Finger Lakes Conesus Lake, New York
Conesus Lake wineries
Conesus is the westernmost Finger Lake and the one with the fewest vines: eight miles of cottage-lined water, 66 feet deep, freezing most winters and supplying drinking water to Avon and Geneseo. One winery stands on it, Deer Run Winery above the north-west shore, where a Kodak retiree planted two red hybrids Cornell had not yet named. This guide gives that winery its due, explains why a shallow lake grows so little wine, and shapes a day around Geneseo, the Letchworth gorge and the tasting rooms an hour east.
The lake at the western edge of the map
Conesus is where the Finger Lakes run out. The appellation's boundary follows Route 63 and Route 39 through Geneseo and Avon, a few miles west of the shore; beyond it there is no more Finger Lakes wine. The lake is 8 miles long, a mile across and 66 feet at its deepest, lined with cottages and year-round homes along 18.4 miles of shoreline, and it is the public water supply for Avon and Geneseo. In all but the rarest winters it freezes from end to end, which shapes everything else in this guide.
That is why the lake's wine story fits on one farm. Deer Run Winery has stood above the north-west shore since 2003, growing five acres of cold-hardy hybrids, buying the rest of its fruit elsewhere in the appellation, and pouring a list that runs from dry Riesling and Cabernet Franc to the sweet Niagara blend that outsells everything else it makes. Conesus is not a lake for touring tasting rooms; it is a lake for visiting one good one properly and then going east.
So base yourself in Geneseo, five miles west, give the morning to the Letchworth gorge or the inlet marsh, take lunch and a tasting at the winery, then drive east on Route 20A to the producers around Canandaigua Lake, 45 minutes to an hour away, or north-east to Mendon.
Conesus Lake and its nearest wineries on the map
- On Conesus Lake
- Nearby, not on Conesus Lake
Each pin sits on the winery's street address. The chips show only what a winery states on its own website, and they narrow the lists below as well. Muted pins are the nearby wineries that are not on Conesus Lake.
Every winery on all eleven lakes, with wine-style filters, saved favourites and suggested stops between one tasting room and the next.
The winery on Conesus Lake, and the nearest others
One winery stands on Conesus Lake, and it has the shore to itself: Deer Run Winery on West Lake Road, Route 256, a few minutes south of Lakeville. There is no cluster to walk between and no wine trail organisation; the winery belongs instead to the ROC/FLX Craft Beverage Trail, a regional list of wineries, breweries, cideries and distilleries run from Canandaigua. The nearest other tasting rooms are 35 minutes to an hour away.
The lake list runs north to south, the order you would drive it, and the nearby list runs nearest first. Each name opens the winery's own page, with hours, wines and places to stay close by.
On the lake 1 winery
West Lake Road runs the length of the west shore, and Deer Run Winery sits on it at the northern end, in the town of Geneseo a few minutes south of Lakeville and Route 20A, with the vineyard on the slope above the tasting room and the lake below. Tasting room, cafe, event pavilion and concert lawn share one 20-acre farm, so this is a stop to settle into rather than pass through.
| Winery | Town | Dogs | Kids | Food | Book online |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Deer Run Winery | Geneseo | Yes |
Nearest wineries 8 wineries
These eight are the nearest wineries that are not on Conesus Lake, listed nearest first by straight line: seven sit around Canandaigua Lake, from East Bloomfield and the city of Canandaigua at its north end to Naples at its south, and one is in Mendon, off any lake. Drive times are approximate and measured from Deer Run Winery at the north end of Conesus Lake.
