I thought that since we don't have any new pictures to post right now, I'd update everyone on our winery plans. Yes, we're still actually planning to start a small winery one of these days... Last summer we finally bought some land for the venture -- about 11 acres on the west side of Seneca Lake not far from Geneva, NY (located somewhere in that red box on the lake map to the left). It's a great site for a winery (note all the circles with numbers, indicating other wineries), but we'll probably never have more than 7 acres planted in grapes (which is fine by us). Odds are those grapes will be mostly riesling, with maybe some Cabernet Franc or Lemberger (an obscure red vinifera variety from Germany). But that won't be for another 3-4 years or so.
So, our next step is to decide what type of building to put on the land now for use as a place to make/store our first small batches of wine. We won't have a tasting room until things start to pick up (i.e. and we start making some money). We'd like to incorporate as many "green" building techniques as we can, since white wine generally requires a lot of cooling to maintain. Our thought right now is to build some sort of basement (with a roof), so we won't have to pay for air conditioniong to space to maintain coolness for storing the white wine. Once we have that, we'll add on the rest of the building to eventually become our winery/tasting room, and then use the basement for storage. It's all in our heads right now, but the dream is still alive!
