Why We Started a Winery
If you’ve found your way here recently—welcome! With the recent announcement of our winery’s name, it felt like the right time to pause and explain who we are, why wine has always mattered to us, and why we’re taking this step now.
Some wine stories start in a vineyard. Ours started much earlier.
My wine story began in Italy in 1994. After my second year of law school, instead of taking the expected summer associate job, I studied abroad in Rome. I spent evenings wandering into small grocery stores, pulling inexpensive bottles of Chianti wrapped in straw from the lowest shelves. The wine was simple, joyful, and unforgettable. That’s when wine became part of everyday life for me.
Scott and I met shortly thereafter online in 1995, when noone was doing that yet. A year later, he transferred to the University of Rochester, moved from Idaho to Rochester, and landed a job at White House Liquor. He stocked shelves, got to know distributors, and learned wine from the ground up while I was building my legal career, and he started his career as an ICU nurse. Wine became something we explored together.
Our honeymoon to Napa in 1998 sealed it. We visited wineries, kept handwritten tasting notes, saved labels, and afterward we said, “We love this. We should do this.” Then we went home and didn’t. Careers, kids, and life took over.
But wine continued to be front and center in our lives. We explored the Finger Lakes over long weekends, rented lakeside cottages, followed the region as it evolved, and gradually became regulars rather than visitors.
Then, in the fall of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, we bought a lake house on Cayuga Lake—unexpected, unplanned, but immediately right. That house has since become our summer home and the anchor for much of what we’re building now.
Scott eventually moved from tasting wine to making it. After winemaking and viticulture coursework, vineyard work at Boundary Breaks, and multiple harvests at Silver Thread, he made (in our basement) his first solo batch of Riesling in 2024 using Finger Lakes fruit. That wine received a bronze medal in the amateur winemaking category at the New York State Fair—something we’re really proud of.
As we continued along our wine journey, it also became part of our family’s story.
Our older daughter, Sophie, worked multiple summers at Boundary Breaks and now works at Deland House’s wine bar and Century Liquor while finishing graduate school at SUNY Buffalo. She and I are studying for WSET exams together.
Our younger daughter, Talia, is pre-med at University of Rochester and an artist, and her work has become part of how the lake house feels like home.
Starting a winery isn’t a sudden pivot for us. It’s the continuation of a long, patient relationship with wine, this region, and a way of life we’ve grown into over decades.
It’s a side project for both of us; Scott’s still working as an ICU at Strong Memorial Hospital, and I’m still bridging law and technology at 8am. But it’s a fun new joint endeavor, and we couldn’t be more excited about it!
This blog is where we’re sharing that journey: tastings, harvest lessons, our winemaking journey, food, wine, family, and the lake house that ties so much of it together.
If you’re new here, we’re glad you found us; If you’ve been here a while, thank you for sticking with us!
If you like this post, you might like to learn more about this year’s Riesling harvest here.
If you’re following along, more stories (and wines) to come. If you want to stay updated on the latest posts, make sure to subscribe to our blog. And don’t forget to check out our Facebook group, Finger Lakes Food and Wine Adventure.
Cheers from the lake,
—Niki and Scott
