken (Facebook photo)
I’ve cruised up and down Route 89, the main thoroughfare on the west side of Cayuga Lake, many times but don’t often venture off that road. There are plenty of places to stop and sample wine – Knapp Winery, Thirsty Owl Wine Company, Buttonwood Grove Winery and Hosmer Winery (one of our favorites), to name just a few.
On a recent visit, I drove past a slew of these old guard wineries to visit a new-to-me and up-and-coming winery, Airy Acres Vineyard. Airy Acres – doesn’t that sound like the perfect place to visit on a summer weekend?
Airy Acres is a family-run enterprise: Fred and Pam Bassette are the owners and four of their adult children are actively involved in the business. Son Noah is the tasting room manager and sales/marketing director. He’s often joined in the tasting room by his sister Adele, whose husband serves as vineyard manager. Their children like to help out at harvest time. Son Dan is a computer consultant and designed the website – you get the picture.
Fred Bassette grew up on the farm (his father raised chickens and crops there) and inherited it from his mother in 2014. A year later, he and Pam started planting grapes, beginning with three acres of Riesling and Gewurztraminer. Over time, the vineyard has grown to 21 acres. It now includes Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, Chardonnay, Lemberger, Saperavi and Rkatsiteli. Saperavi, a red grape, and Rkatsiteli, a pale-skinned grape used in white wine, are native to Georgia, an eastern European country sometimes referred to as the “birthplace of wine.’’ Both grapes do well in cold climates, including the Finger Lakes. Airy Acres is just the second winery in the region to produce Rkatsiteli (pronounced r-KAT-sih-telly). The pioneering Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery is the first.
Spend some time at Airy Acres and you learn these things. Tell Noah you like the Airy Acres logo and he’ll tell you why it features a cluster of brightly colored grapes topped by a propeller: “Airy” refers to an airstrip on the property, built by Fred Bassette’s father in 1957, that’s still in use today.
Things are coming full circle at Airy Acres. The farmhouse that Fred grew up in is in the final stages of renovation and will soon house the vineyard tasting room and wine storage facility. A deck off the back overlooks the vineyards and Cayuga Lake.
When I visited, a small tasting bar was set up in the barn and Noah poured samples (five for $10). I missed the 2023 Rkatsiteli by about a week but headed home with a bottle of semi-dry Glide (carbonated) Gewurztraminer and two bottles of Glide (bubbly) Rose, a combination of Cabernet Franc and Lemberger.
I’m not a wine expert, but I do know that bubbles aren’t just for special occasions. They’re perfect for summer sipping. So is Riesling and dry Rosé.
I’ll be back to visit the new tasting facility at Airy Acres. If you get there first, let me know what you think.
Airy Acres Vineyard is at 8011 Footes Corners Road, near Interlaken. The winery is open 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Thursday to Sunday (and by appointment other days).
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