Finger Lakes Owasco Lake, New York
Owasco Lake wineries
Owasco is the Finger Lake that belongs to Auburn: 11 miles of the city's drinking water between Cayuga and Skaneateles, with cottages on both shores, Emerson Park at the northern tip and the Fillmore Glen gorge above Moravia at the southern end. No winery pours on it, so this guide is written for someone based in Auburn or Moravia: what the lake and its city are worth before the tasting rooms open, why the vines never came, and how a wine day works from here, with seven wineries inside 40 minutes to west and east.
Auburn's lake, with wine country on either side
Owasco Lake is the sixth largest of the eleven Finger Lakes: 11.1 miles long, 1.3 miles across at its widest and 177 feet deep, with Auburn at its northern tip and the hamlet of Cascade at its southern one. The name is usually traced to an Iroquois word for a bridge or crossing on the water. The lake supplies the city and the Town of Owasco, more than 40,000 people, and the state grades it AA(T), a drinking-water class.
For a wine traveller the useful fact is position. Auburn sits at the junction of the roads to both wine lakes: Route 20 east to Skaneateles village in a quarter of an hour, Route 20 west to Seneca Falls at the top of Cayuga Lake in under 20 minutes, and Route 326 to Route 90 for the run down Cayuga's east shore, where five of the seven wineries in this guide stand between Union Springs and King Ferry. So the shape of a visit is a morning on Owasco and an afternoon on a neighbour: west for the wine day proper, Pinot Noir from a limestone estate and Chardonnay from the east shore's oldest winery; east for one hillside winery above Skaneateles and the village that goes with it. The trip-planning guide compares bases across the region.
The wineries nearest Owasco Lake, on the map
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 list below as well.
Every winery on all eleven lakes, with wine-style filters, saved favourites and suggested stops between one tasting room and the next.
The wineries nearest Owasco Lake
The seven wineries in this guide are the nearest to Owasco Lake with a tasting room, in two directions from Auburn. West, Montezuma Winery Finger Lakes stands on Route 20 at the top of Cayuga Lake and Route 90 strings the other five down that lake's east shore between Union Springs and King Ferry; east, Anyela's Vineyards is the one winery on the west side of Skaneateles Lake.
Nearest first. Each name opens the winery's own page, with hours, wines and places to stay close by.
Nearest wineries 7 wineries
Drive times run from downtown Auburn on the roads as they are: Route 90 lengthens the further south you go, and King Ferry is a 40-minute commitment each way. The larger cluster on Route 89, Cayuga's west shore, is left out because it is reached only by driving round the top of that lake, a long detour for a similar distance on the map. Two of the seven open only from Friday to Sunday, so the day of the week matters as much as the hour.
| Winery | Town | Drive | Dogs | Kids | Food | Book online |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anyela's Vineyards | Skaneateles | Skaneateles Lakeabout 20 minutes east of Auburn via Route 20 and Route 41A | Yes | Yes | ||
| The Apple Station Winery | Cayuga | Cayuga Lakeabout 20 minutes west of Auburn via Route 326 and Route 90 | ||||
| Heart & Hands Wine Company | Union Springs | Cayuga Lakeabout 25 minutes from Auburn via Route 326 and Route 90 | Yes | |||
| Constantia Wine Company | Aurora | Cayuga Lakeabout 30 minutes from Auburn via Route 90 | ||||
| Montezuma Winery Finger Lakes | Seneca Falls | Cayuga Lakeabout 15 minutes west of Auburn on Route 20 | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Treleaven Wines | King Ferry | Cayuga Lakeabout 40 minutes from Auburn via Route 34 and Route 34B | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Bright Leaf Vineyard | King Ferry | Cayuga Lakeabout 40 minutes from Auburn via Route 34 and Route 34B | Yes |
Auburn, the lake and its shore
Auburn is a city of about 27,000 at the lake's northern tip, and worth a morning before the tasting rooms open. Harriet Tubman settled here in 1859 on land bought from the Sewards and died in the city in 1913; her house, her Home for the Aged and the Thompson Memorial AME Zion Church became Harriet Tubman National Historical Park in 2017. Tours are by appointment while parts of the site are restored. At 33 South Street the Seward House Museum is the house where William H. Seward, Lincoln's Secretary of State, lived from the 1820s until his death in 1872; on Nelson Street the Willard Memorial Chapel, built in 1892-94, holds the only complete and unaltered Tiffany chapel interior known to exist. At the water, Emerson Park spreads along the north shore with beaches, boat launches and a dog park, and beside it the Merry-Go-Round Playhouse, a carousel pavilion turned theatre in 1970, where The REV Theatre Company plays musicals into early October.
Two roads run the length of the lake and no bridge joins them. Route 38 takes the west shore between Auburn and Moravia, past a long line of lakeside homes in Fleming, then high above the water, then down through the hamlet of Cascade into the Owasco Flats, the undeveloped valley at the foot of the lake. Route 38A is the east shore road only at the top, where it rounds the lake past Emerson Park; Rockefeller Road carries on down the east side to Moravia, and the two make a loop of about 40 miles and an hour and a quarter. Moravia is a village of about 1,200 with Fillmore Glen State Park at its edge: a long, narrow gorge with five waterfalls, a stream-fed swimming pool, 60 campsites and a replica of the childhood home of Millard Fillmore, the 13th president, born on a farm here in 1800.
