After three days of tasting, these are the best wineries in the Finger Lakes we genuinely cannot stop thinking about.
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We almost did not go. A fall trip to the Finger Lakes region had been sitting on our list for two years. It's bumped each time by something more obvious... A beach trip, a city break, a flight deal that was too good to ignore.
When we finally drove up from the city on a Friday afternoon in October, Seneca Lake glowed amber and rust beneath the hills. F. and I looked at each other and asked the same thing: why did we wait so long?
Over three days, we visited 20 wineries. We went wine tasting in converted barns and in sleek modern tasting rooms with lake views stretching across Seneca Lake.
Between winemakers trained abroad and others raised in Finger Lakes wine families, every tasting came with a story. Pinot Noir surprised us, Cabernet Franc stopped us mid-sentence, and one sparkling wine still stands out weeks later. Leo and Lin, who came along for the ride, became experts in the grape juice flight by day two. They also developed strong opinions about which one was best.
The Finger Lakes wine region in upstate New York is home to over 140 wineries spread across a string of long, narrow lakes in the region, carved by glaciers. For a long time, the region had a reputation for sweet Riesling. That was never the whole picture, and today it barely scratches the surface.
Winemakers here are producing biodynamic wines, single-vineyard Cabernet Franc and Pinot Noir, and serious traditional-method sparkling wine. The quality catches even seasoned wine drinkers off guard. Wine Enthusiast named it WSA American Wine Region of the Year in 2025, and the visitors are starting to follow.
This is Finger Lakes wine country at its most exciting. It's also one of the reasons travelers continue to explore the best Finger Lakes wineries year after year.
While the vineyards were the main draw for us this time, building the perfect Finger Lakes weekend getaway
means mixing up your itinerary. When we weren't swirling glasses, we were hiking the stunning stone bridges at Watkins Glen State Park and recovering with some incredible downtime (you can read all the details in my Skaneateles Fields Resort & Spa review).
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Out of 20 wineries, five are the ones we are already planning to go back to. Here they are, along with a few others worth knowing about on your own Finger Lakes trip.
Tips for Your Finger Lakes Wine Tour
The Finger Lakes are less than an hour from Rochester and about four hours from New York City, which makes a long weekend here genuinely easy to pull off.
Fall is the classic time to visit, when the harvest is underway and the hillsides go gold and red above the lakes. But winter visits have their own appeal: fewer crowds, more time with the winemakers, and a coziness to the tasting rooms that feels earned.
Make appointments where you can, especially at the smaller boutique producers. Walk-ins are welcome at many wineries in the region, but a reservation usually means a better, more personal experience.
Several of the best wineries in the region shape their tastings around the people in the room, and that kind of attention is easier to give when they know you are coming. If you want to visit the Finger Lakes during peak fall weekends, booking ahead becomes even more important.
Clear signage makes both the Seneca Lake wine trail and the Cayuga Lake wine trail easy to follow by car. Budget two days minimum for exploring around Seneca Lake alone. Three days is better, especially if you want a full day of wine tasting without feeling rushed. And do not be surprised if you leave with more bottles than you planned. That is how it always goes in the Finger Lakes.
Best Wineries in the Finger Lakes
Trestle Thirty One
Every single person I spoke to in the Finger Lakes wine world brought up Nova Cadamatre without being asked.
She is the winemaker and owner of Trestle Thirty One, and she was the first female Master of Wine in the United States to also work as a winemaker. That is not a small thing.
What Nova makes at Trestle Thirty One is careful, considered wine. The winery currently focuses on five wines as its core lineup: a rosé, dry Riesling, demi-sec Riesling, Chardonnay, and Cabernet Franc.
Nova ferments the dry Riesling in acacia wood barrels, giving it a texture and depth that sets it apart from nearly every other Riesling in the region.
She also produces a rosé made primarily from Cabernet Franc with small amounts of Riesling and Chardonnay, which Winepair ranked among the top 100 wines globally. The Chardonnay leans into oak in a Burgundian way that many Finger Lakes winemakers tend to avoid, and it is better for it.
The tasting experience here is intentionally intimate. Nova describes it as walking into her home, and that is genuinely how it feels. She reads the room and shapes every visit around what you actually want.
