Silver Springs Winery

I've been living in Rochester for almost 3 years now, and have been a regular visitor to the Finger Lakes wine region. I had thought that I'd mostly identified all of the good wineries, but I just discovered a new one.

Silver Springs Winery is located in a non-descript trailer on the East side of Seneca lake; you'd likely drive right past it without stopping unless you were looking for it. We were tasting with some guests yesterday and decided to stop there because their add on the back of the map said that they specialize in red wine. They weren't kidding.

They really have some of the best red wines I've tasted in the region. They're complex and multi-layered and really far exceed the offerings of most vineyards. They certainly compare favorably with Dr. Frank's and Fox Run, both of which consistently produce high quality reds.

We had the chance to chat with the owner, John, who's obviously a big wine geek. He guided us through a tasting and started talking about using micro-oxygenation to increase the rate of polymerization of the tannins, at which point I turned to my wife and said "I love this man". I ended up taking home a bottle of their 2003 Bold Merlot; at $27 it was really at the upper end of my price range, but man oh man was it good.

Interestingly enough, though they specialize in red wines they also produce a really intense Chardonnay. It was also very tasty, but I'm not sure that I would have even recognized it as a Chardonnay if I hadn't had the label in front of me.

Really, their only problem is that I've never heard anyone talk about them before. Which is a pity, really, because they're honestly one of the best wineries in the area.