| Winery | Town | Drive | Dogs | Kids | Food | Book online |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Arbor Hill Grapery & Winery | Naples | Canandaigua Lakeabout 50 minutes east via Route 20A, then Route 64 south towards Naples | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| 20 Deep Winery | Mendon | Near Rochesterabout 35 minutes north-east via Interstate 390 to Avon, then Routes 5 and 20 to Lima and Route 15A north towards Honeoye Falls | Yes | Yes | ||
| Hazlitt Red Cat Cellars | Naples | Canandaigua Lakeabout an hour south-east via Route 20A and Route 64 to Naples, at the south end of Canandaigua Lake | Yes | Yes | Yes | |
| Inspire Moore Winery & Vineyard | Naples | Canandaigua Lakeabout an hour south-east via Route 20A and Route 64 to North Main Street in Naples village | ||||
| Hometown Wine Company | Naples | Canandaigua Lakeabout an hour south-east via Route 20A and Route 64 to Naples village | ||||
| Barrel Necessities at Randall-Standish Vineyards | Canandaigua | Canandaigua Lakeabout 50 minutes east via Interstate 390 and Routes 5 and 20, then Hickox Road south to Route 21 above the west shore of Canandaigua Lake | ||||
| Raymor Estate Cellars | Bloomfield | Canandaigua Lakeabout 40 minutes east via Interstate 390 to Avon, then Routes 5 and 20 through Lima and Bloomfield | ||||
| Acquilano Wine Cellars | Canandaigua | Canandaigua Lakeabout 45 minutes east via Interstate 390 to Avon, then Routes 5 and 20 through Lima and Bloomfield into Canandaigua | Yes |
Deer Run, the one winery on the lake
George Kuyon came to Rochester in 1968 to work for Eastman Kodak, took an amateur winemaking class in 1975 and was hooked. When he retired in 1998 he bought 20 acres of farmland on West Lake Road at the northern end of the lake, had Cornell test the soil, and in 2001 planted five acres on its advice: two red hybrids still under trial at Cornell's Geneva station, not released and named until July 2006, as Noiret and Corot Noir, alongside Traminette, Valvin Muscat, Vidal, Frontenac, Marechal Foch and Riesling. Deer Run Winery opened on 23 November 2003 as the only winery on Conesus Lake and still says so. George and his son Scott make the wine; the vineyard supplies about a fifth of it, the rest bought elsewhere in the Finger Lakes appellation.
Runway Red, the winery's most decorated bottle, is Corot Noir and Noiret from those 2001 vines, finished just off dry: raspberry on the nose, a jammy palate and the green and black pepper that is Noiret's signature. The same two grapes join Cabernet Franc in the dry, oak-aged Reserve Red. The rest of the list leans sweet, and says so: Max Black, a Niagara and Vincent blend named after the owner's Scottish terrier, is the best seller, Conesus Red is Steuben and Delaware and Conesus White is Vidal and Diamond. Dry Riesling, unoaked Chardonnay, Traminette, Cabernet Franc, a dry Marquette and Dockside, a fortified dessert wine finished in bourbon barrels, complete it.
The original tank room became the Tankroom Cafe in 2022, serving through winery hours, from a grilled cheese with apple and the house Riesling hot pepper jelly to Sunday brunch from ten until two. The Thursday night summer concerts began in 2012 with a few dozen people on the lawn and now draw more than a thousand.
Why the westernmost lake grows so few vines
A Finger Lake earns its vineyards by storing heat. Water warms and cools far more slowly than land, so a deep lake keeps the slopes above it cold in spring, holding the buds back until the frosts have passed, and warm in autumn, pushing the first killing frost weeks later than the land behind the hills gets it. A lake deep enough never to freeze goes on giving up heat all winter and blunts the January nights that kill European vines. Seneca Lake is 618 feet deep and, stirred by springs, has little chance of freezing; Keuka is 183 feet.
Conesus is 66 feet at its deepest, 38 on average, and more than 90 per cent of it is shallower than 45 feet. It cools quickly in autumn and freezes from end to end in all but the rarest winters, and once it is under ice it might as well be a field: the slopes above it take the frosts and the winter lows the big lakes spare their vineyards. So Cornell steered Deer Run Winery towards Noiret, Corot Noir, Marechal Foch, Vidal and Frontenac, a Minnesota grape bred to survive 35 below zero Fahrenheit, and its Riesling and Cabernet Franc are made largely from bought-in fruit. Everywhere in the Finger Lakes, the best vineyards sit above the deepest water on slopes that drain cold air away.