Why there are no tasting rooms on Owasco Lake
The short answer is the water, and it is only half the story. Watershed rules have stood since 1984, and when the state Department of Health claimed it lacked the authority to adopt the stricter rules the city and town had drafted, Auburn, the Town of Owasco and the lake association took it to court in 2024 and won. But Skaneateles, the next lake east, is Syracuse's unfiltered supply and has a winery on its hillside all the same, so the rules alone do not keep the vines away.
The rest is depth, shoreline and farming. A Finger Lake protects its vines by storing summer heat and releasing it on autumn nights, holding off the first frost while Riesling and Cabernet Franc finish ripening, and the deeper the water, the larger the store. Cayuga is 435 feet deep and 38 miles long, Skaneateles 300 feet; Owasco is 177 feet deep and 11 miles long, and one regional guide says outright that the lake is too small to sustain the microclimate vineyards need. Route 38 and Rockefeller Road serve cottages and year-round homes for most of their length, and the land behind them belongs to a farm economy with no need of grapes: Cayuga County led New York State in agricultural sales in the 2022 census, with 320 million dollars of it from milk.
Two small producers work the margins even so, neither with a tasting room and neither listed in this guide. Firelane 6 Winery grows about two and a half acres of Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc and Riesling on the south-west shore near Moravia, planted from 2003; the wine goes to local shops, restaurants and breweries, and by email to anyone who asks. Chateau Dusseau, at Locke above the southern end of the basin, opened in 2006 with the hardy hybrids Aurora and Frontenac; its website could not be reached in September 2026, so its standing is unclear.
The day west: Cayuga Lake's east shore
Route 326 leaves Auburn as a country road and meets Route 90 above Union Springs after nine miles; Route 90 then follows Cayuga's east shore south to King Ferry. This is the quiet side of the lake, with most of the trail's wineries on Route 89 across the water.
The Apple Station Winery is the odd one out: an orchard planted in 1986 with a winery added in 2010 and a tasting room done up as an old filling station, pouring apple wines, hard cider and Riesling, Friday to Sunday only. Further on, Heart & Hands Wine Company is the serious address on this shore, a 2,000-case estate that planted Pinot Noir and Riesling in 2010 on the limestone of the Onondaga formation at Carr's Cove and added Chardonnay, Aligoté, Auxerrois, Petite Arvine and Lagrein in 2019. The Pinot Noir is the reason to come and a reservation is the way in; the tasting room opens weekends only in spring and closes from January to mid-February.
Aurora is the village to stop in, a National Register historic district on the water with the Inns of Aurora and Long Point State Park just south, with a boat launch and four and a half miles of trails. On Main Street, Constantia Wine Company opened a tasting room in 2025 for small-lot wines off the regional script: Grüner Veltliner and Syrah beside Riesling at three sweetness levels, a Bordeaux-style blend and a barrel-aged sparkling cider.
King Ferry, 40 minutes from Auburn, has the two estates with most to show. Treleaven Wines is the oldest winery on this shore: Pete and Tacie Saltonstall planted the family farm in 1984, sold their first wines in 1988, and their children now run 27 acres. Chardonnay is still the flagship, the Rieslings run from bone dry to sweet, and Farm in the Willows serves Wednesday to Sunday. Nearby on Clearview Road, Bright Leaf Vineyard farms 14 acres split by a quarry of Tully limestone, Riesling and Chardonnay on the loam above it and five reds on the clay by the lake, planted from 2014 and certified sustainable, with sparkling wines and a Riesling ice wine.
Keep Montezuma Winery Finger Lakes for the way home: on Route 20 at the top of Cayuga Lake, a family business that began with bees, moved from a garage in Sterling to Seneca Falls in 2001 and is known for fruit and honey wines and mead rather than for its Riesling, with a distillery, a kitchen and daily hours.
The day east: Skaneateles
East of Auburn, Route 20 reaches Skaneateles village in seven miles: Genesee and Jordan Streets of mid-nineteenth-century shopfronts, boat excursions, inns and a Dickens Christmas in costume. Skaneateles Lake is 16 miles long, 300 feet deep and clean enough for Syracuse to drink unfiltered, and at 863 feet above sea level it sits 150 feet higher than Owasco and nearly 500 feet above Cayuga, which makes its slopes cold country for European vines.
Anyela's Vineyards is the exception, on West Lake Road about 20 minutes from Auburn, high on the hillside above the west shore. The Nocek family traces its winemaking back three generations to Eastern Europe, planted this slope in 2001 and still buries the vines every winter to insulate the buds, lifting them back onto the trellis in spring; that labour is what Pinot Noir and Riesling cost at this height. The list runs to dry Riesling, Pinot Noir and a rosé of it, Cayuga White and Pinot Gris; the tasting room opens daily and has live music at weekends. Pair it with lunch in the village and the run back along Route 20 for the curtain at the Playhouse.
