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60 WINES&VINES July 2016 WINEMAKING WINE EAST KEY POINTS The craft beverage industry—wine, beer, cider and spirits—is booming across New York state. This article describes how three Finger Lakes wineries are riding that wave with a variety of distilled spirits. Swedish Hill Vineyard uses raspberries and brandy to make its Raspberry Infusion. Six Mile Creek Vineyard takes extracts of lemon, orange and almonds as the flavors for three liqueurs. Adding distilled spirits can give wineries more options to utilize raw materials. Distilling also offers another way to handle bumper crops that don't quite measure up to expected quality standards. N ew York state enacted legisla- tion in January 2013 to ease the requirements for production of distilled spirits on a small scale, or farm distillery basis. Yet prior to this legislation, a number of New York farm wineries already were licensed to produce distilled products from their grapes as part of their operations. Three such wineries from the Finger Lakes region of New York in- clude Swedish Hill Vineyard, Rock Stream Vine- yards and Six Mile Creek Vineyard. Swedish Hill Vineyard Romulus, N.Y. Derek Wilber is the winemaker/distiller at Swed- ish Hill, where he has worked for 11 years. The winery was at the forefront of farm winery distil- lation in the Finger Lakes and purchased a pot still in 1994. Swedish Hill uses its distilled spirits in several dessert wines including Cynthia Marie Port; their sister facility, Goose Watch Winery, produces Classic Cream Sherry and Finale White Port. Additionally, they produce smaller amounts of an Eaux de Vie as well as Raspberry Infusion, a product made from fresh raspberries and Swedish Hill's distilled grape brandy. The winery's 600-liter alembic-style copper pot still was made in Portugal. Heated with LP gas, the still is surrounded by brick to maintain a constant temperature. Each batch contains 125 gallons of wine made from different variet- ies of grapes, although Wilber primarily uses white labrusca grapes such as Catawba and Niagara. The cost of grapes is relatively low, and Wilber likes the "nice high notes" of aromatics the native varieties add to the distillate. Distillation at Swedish Hill takes place out- side, under the cover of a roof and adjacent to a pond that provides the cooling water for the condenser. Wilber said that he tries to distill when the air temperature is at least 65° F, noting that colder ambient temperatures adversely affect the character of the process. Swedish Hill usually distills in late spring and summer, following the vintage, necessitating the use of SO 2 . The wines typically have a pH of around 3.0 and, in order to ensure soundness, have free SO 2 levels of 20-25 parts per million. The sulfur is removed by the approved addition of hydrogen peroxide on a lab bench just prior to distillation. Wine is added to the still the night before the process, and the burner is lit at around 6 a.m. It takes between two and three hours to reach distillation temperature, and each run takes five to six hours to complete. The first 3 to 5 gallons distilled (called "the heads")are disposed of because of harsh aromatics and the possibility of contaminants such as methanol. Wilber then finishes the first distillation with no Vintners Become Distillers How three New York farm wineries added spirits to their product lines By Ray Pompilio Fireproof wrapping surrounds the 150-gallon stripping still at Six Mile Creek Vineyard to contain the heat. The condenser is on the left. RAY POMPILIO