Winemaker Lynne Fahy on the Finger Lakes' Ambitious New Winery Hillick & Hobbs

The Finger Lakes region of New York has a rich history of winemaking that dates back to the early 19th century. The region's winemaking journey began in 1829 when Reverend William Bostwick planted the first grapevines in Hammondsport, primarily for sacramental wine and table grapes. However, it wasn't until the mid-19th century that commercial winemaking began to take root. Today, the Finger Lakes is home to over 100 wineries, renowned particularly for its Riesling, Gewürztraminer, and sparkling wines.

Paul Hobbs, an internationally acclaimed winemaker, recognized the potential of the Finger Lakes region to produce world-class wines. With its glacial soils, temperate climate, and deep, clear lakes that moderate temperatures, the Finger Lakes provide a perfect environment for cultivating high-quality grapes. Hobbs' decision to invest in this region underscores his belief in its ability to produce wines that rival those from more established wine regions.

(Paul Hobbs with his family circa 1954)

Hillick & Hobbs Winery focuses on producing Riesling, a varietal that thrives in the Finger Lakes' cool climate. Hobbs and his team employ sustainable farming practices and meticulous vineyard management to ensure the health and quality of the grapes. The winery's approach emphasizes minimal intervention in the winemaking process, allowing the natural characteristics of the grapes and the unique terroir to shine through in the finished wines.

Grape Collective talks with Hillick & Hobbs winemaker Lynne Fahy about winemaking in the Finger Lakes and what she sees for the future of the region. 

Christopher Barnes: So tell us a little bit about your history as a winemaker.

Lynne Fahy: I started my first vintage back in 2014, in New Zealand, after traveling for some time. I was supposed to become a physical therapist but kind of lost interest in that prior to grad school and discovered I love the beverage industry. So at the time that was beer, but I met somebody who worked in the wine industry who led me towards the southern hemisphere and I just went. I loved every minute of it. I liked the wine industry physically, it was outdoors. People really enjoyed the work that they were doing. They seemed happy and so kind of hooked you from there.

(Lynne Fahy)

I then went to Oregon following that first vintage and worked at Trisaetum Winery in the Willamette Valley where I spent two and a half years with them making Pinot Noir and Riesling. That really fostered my love for Riesling. I enjoyed working with it more than I did Pinot. I grew up near Rochester, New York and the Finger Lakes is kind of home of North American Riesling so it felt like a natural fit to return back to New York. 

Let's talk a little bit about how Hillick & Hobbs started. 

The estate started really from a vision of Paul Hobbs and his family. His parents met in Ithaca when they were going to Cornell. Paul was raised in Buffalo, and his brothers still live in Rochester. Around 2011 or 2012, they suggested that he come take a look at the Finger Lakes as a potential place to put a Riesling vineyard.

Paul always loved German Rieslings and he'd been looking to start a project back in New York. He spent about two years scouring the Finger Lakes looking for something very specific. He knew he wanted to be in the southeast part of Seneca Lake as it's very warm down here. He wanted shale, slate soils, and he wanted a steep hillside. He almost gave up after those two years, but literally stumbled upon this property, and in 2014, started planting it to Riesling. 

What were some of the challenges that you faced in terms of starting a new winery? 

I think the biggest challenge for Paul in the development of this project was definitely planting the vineyard. There are very few wineries that have slopes as steep as ours on such shallow soils.

The lower part of our vineyard is almost entirely shale, slate, which makes it very difficult to drill holes to put vines in. They had to use a very special tool on an excavator to punch holes into the bedrock in order to get vines into the ground, which is a very slow and laborious process. I really think that because it's such challenging growing conditions and there's very little topsoil and nutrients, it took much longer to establish the vineyard and get a crop large enough to produce our first wines.

Why is the region called the Finger Lakes? 

The reason why they're called the Finger Lakes is when you look at them from above, there's 11 of them, and they're long and narrow, and they look like fingers. They were developed during the glacial period, about two million years ago. They used to be narrow river valleys. But as the glacier covered the region, it scoured these deep, U-shaped lakes, and there was glacial debris that caused damming and as the glaciers made their last recessions, it melted, forming these deep water basins. 

Tell us a little bit about the terroir.

The terroir in the Finger Lakes is quite varied, you know, primarily glacial till, clays, shale. You do find some limestone here. As the glaciers traveled, north and southward, they dragged soils from the north, from Canada, down to here in Watkins Glen and in Ithaca before they moved back north, pulling soils from here. So even within the same vineyard site, there's a lot of variation of soil types because of that.