Some people want a deep conversation about Finger Lakes winemaking. Others simply want to sip quietly with a good glass while taking in the surrounding vineyard views and views of the lake. She is comfortable with both. Appointments are strongly recommended, especially from late spring through early fall.
Forge Cellars
Location: 3775 Mathews Rd, Burdett
Forge Cellars sits on the southeastern side of Seneca Lake, up at a high elevation where the wind is constant, and the sun exposure is long. That combination, the team here will tell you, is where you find your grand cru sites in the Finger Lakes wine region.
Wine importer Rick Rainey and French winemaker Louis Barriel, who was born in the Rhone Valley, founded Forge Cellars after Louis fell in love with the Finger Lakes.
They made their first vintage in 2011. Today, head winemaker Leana Godard, who trained in Burgundy and the Rhone, leads the winemaking.
The philosophy is terroir over variety. They work with 16 different vineyard sites, all within a few miles of each other, and produce bone-dry Riesling, single-vineyard Pinot Noir, single-vineyard Cabernet Franc, Chardonnay, and elegant cool-climate red wine.
The team ferments everything in neutral French barrique to encourage slow, gentle oxygen contact rather than oak flavor. Fermentation runs for up to nine months. No one rushes anything.
The region’s unique geology gives the wines a natural salinity, and that freshness makes them pair extraordinarily well with food. If you visit and they offer you tinned fish with your Riesling, say yes immediately.
The tasting room has a walk-in salon and a more intimate space that requires a reservation. Either way, this is one of the top wineries not only in the Finger Lakes but arguably among boutique wineries in the world focused on cool-climate wine.
Billsboro Winery
Billsboro Winery sits along Seneca Lake and has a warmth to it that is hard to manufacture.
Kim Aliperti is the owner and general manager, her son Vincent is the winemaker, and together they have grown the operation from about 1,200 cases a year to 4,000 without losing any of that family feeling. The first vintage was 2006.
They make 13 varietals, including a dry and semi-dry Riesling, Chardonnay, Cabernet Franc, Cabernet Sauvignon, a Sauvignon Blanc that is genuinely unusual for this region, Syrah, Albarino, and a couple of hybrids.
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The 2016 Syrah won the Governor's Award. The dry rose and the Sauvignon Blanc are among Kim's personal favorites, and after tasting them, it is easy to see why. Their rotating wine list also occasionally includes a bold red blend that works especially well during colder months in NY.
Billsboro is clear about what it is doing: making food wines and dry wines for people who want to drink something with dinner. They do not try to have something for everyone, and that focus shows in the glass.
One thing that makes Billsboro especially good for families or mixed groups is the juice flight, which was introduced during the pandemic. It features wine grapes that have not been fermented, so they are naturally sweet and come in several colors.
It started as something for kids, but adults love it just as much. Open seven days a week from May through October, with reduced days in winter.
Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard
Hermann J. Wiemer is one of the founding wineries of the Finger Lakes wine region, and it still sets the standard.
Herman Wiemer came from the Mosel in Germany in the 1970s and is widely credited with proving that serious Vitis vinifera grapes could thrive in upstate New York. The first official vintage was 1979. Today the winery is run by co-owner Oskar Bynke and winemaker Fred, who has been there since 2001.
Wiemer is the only certified biodynamic winery in the northeastern United States. No herbicides have been used on the property in over 20 years. They farm about 150 acres across four vineyard sites, everything is estate grown, and the range runs to nearly 40 labels, including 14 different Rieslings.
They also produce traditional-method sparkling wine from Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, which is one of the best sparkling wines made anywhere in New York State.
Their Cabernet Franc is one of the most recognized wines in the entire Finger Lakes wine region, and many locals will argue that this is where you will find the best Riesling in the area.
The winery also has a small food menu with charcuterie boards, pretzels, and seasonal chocolate pairings created with a local chocolatier, reinforcing the Finger Lakes emphasis on local food alongside wine.
If you want to understand how Finger Lakes Riesling and sparkling wine ages, Wiemer offers private library tastings featuring wines going back 20 years. It is one of the few wineries in the region that can do this, and it is worth booking in advance.
They also run a commercial nursery and sell vines, making them the only winery-and-vineyard-nursery combination in the country.
Inspire Moore Winery
Location: 197 N Main St, Naples
Inspire Moore Winery is near Naples, close to Canandaigua Lake, and it looks like nothing else in the Finger Lakes. For travelers searching for unique wineries near Canandaigua Lake, this is an easy addition to any itinerary around the Finger Lakes.