Making the most of a wine day from Owasco Lake
Base in Auburn, give Owasco the morning and one neighbour the afternoon, and never try both directions in a day: west is a 40-minute run down Route 90 with five stops, east is one winery and a village.
- Choose a direction the night before. West is the full day: five wineries between Union Springs and King Ferry, with Montezuma Winery Finger Lakes on the way home. East is a half day, Anyela's Vineyards and Skaneateles village, and pairs with a morning at Fillmore Glen or an evening at the Playhouse. Two of the Route 90 rooms open only Friday to Sunday, and on a Monday or Tuesday the only doors open are at Treleaven Wines, Montezuma Winery Finger Lakes and Anyela's Vineyards.
- Book one tasting and one table. Heart & Hands Wine Company tastes by reservation with a few walk-in places, and harvest weekends fill; Bright Leaf Vineyard seats its tastings and takes bookings too. For lunch, Farm in the Willows at Treleaven Wines serves Wednesday to Sunday and Montezuma Winery Finger Lakes has a kitchen; otherwise eat in Aurora, on Genesee Street in Skaneateles, or in Auburn before you leave.
- Taste three answers to the cold. Pinot Noir is the thread here, and three estates within an hour of Auburn grow it three ways: on limestone by the water at Heart & Hands Wine Company, on lakeside clay below a limestone quarry at Bright Leaf Vineyard, and on a hillside above Skaneateles at Anyela's Vineyards, where the vines spend winter under soil. Then ask at Treleaven Wines for a dry and a semi-dry Riesling side by side: the acidity carries the sugar, and the off-dry wine is often the better balanced.
- Read the season, and settle the driving. September and October bring harvest, colour on the shore roads and the fullest tasting rooms; June to August is deck weather; in winter Heart & Hands Wine Company closes from January to mid-February and the smaller rooms shorten their weeks. Every road home is two lanes through farmland, so nominate a driver who is not tasting.
Common questions
How many wineries are on Owasco Lake?
None with a tasting room. Firelane 6 Winery grows about two and a half acres of Pinot Noir, Cabernet Franc and Riesling on the south-west shore near Moravia and sells by email and through local shops, and Chateau Dusseau at Locke, above the southern end of the basin, had no reachable website in September 2026; neither is listed here. The seven nearest wineries with tasting rooms are on Skaneateles Lake and along the north end and east shore of Cayuga Lake, 14 to 40 minutes from Auburn.
What are the wineries near Owasco Lake known for?
Pinot Noir and Riesling. Heart & Hands Wine Company built its name on Pinot Noir from limestone soils; Bright Leaf Vineyard grows estate reds on lakeside clay and Riesling and Chardonnay on the hill above; Treleaven Wines has made Chardonnay its flagship since 1988, with Rieslings from bone dry to sweet; Anyela's Vineyards grows Pinot Noir and Riesling on buried vines above Skaneateles. The outliers are Constantia Wine Company with Grüner Veltliner, Syrah and a Bordeaux-style blend, The Apple Station Winery with apple wines and cider, and Montezuma Winery Finger Lakes with fruit and honey wines and mead.
When is the best time to visit Owasco Lake and its wineries?
September and October: the grapes come in, the shore roads colour and the Playhouse runs into early October, though weekend tastings fill. June to August brings decks and music, the Hangtime at Treleaven Wines and bands at Anyela's Vineyards, and swimming at Emerson Park and Fillmore Glen. From November the Route 90 rooms shorten their weeks and Heart & Hands Wine Company closes from January to mid-February; Auburn's museums carry on, and Skaneateles stages its Dickens Christmas.
Which way should I go first from Auburn, west or east?
West with a full day, east with half of one. The west run down Route 90 takes in two wineries before Aurora, one in the village and two at King Ferry, 40 minutes out, with Montezuma Winery Finger Lakes on Route 20 for the drive home. East is Anyela's Vineyards and Skaneateles village, 20 minutes away, leaving the morning free. Three or four tasting rooms make a comfortable day, and the two directions do not combine.
Do I need a reservation at the wineries near Owasco Lake?
At Heart & Hands Wine Company, yes: tastings are by reservation with a few walk-in places. Bright Leaf Vineyard seats its tastings and takes bookings, as do three of the others. More often the question is the day: two of the Route 90 rooms open only Friday to Sunday, two more from Wednesday or Thursday, and hours shrink in winter. Each winery's own page carries its current hours and booking link.
Where should I stay for a wine trip around Owasco Lake?
Auburn, the only city on the lake and the junction of every road you will use. Skaneateles village, a quarter of an hour east, has inns and a spa with its winery close by; Aurora puts you at the Inns of Aurora among the Route 90 wineries; Seneca Falls has hotels beside Montezuma Winery Finger Lakes; Fillmore Glen State Park has 60 campsites. Each winery's own page lists places to stay near it.
More Finger Lakes wine guides
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Every Finger Lakes winery
The whole region in one directory, lake by lake, with a note on how each listing is checked.
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Planning a Finger Lakes trip
When to go, where to base yourself, how to pace a tasting day, and sample itineraries shore by shore.
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The interactive map
All eleven lakes on one map, with favourites, sharing and suggested nearby stops for building a route.