Ports of New York

About Ports of New York

Ports of New York is an urban winery on Taber Street in the city of Ithaca, beside the inlet at the south end of Cayuga Lake rather than out among the vineyards. It is the American chapter of a French family story: owner-winemaker Frédéric Bouché is the fourth generation of a line that held vineyards in Bordeaux and, from 1919, ran Maison Bouché, a blending-and-aging house in Lisieux, Normandy, that survived the D-Day bombardment and operated until 1993. Bouché moved to the Finger Lakes in 1994, opened this winery in 2003, and uses grapes grown entirely within the Finger Lakes AVA.

The house specialty is fortified wine, unusual in a region built on cool-climate Riesling. The Meleau bottlings, red and white, are made in the port manner, arrested with grape spirit to 17 percent alcohol and finished semi-sweet, then aged in a neutral-oak solera kept going since 2006. The red leans on Cabernet Franc with Merlot and the hybrid Noiret; the white is built on Muscat Ottonel and Vignoles, so it reads aromatic and full rather than syrupy. A second label, Quotidian, covers the table wines: a dry, light-bodied Bordeaux-style red and an off-dry Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Gris white, both rested in neutral oak and then briefly in the emptied Meleau casks.

A visit is small-scale and personal. Tastings are paired with a self-guided or, when availability allows, a guided tour, and the same building houses a museum of Maison Bouché artifacts: cellar tools, old labels, distilling equipment and photographs of Lisieux before and after 1944. Groups of six or more should call ahead. There is no kitchen or patio scene; come for an hour of conversation about French method and a style of wine found nowhere else on the lake.