Dr. Frank Vinifera Wine Cellars

The history of growing European varietals in the Eastern United States is a troubled one. For centuries ambitious and optimistic viticulturists had come to this fertile land, seen the abundance of native grapes and tried their hand at growing vinifera grapes. The results were always the same, rot, mildew, bugs, frost, or some combination thereof. Eventually, winemakers focused on the native varieties that seemed to be resistant to the harsh conditions in the Eastern United States, or to hybrids that offered the hope of the elegance of the European vines without the extreme fragility of the plant.

A seminal event changed that trend in the East: the arrival of Dr. Konstantin Frank in the Finger Lakes region. Dr. Frank met and was hired by Charles Fournier, a French champagne maker and executive at Gold Seal Vineyards. He was in charge of making sparkling wines from French-American hybrid grapes. Dr. Frank was a doctor of viticulture. Based on his experience of growing vinifera in his native Ukraine he felt that there was no reason that the trick couldn’t be done in upstate New York as well. Frank and Fournier succeeded in producing fine wines from locally grown vinifera grapes. Frank, having proved his point wanted to expand on his success and formed his own vineyard and nursery, Dr. Frank’s Vinifera Wine Cellars, which is still one of the great winemakers of the Finger Lakes.

Dr, Frank’s Wine Cellars is still one of the premier winemakers in the Finger Lakes . The Rieslings, tasted for this article, were among the best production available. Their wines are very well crafted, complex, rich, and balanced. Although, the winery is rich in European winemaking traditional, Dr. Frank’s are very much characteristic of the Finger Lakes: rich, racy, steely, and with a solid mineral slate backbone they are very different than the more ethereal German and Austrian styles.