What are the properties that you get with shale, in terms of what it gives to the wines? 

So being a predominantly shale-based soil vineyard, I think that what it provides wines is this undertone of minerality and almost saltiness, which I find pretty uniformly vintage to vintage here. I think we're still discovering really what that means, as our site is young and our wines are young. But it is a common theme that we're finding in these early vintages.

What's good about the lake effect that you have here? How does the lake help you in terms of being able to grow grapes?

The reason we can grow grapes here in the Finger Lakes is because of the deepness of Seneca Lake and Cayuga Lake primarily, although you can find vineyards on some of the other small lakes as well. They don't freeze because of their depth. Right out front here of our vineyard, of the deepest spots it’s around 400 feet at Seneca Lake, at its deepest it’s 600. This provides a temperature moderating effect. So in the spring we stay cooler if you're closer to the lakes, because the lake is slow to warm, which helps delay bud break, which protects us from spring frosts. Then in the summer, because the lake retains heat, it keeps us warmer and extends our growing seasons. 

Talk about Riesling as a grape and why it has become the grape of the Finger Lakes.

I think globally, when people think of Riesling, they think of the Mosel and of Germany as those wines have had historic markers for greatness. The reason Riesling does so well in the Finger Lakes has a lot to do with our soil compositions. And the fact that it's so cold, hardy and can handle our climate here.

We have a pretty wet and humid climate, and Riesling is fairly disease resistant and can handle a bit of botrytis which comes with our rainy seasons. It also can tolerate our really cold winters if we have them. 

Let’s talk a little bit about the winters here, because it does get extremely cold. 

One of the defining factors of the Finger Lakes is our cold winters. We face many challenges in that way. We do try to grow varieties that can tolerate negative temperatures. I think Riesling only starts to see bud loss at around negative eight degrees, and the reason we can grow here is that the lake does keep us a little warmer than other areas of New York.

The further away you are from the lake, the colder you're going to be. The lake does help with that. People also do what's called “hilling up.” What we're trying to do with that method is protect our graft unions. They bury the union. So then, even if you have bud loss, you can still recover the plant year after year. But the region really tries to focus on cold-tolerant varieties because they're more sustainable. And we're able to farm them year after year.

In general in the Finger Lakes, do you feel like there are any other grapes that are working well here? 

I think that Riesling is definitely the dominant variety. It's the most consistent year after year. Because even if we have a shorter growing season, you can maybe leave a little residual sugar to accommodate for that acidity.

But there are definitely other varieties that do thrive here. I mean, we grow almost every French variety, I think, here. I think for red wines, Cabernet Franc has proven to be very consistent for the region. Blaufränkisch, which is an Austrian variety. You can get amazing Pinot Gris. Grüner. Sparkling wines are very popular. I think Chardonnay has a promising future in the Finger Lakes, although you don't see as much of it. And then there's a resurgence of American natives and hybrid varieties as well. Some people are trying to make some interesting dry style wines with those because they're a little bit more sustainable to farm than the vinifera varieties. 

And talk a little bit about the evolution of the Finger Lakes as a wine region. How has the acceptance of the Finger Lakes increased?

I think that calling the Finger Lakes an evolving region is quite accurate. I mean, it's been around for a very long time. Bonded winery number one is in Hammondsport. The first vineyards planted in the Finger Lakes were in the early 1800s. But because of the vintage variation and how much weather dictates our growing seasons and causes inconsistencies year after year, it's been a difficult growth for the region.

And in the 1960s and ‘70s that's when we started to see a movement away from some of these native and hybrid varieties into vinifera. So there's been this big change over decades into where we're now focusing more on these kind of dry, more European style wines with Riesling and Cabernet Franc. And I think there's been a drive or more of acceptance and notoriety for the Finger Lakes.

I think it's a couple-fold. One, I think there's been winemaking improvements as people have moved here from other regions or gained more experience here. They've become passionate about making these very serious, layered, complex wines. So we have a very energetic wine industry who want to invest in making the Finger Lakes more well known. That starts with making our wines better. 

And I do think that there's something to be said about a farm to table movement that has happened nationally. So more people are looking within their own states and their own regions for products that represent where they are. I think that's really helped the Finger Lakes being in New York State, with New York City being on our doorstep, more people are interested in what's grown in their backyard versus abroad.

Talk a little bit about the popularity of the Finger Lakes in terms of the ability of the region to accommodate visitors.

I think in the last few years we've definitely seen an increase in visitation. And I hate to say that Covid kind of helped us with that in 2020. We were the first region to reopen in New York State. People were eager to get outside and there's a lot of outdoor space here, a lot of outdoor activities.