The other reason is that the shoreline was spoken for before anyone thought of vines: cottages along 18.4 miles of shore, and a lake that is the public water supply for Avon and Geneseo. The next two lakes east, Hemlock and Canadice, have supplied Rochester's drinking water for more than a century and are ringed by state forest rather than houses. West of Conesus the appellation simply stops, at the Route 63 and Route 39 line through Geneseo and Avon that the 1982 rule drew.
The lake, Geneseo and Letchworth
Lakeville is the hamlet at the north tip, where Route 20A and Route 15 round the head of the lake before 20A runs east through Livonia. Vitale Park, off 20A, has lake access, a nature centre and free Sunday afternoon concerts in summer. West Lake Road runs down the west shore past Deer Run Winery to Long Point Park, a town beach with a public dock; East Lake Road has the state boat launch, open from late April to mid-October. At the southern end the cottages give way to the Conesus Inlet Wildlife Management Area, 1,120 acres of marsh with a nature trail, a car-top launch and a fish walk off Sliker Hill Road above the northern pike run each spring.
Geneseo, the county seat five miles west, is the base. The Treaty of Big Tree was negotiated here in 1797, and the Main Street that grew up afterwards, with its 1880s bear fountain in the middle of the road, was designated a National Historic Landmark district in 1991. SUNY Geneseo adds about 5,000 undergraduates to a village of 7,500, the National Warplane Museum stages its airshow at the airfield each July, and Rochester is 30 miles north-east. The trip-planning guide compares the region's bases.
Letchworth State Park is the region's great non-wine day: the Genesee River running 17 miles through a gorge with walls as high as 600 feet and over three major falls, 14,427 acres and 66 miles of trails, voted the country's best state park by USA Today readers in 2015 and 2025. The Glen Iris Inn above the Middle Falls was William Pryor Letchworth's house before his 1906 bequest created the park, and it still serves meals. The park opens at six every day of the year for $10 a vehicle; the Mount Morris entrance at its northern end is the one from Geneseo, and two hours on the rim above the falls still leaves time for a noon tasting at the lake.
A wine day that heads east
Start at Deer Run Winery over lunch, then take Route 20A east from Lakeville through Livonia, Hemlock, Honeoye and Bristol; it ends at Routes 5 and 20 in East Bloomfield, and Route 64 south from Bristol reaches Naples, at the southern end of Canandaigua Lake, about an hour from the winery. Naples has grown grapes since the 1860s and held a Grape Festival every September since 1961, and has four tasting rooms within ten minutes of one another.
Arbor Hill Grapery & Winery, on Route 64 north of the village, was opened in 1987 by John Brahm III, a Cornell-trained pomologist who had spent 23 years at Widmer's Wine Cellars, and was the first winery to make Traminette, the spicy Gewürztraminer cross; it also makes the grape pie filling the village is known for. Widmer's itself, one of the big four names of New York wine in the last century, is now Hazlitt Red Cat Cellars, bought by the Hazlitt family in 2011 as the production home of Red Cat. On North Main Street, Hometown Wine Company opened in autumn 2025 in the restored carriage house of one of the village's first houses, where a UC Davis-trained winemaker makes deliberately dry wines, traditional-method sparkling among them, and Inspire Moore Winery & Vineyard, a few doors away, pours Riesling, Gewürztraminer and Cayuga White from its own vines.
If an hour each way is too much, turn north. Interstate 390 to Avon and Routes 5 and 20 east reach Raymor Estate Cellars outside East Bloomfield, which pours Riesling, Vignoles and Noiret alongside cider on Saturday afternoons or by appointment; Acquilano Wine Cellars in Canandaigua recommends booking a table online; and Barrel Necessities at Randall-Standish Vineyards, on Route 21 above the west shore, pours a juice farm's estate wines on Saturdays and daily through the harvest. Or go 35 minutes north-east to Mendon, where 20 Deep Winery planted six acres in 2019, lost most of the vines to frost, replanted and opened in 2022 with Gamay Noir as its signature, from rosé and pét-nat to barrel-aged red.
Making the most of a visit to Conesus Lake
One tasting on the lake, lunch in the tank room and a run east is the realistic shape of a day here, and it is a better day than the arithmetic suggests: a winery with the shore to itself, a gorge or a marsh in the morning, and a village an hour on where the region's grape history is still on the table.
