Chautauqua Lake Living

Thursday, June 29, 2006

Visit The Chautauqua County & Lake Erie Wine Trail

Chautauqua County is the western-most region of New York State, and is the gateway to the wine and grape country which blankets the southern shore of Lake Erie.While recognized as one of the newest wine districts of the state, Chautauqua County has a grape and wine heritage that lies deep in the history of the area.During the Ice Age, glaciers descended from the north gouging out great trenches, and brought with them tremendous quantities of Canadian soil, rocks and boulders. As temperatures began to warm, these glaciers receded, filling the trenches with glacial melt to form the Great Lakes, and leaving in their wake the soil and gravel in ridges along the lake shore.These glacial ridges separate Chautauqua County into two separate climatic regions, the narrow band along the lake shore being the only area suitable for the production of grapes and other fruit. The gravel loam soil and moderating effect of the lake are combined in just the proper proportions to allow the industry to expand to nearly 20,000 acres at present, producing almost 60% of New York's annual grape tonnage.The Chautauqua grape industry had its humble beginnings in 1824 in the town of Portland, when Deacon Elizah Fay successfully planted the first Isabella and Catawba vines. In 1830, he made the first six gallons of wine in his cellar, and continued to expand until his wine production had grown to two thousand gallons at the time of his death in 1860.The first commercial winery was established in Brocton in 1859. Other wineries followed, until 1900, when total wine production in Chautauqua County was over two million gallons.In the past two decades, a significant number of vineyard sites have been cleared and replanted with well-known premium wine grapes, including both French-American and European Vinifera varieties.The signing of the Farm Winery Act in 1976 allowed individual grape farms to establish small wineries, limited to a maximum of 50,000 gallons of wine annually. Passage of the law resulted in an increase in the number of wineries in New York State from fourteen in 1976 to over eighty in the first decade, creating a chateau industry whose wines rival the quality of premium vintages throughout the world.Today Chautauqua County produces wines for all tastes, from the fruity native Labruscas and exquisite French-American wines to Europeanstyle Chardonnays and Rieslings. The diversity and unique-styles produced here are unequaled anywhere in the world, resulting in consumer enthusiasm for New York wines everywhere. Welcome to Chautauqua Wine Country! Savor the wine, and enjoy the hospitality!

For more information on Chautauqua Lake Real Estate & Living visit: www.chautauqualakehomes.com

Thursday, June 29, 2006

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