Weis Vineyards was established in 2017 and named New York State "Winery of the Year" just five years later. Instant success? Think again.
My recent visits to Weis Vineyards (gotta get your Teutonic on-- it's pronounced "Vice") helped confirm for me what they do best, at least as well as any other regional winery-- they produce compellingly delicious dry whites graced with perfectly balanced, varietally-correct flavors, recognizably European structure, and clean, racy acidity. How do they do this? How does a winery seemingly appear out of nowhere and win Winery of the Year?
Spoiler Alert: They don't.
Whenever you see someone or something that seems like an "instant success," you might do well to investigate further. Back in the mid-'60's, for example, my youthful self witnessed the sudden rise to stardom of singer/guitarist Glen Campbell with songs like "Wichita Lineman," "Gentle On My Mind," and "Galveston." What I and most of the general public didn't realize back then was that Campbell had toiled for several years prior as a member of "The Wrecking Crew," the informal collection of LA's top-notch studio musicians who played the actual instruments on an astonishingly huge number of hits by other artists, from the Beach Boys to Simon & Garfunkel. Likewise, our favorite celebrity chefs have typically apprenticed invisibly for long hours and many years in steamy kitchens prior to their prime time turns; and similarly our star athletes like Caitlin Clark, who had declared her goal of reaching the WNBA when she was just six and never stopped working her butt off toward that end. (See her back story HERE.)
The same is true for Weis Vineyards. While they may seem to have skyrocketed to fame and success in a mere half-decade, their actual path was considerably longer. Winemaker and co-owner Peter Weis hails from a German wine-making family with generations of experience, and he put in a decade at a prominent Finger Lakes winery before going solo. For the particulars of their journey, I find it hard to improve on this fabulous article about Weis Vineyards from the New York State Wine & Grape Foundation.
But as always, Dear Reader, I also have some of my own observations to share.
I first took notice of Weis wines when I realized that Finger Lakes Gewürztraminers can be very good, among the best in the world. (Click HERE for the Danny's Table take on Gewürztraminer.) Then I started to notice Weis wines in all the best Rochester-area stores, and I tried one of their Rieslings... and another, and another. And then I learned about their big 2022 award, so I read everything I could find about them.
It was around this time that I started pondering an unofficial "Grand Cru" designation for the very best wineries in the Finger Lakes region... and, to be honest, a few potentially disqualifying factors for Weis Vineyards crossed my brow-- for instance, they rely almost entirely on purchased grapes, with very little estate acreage under vines ("estate" bottlings are considered more cool, like local cuisine); they use a (gasp!) hybrid grape variety in at least one of their wines; they sell a sparkling wine ("Perle") that owes its fizz to (BIG gasp!) artificial carbonation...
And-- perhaps worst of all-- they've made their success look way too damn easy... enough to make me wonder whether some rich uncle was bankrolling the whole thing. (Peter & Ashlee Weis, I learned, actually built this operation themselves with brains and hard work.)
And yet all of the Weis wines I tried were not just good, they were consistently excellent. Based on quality (what else is there, really?) how could I honestly exclude from my Grand Cru designation? So I arranged to pay them a visit just to be sure. By the time I got there for a chat with co-owner Ashlee Weis, I had figured out how to explain "Perle" to myself. Taking a long step back for a good view of the wine industry, I arrived at the following:
A wine's first job is to be delicious.
A wine's second job is to be really good for its price-- what we wine geeks call a high quality-to-price ratio.
And a wine's third job is to sell, and sell at a profit... to generate enough positive cash flow and profit to keep the winery around for a few more vintages.
Some wineries have gone flat broke making excellent wines; that is, they succeeded at Job One alone, or maybe even Jobs One & Two, but not Job Three. Then again I've seen other wineries deftly cover the entire quality spectrum, producing both great (and pricey) wines and popular cheap wines. Perhaps the clearest example of this is Beringer Vineyards, the Napa Valley icon that won WINE SPECTATOR's Wine of the Year award twice, once with their 1986 Cabernet Sauvignon Private Reserve and then again with their 1994 Chardonnay Reserve... all while securing their long-term financial solidity by selling veritable oceans of (HUGE gasp!) Beringer White Zinfandel.
But while White Zinfandel is, by design, simple and insipid, Weis Vineyards's "Perle" is, I was relieved to learn, quite delicious. Indeed, I'd happily recommend it for a patio pour during our increasingly frequent heat waves, when even the yeasty complexities imparted by the méthode champenoise on expensive bubbly is wasted on our parched summertime palates. And because it is styled as an off-dry crowd pleaser, I'd also serve it at just about any informal gathering where the emphasis is on fun... because, come to think of it, FUN is the perfect one-word description for Weis Vineyards PERLE.
And if PERLE pays a few bills, umso besser (all the better) if it helps to enable Peter and Ashlee Weis and their lovely winery at the fork of Keuka Lake to thrive well into the future and continue making so many excellent wines.
Owners Peter & Ashlee Weis have a lot to smile about.
WEIS VINEYARDS
10040 Day Road (right off 54, which hugs Keuka's east shore)
Hammondsport, NY (even though it sits halfway up the lake)
Open EVERY DAY 10:00AM--5:00PM (Thank you for that!)
TASTING ROOM VIBE--
Informal, Fun, and Informative
MY FAVORITE WEIS WINES (SO FAR)--
Dry Rosé
Unoaked Chardonnay
Gewürztraminer
Grüner Veltliner
ALL of the Rieslings
NOTES:
Route 54 lines Keuka's east shore... be careful not to confuse it with 54A on the west side.
The term "méthode champenoise" has been largely supplanted by "méthode traditionelle" in order to placate the tender sensibilities of the French, who jealously guard their geographical place-names. I'm told that Weis is sitting on a full-blown "méthode traditionelle" Champagne-style bubbly in their cellars, developing the flavors that only come with patient aging "en tirage," i.e., "on the yeast." I can't wait to try it!
Other than the Beatles and Rolling Stones, very few 1960's pop/rock songsters actually played their own instruments in the studio. That's why they needed "The Wrecking Crew."
And speaking of the Beatles and "overnight success," it took me until now to appreciate that their seminal Ed Sullivan Show appearance in 1964-- America's first real look at the Fab Four-- came at a point more than halfway through their entire existence.
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