- Start on the lake, and eat there. Deer Run Winery opens at noon on Monday and Thursday to Saturday, at ten on Sunday for brunch, and is closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. The cafe serves through those hours, so make it lunch. Tastings are poured indoors; buy a flight to sit on the porch, and book ahead for more than six.
- Taste the estate against the bought-in. Ask for Runway Red first: it is the lake's own Corot Noir and Noiret, raspberry and pepper. Follow it with the Cabernet Franc, then the dry and the semi-dry Riesling side by side, and finish with Max Black, because sweet Niagara is where New York wine began.
- Pick a direction east, and check the days. Naples is about an hour by Route 20A and Route 64; book Arbor Hill Grapery & Winery, which tastes Thursday to Sunday by reservation. East Bloomfield and Canandaigua are 40 to 45 minutes away and Mendon 35, but two of those wineries open on Saturdays or by appointment outside the harvest, and Acquilano Wine Cellars recommends booking a table.
- Choose the season, then settle the driving. Summer Thursdays bring the concert lawn; late September brings the winery's harvest kick-off and the Naples Grape Festival, and October colours the gorge. In winter the lake freezes, but the tasting room keeps its days. Stops are 35 minutes to an hour apart, so nominate a driver; the winery ships to more than 30 states.
Common questions
How many wineries are on Conesus Lake?
One. Deer Run Winery opened on West Lake Road in November 2003 as the only winery on the lake. Within about 25 miles there are eight more: four in and around Naples at the south end of Canandaigua Lake, three between East Bloomfield and the city of Canandaigua at its north end, and one in Mendon, off any lake.
What does Deer Run make?
About a dozen wines. The estate's Corot Noir and Noiret go into Runway Red, an off-dry, peppery red, and with Cabernet Franc into the dry, oak-aged Reserve Red. The sweeter house wines are blends of native and hybrid grapes: Max Black from Niagara and Vincent, Conesus Red from Steuben and Delaware. Dry and semi-dry Riesling, unoaked Chardonnay, Traminette, Cabernet Franc, a dry Marquette and the fortified Dockside complete the list.
When is the best time to visit Conesus Lake?
Summer for the lake as it is lived in: Thursday evening concerts on the winery lawn and Sunday brunch. Late September is the wine traveller's choice, with the winery's harvest kick-off, the Naples Grape Festival on 26 and 27 September in 2026 and the first colour on the Letchworth gorge. In winter the lake freezes and the shore goes quiet, but the tasting room keeps its days.
Is there a Conesus Lake wine trail, and where should I start?
No wine trail organisation covers the lake; Deer Run Winery belongs to the ROC/FLX Craft Beverage Trail, a regional list run from Canandaigua that mixes wineries with breweries, cideries and distilleries. Start at the north end: Lakeville, where Route 20A and Route 15 round the head of the lake, is a few minutes from the winery.
Do I need a reservation to taste on Conesus Lake?
Not at Deer Run Winery for parties of six or fewer; larger groups book in advance. The nearby stops need more planning: Arbor Hill Grapery & Winery tastes Thursday to Sunday by reservation only, Raymor Estate Cellars opens on Saturday afternoons or by appointment, Barrel Necessities at Randall-Standish Vineyards on Saturdays outside the harvest, and Acquilano Wine Cellars recommends booking a table online. Hometown Wine Company and 20 Deep Winery take walk-ins.
Where should I stay for a Conesus Lake wine tour?
Geneseo, five miles west of the lake, is the natural base: a National Historic Landmark Main Street, hotels on the edge of the village, and Letchworth and the winery each a short drive. Lakeville and Livonia at the north end put you nearest the water, and Rochester is 30 miles north-east. Each winery's own page here lists places to stay close by.
More Finger Lakes wine guides
-
Every Finger Lakes winery
The whole region in one directory, lake by lake, with a note on how each listing is checked.
-
Planning a Finger Lakes trip
When to go, where to base yourself, how to pace a tasting day, and sample itineraries shore by shore.
-
The interactive map
All eleven lakes on one map, with favourites, sharing and suggested nearby stops for building a route.