The owner, Diane Moore, visited Frida Kahlo's blue house in Mexico City right before the winery opened and came home wanting to build something that made people feel joy the moment they walked in. It worked.
The winery was founded by Diane and her late husband Tim, who studied winemaking in Austria and became fascinated with Austrian varietals.
He was one of the first people in the region to plant Blaufrankisch, a fuller-bodied red grape that ripens well in cooler climates and has real character.
The winery now works with six Austrian varietals alongside Riesling, Cabernet Franc, and Gruner Veltliner. Son Nathaniel Moore took over winemaking after his father passed and has become one of the more inventive young winemakers in the region. In 2024, his pet nat won best in New York State. In 2025, it took a gold medal.
Many of the grapes used here come from vineyards around Seneca, Cayuga, and Keuka, giving visitors a taste of multiple terroirs across the Finger Lakes, including some standout fruit from Keuka Lake vineyards.
Every bottle carries a name meant to inspire something good in the world: love, grace, joy, peace, wisdom. Each label has a quote to match. The artisan series features collaborations with local artists and sells so quickly it is now reserved for wine club members.
The winery has a tasting room, a cafe next door, a venue space, and hosts concerts and events. Open seven days a week in spring and summer, Thursday through Sunday in fall and winter.
Special Mention: New York Kitchen
This is one of the best stops on any Finger Lakes wine tour, and not because it is a winery. It is a non-profit tasting bar and education center where you can sample wines from across the region in one sitting.
On our visit, we tasted a Dancing Bear Cabernet Franc rose, a Weis Zweigelt rose, a Fox Run Lemberger that stopped us mid-sentence, a Bright Leaf Cabernet Sauvignon, and even a New York whiskey Manhattan to finish.
Beverage education manager Maiah Johnson Dunn walked us through each pour, and she has a way of talking about wine and spirits that makes everything feel accessible without talking down to anyone. She is genuinely passionate about the people behind the bottles, and it shows in how she teaches.
New York Kitchen also runs wine classes, spirit classes, and cooking classes throughout the week, most of which sell out. Classes run from about $65 to $120 per person, and private events for groups up to 40 people are available too.
Other Wineries Worth Trying in the Finger Lakes
The five best Finger Lakes wineries above are the ones I would put on any serious Finger Lakes wine tour, but the region has so much more to offer.
The local wine industry has evolved dramatically over the last decade, with younger winemakers experimenting alongside long-established producers.
Much of that innovation is helping define what people now think of when discussing making Finger Lakes wine on an international level. Here are a few others that belong on your radar.
Ravines Wine Cellars is one of the most respected producers in the region, known for dry Riesling and Cabernet Franc that consistently rank among the best in the Finger Lakes.
Kemmeter Wines is a small, focused producer doing careful work with Riesling and other white wines, and if you are lucky you can catch the dumplings served on the same property.
Boundary Breaks is known for its single-vineyard Rieslings and its commitment to dry, terroir-driven wines on the east side of Seneca Lake.
Dr. Konstantin Frank, on Keuka Lake, is one of the most historically important wineries in all of New York State. Dr. Frank was the first to prove in the 1950s that European wine grapes could survive upstate New York winters, helping establish the Finger Lakes as a serious wine region in New York. The winery is now in its fourth generation, and the traditional-method sparkling wine is exceptional.
More Than Just a Wine Weekend
The Finger Lakes wine region does not ask anything complicated of you. You drive, you stop, you taste, you talk to the person who made the wine.
Sometimes that person is also the one who grew the grapes, designed the label, and will carry your case to the car. There is a directness to it that is hard to find in bigger, more famous wine regions, and it is a big part of why we loved it.
We visited 20 wineries in three days and came home with full bags, full notebooks, and a list of places we did not get to that is somehow longer than when we started. That is the Finger Lakes.
The more you look, the more there is. It is the kind of Finger Lakes experience that stays with you long after the bottles are gone, especially if you spend time doing proper Finger Lakes wine tasting across the area.
If you have been putting it off the way we did, stop. Book the weekend. The drive up is easy, the welcome is warm, and the wine is better than you expect. It always is. Many of the wineries here feel deeply personal, and many of the best Finger Lakes experiences come from the places you discover by accident along the way.
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