That really helped, at least in the more recent history, put the Finger Lakes on the map as a tourist destination. I think that people that come here, they come here for the wine, but there's so much more than that to the region. We have beautiful waterfalls and gorges and hikes and distilleries and breweries, and there's camping and there's so much to offer.

When you can provide that for people, you get more people that want to come here. That does drive our economy and helps our businesses. We do see a lot of visitors, which hopefully leads to increased wine sales.

And what do you think it is about Finger Lakes Riesling that makes it unique and special?

I think that there are a couple different reasons why the Finger Lakes Rieslings are so special. I think personally, a lot of it's the people in the community that drives that. There's a lot of care and attention to detail and what people are doing, and you feel it in the process. I also think it's our climate. Riesling really thrives here. it has this vivacity and acidity, this liveliness that’s hard to get in other regions in the United States. 

Talk a little bit about your viticultural practices and your philosophy of viticulture. 

Our viticultural philosophy is really to do what's best for the land, but also allows us to grow the best Riesling possible. So it's twofold. We don't use herbicides. We don't till anything. 

We're trying to protect our topsoil, keep the microbiome and our soils really healthy and we move towards organic spray programs with the realization that we may need to curb from that if we have a year that's more challenging. Being a very humid, wet climate, we do have disease pressure, including powdery downy mildew, botrytis, occasionally sour rot. These are all things that we're always looking out for year after year to, again, protect our fruit, protect our plants, but only really stepping in if it's necessary. 

And you see a movement in the Finger Lakes towards trying to use less chemicals.

I think it's on everybody's mind, that we're all moving towards sustainability. The New York Wine and Grape Foundation started a New York Sate sustainable certified program that people have to follow certain protocols to be considered sustainable. But I think of this region as a community. Everyone's driving towards that anyway. We all know that we can grow grapes here because of the land that we have, and the best thing that we can do for that is to preserve not only the land, but the ecosystem that surrounds it.

And so I think it's a regional effort to move in that direction. We are just faced with different challenges than they have on the West Coast and in drier regions, because of that high disease pressure, that humidity. It's not every year, but there are years that are quite bad that you really have to intervene. But most of us don't want to do that if we don't have to.

Paul is making wine in Armenia and Argentina and all of these different places, is his approach different here due to his connection with the region?

I think Paul came back to this region for a number of reasons. I think that there is definitely a deep connection with his family. He grew up in Buffalo, but his parents met in Ithaca when they were both attending Cornell. He's been a lover of Riesling almost his entire life or at least his wine career. The thing that Paul does the best is he is very focused in his projects in the sense that he wants to put the right variety on the right site, in the right climate, and is doing it for that reason, because he believes that it makes the best wines. And so in all of his projects around the world, he's not trying to come in and put a certain variety in a place. You know, he's not putting Cabernet Sauvignon in his project in Armenia. He's not growing Malbec in Spain. He goes to these regions and he finds out what works best there and makes the most expressive wines and then produces wine from that. It's very simple, but I think it's tried and true.

Do you see Finger Lakes wines becoming more accepted in major wine markets?

There is a greater acceptance of the Finger Lakes wines nationally and internationally and how we've now seen them on some of the best wine lists in New York City and in fact, the world. There is definitely a greater acceptance of New York wines, nationally and globally.

I think there's been a lot of effort put in by the people who've been farming and growing grapes here for decades to promote the Finger Lakes regions. There's been a lot of organizations that have showed up that helped market our region. But I also believe that consumers right now want to be drinking wines that are higher in acidity and more food friendly and lower in alcohol, and we do that naturally here with our cool growing seasons.

And so I think that the market is moving more towards our style, and we're not trying to move our style closer to what the market wants. 

And what are your hopes for the future of winemaking in the Finger Lakes?

For the Finger Lakes region, I hope for a few different things. One, I'd like to preserve the community that we have. I think this is a really special place to grow grapes and make wine. People talk about wine regions having this collaborative spirit, which I do believe the Finger Lakes has, but it's more than that. It is a community.

It's very supportive and very open to each other. So I really would like to preserve that for the region as we grow. I know that as we gain popularity, and as climates change elsewhere, there will be more people interested in coming here. I'm hoping that although that happens, that we kind of stayed the same in that way, but that as the wines keep improving, we gain more notoriety for the work that's being done here, because everyone who farms and makes wine here is very diligent and works very hard to make these beautiful wines. If we can get a more global reach, I think that will only help us in the long run and help us share those wines with people all over the world.