Story and photos by Christopher Bennem
On a brisk May evening in Geneva, my wife Lisa and I made our way down Linden Street to Vinifera to visit proprietors Jim Cecere and Kevin San Jose. We’d just been to a winemaker’s dinner with Nova Cadamatre, the visionary behind Trestle Thirty One, and were brimming with enthusiasm. It was late, and the wine bar was getting quiet, so San Jose and Cecere indulged us in conversation. The topic: how underrated was Finger Lakes chardonnay?
San Jose and Cecere leaned into the question with gusto. In their opinion, the best FLX chardonnays were excellent and seriously underrated. Delighted, we told them our news: we’d just bought a little Chardonnay vineyard.
As the owners of Glen Hollow, a vacation rental/retreat on Canandaigua Lake’s Seneca Point, Lisa and I had been bringing influencers to this region for years. I’d grown up in Western New York but had spent most of my career outside the area. Coming back in 2015, I was amazed at the explosion of the Finger Lakes wine scene. With Glen Hollow, Lisa and I committed ourselves to sharing the magic of this place with as many people as possible.
We were especially thrilled when, in 2022, Heron Hill Winery had a chardonnay which landed on Wine Enthusiast’s Top 100. Their Canandaigua tasting room was just three minutes from Glen Hollow, and the Top 100 wine had been sourced from a small plot of old vine chardonnay three minutes in the other direction, next to Heron Hill’s legendary Ingle Vineyards.
We explained to San Jose and Cecere that we were now the owners of that little vineyard and that Heron Hill’s Jordan Harris would be making our wine. We expected them to approve – after all, they’d sold us several bottles of that very chardonnay. What we did not expect was to discover that it was San Jose who’d recommended it to Wine Enthusiast.
San Jose described a conversation with Wine Enthusiast’s tasting director, who asked him what the “story” of the Finger Lakes was. We were known for riesling, and word was spreading about our cabernet francs. But then what? The Finger Lakes portfolio had come to include a sprawling array of different wines, influenced out of necessity and the experimentalist urges of local winemakers. San Jose made the case that chardonnay was a variety where FLX winemakers were doing great things.
The claim was consistent with what Nova Cadamatre had told us. She was thrilled with her 2021 chardonnay, a year not usually praised locally. Her chardonnay had undergone an unusual level of “bottle shock,” mimicking the effects shown in the movie of the same name. But just as with the film’s depiction of the Judgment of Paris, in which American winemakers poured their best against the giants of France and won, Cadamatre claimed that she would put her chard up against any from Burgundy.
Recently, we visited her again to talk chardonnay.
“As a winemaker, I love chardonnay because it’s a wine that you really get to push the buttons and turn the knobs on,” she said, referring to its malleability and the number of different choices a winemaker uses to vinify it.
She poured us three different vintages. As 2022 was a drought year, logic suggested that vintage would have been “bigger,” than the delicate wine we tasted. Nova smiled. “I did partial Malo that year.” Malolactic conversion is the process that can give chardonnay a smoother, rounder texture. In the high-alcohol wines from California’s Napa region, this often lends the wine a buttery quality that some love – and others do not.
But in wine terminology, the Finger Lakes AVA is a cool climate region, known for producing leaner, brighter wines, high in acidity. Our chardonnays are more like those produced in Chablis, the northernmost region of Burgundy. Like their winemakers, many here avoid using oak or malolactic conversion. For her 2022 vintage, Cadamatre had moved down one of the “dials” to counter the heat, retaining that brighter character.
A month after our conversation with Cecere and San Jose, they revealed the depth of their commitment to their claim. Debuting their own label, Le Chevalier, they introduced just two wines: a cabernet franc and a chardonnay (they’ve since added rosé and riesling to their lineup). Cecere described their decision as a journey that tracked with the delight of their customers, who were continually surprised at the quality of Finger Lakes Chardonnay.
“We knew that with chardonnay we could stand out,” he said, “but more importantly, we could become part of what is an increasingly elevated voice of an under-represented varietal in the Finger Lakes.”
Our conversations with San Jose and Cecere inspired this series of articles, so when discussing chardonnay, I knew I had to talk to their winemaker, Ian Barry. Like Cadamatre and Harris, Barry has a restless creativity. I tracked him down at Six Eighty Cellars, just one of four labels he makes wine for. Six Eighty specializes in unique vessels, featuring chardonnays made in sandstone egg, and terra cotta cigar.
“Everyone talks about oak versus steel,” he would later tell me, “But I feel like earthenware vessels can sit in between those two.”
The Vinifera winemaking team, originally led by Susan Passmore, decided on a more classic expression, however, using neutral oak to create a clean, elegant chard, emblematic of the region. As for the bigger question, his opinion echoed Cadamatre’s: “I absolutely believe that Finger Lakes chardonnay is equal to anything coming out anywhere else in the world.”
Before leaving, I confessed to being a vineyard owner, mentioning our location. Going into a back room, he returned with a bottle. “Here,” he said, handing it to me with a lop-sided smile. “I made it from the grapes on your vineyard.” Three weeks later, that same wine would earn 92 points on Vinous.
Jordan Harris hit a walk-on homer with the chardonnay from our vineyard in his first year at Heron Hill. Landing on Wine Enthusiast’s Top 100 list is rare: only three FLX wines made it in 2022, one in 2023 and none in 2024. Achieving that with any Finger Lakes wine is astounding. Managing it with chardonnay is a statement.
“Chardonnay is a grape that some winemakers like because it can grow anywhere,” Harris once told me. “But just because it can, doesn’t mean it should. When planted in boring terroir, you will get boring chardonnay. The Finger Lakes is never boring. Especially Glen Hollow Vineyard.”
Our vineyard is chillier than some – about 3/4 of a mile from Canandaigua Lake – but the wind provides ventilation, desirable in our wet climate. Its rows align downhill on a southeast-facing slope. The sun and lake breezes that warm and cool the old vines create layered, nuanced fruit, high in acid and Harris uses just enough oak to bring these elements into perfect balance.
This controlled use of oak with careful selection of fruit is a common theme among all three of these winemakers, as well as many of the best chardonnays you will find coming from the Finger Lakes.
“Chardonnay in the Finger Lakes is the barometer for winemaking quality,” San Jose explained. “It remains an untamed beast. It is a canvas of a grape, where special care in the vineyard, with equal care in the winery, is required to harmonize terroir and the hand of the winemaker in the glass. It is a very transparent grape, where balance is the benchmark of a great expression. Chardonnay is demanding in that it loses concentration and power due to factors like excess yields or a wet vintage. When coupled with overpowering oak use or the buttery influence of overly-exuberant malolactic fermentation, the result is a wine that has been stripped of the grape’s natural elegance. In short, the producers who can master Chardonnay are the ones crafting great wines from the other grapes of the Finger Lakes.”
Christopher Bennem is co-owner of Glen Hollow, a vacation rental, writer’s retreat, and winery now launching its first vintage. Follow him on Instagram @glenhollowflx
