“Only the unimaginative can fail to find a reason for drinking Champagne,” playwright and poet Oscar Wilde is quoted as saying, and he’s not wrong—but we’d go even further. There is never a wrong time to sip a well-made sparkling wine. It goes with every meal, every celebration, every moment alone sitting on your front porch. 

New York wine producers technically can’t make Champagne. That honorific can be given only to bubbly made in the Champagne region of France using specific grapes and made in a specific way. New York winemakers can, however, produce sparkling wine using those same grapes and the same method that the most celebrated Champagne Houses employ, often with very similar, delicious results. 

Excellent “methode Champonoise” sparkling wines are produced throughout the Empire State, but it’s in the Finger Lakes where the production of these beautiful bubbles is steadily increasing, with good reason.

“This region is built for sparkling, and I don’t know why it’s not more famous, to be honest,” says Glenn Allen, co-owner and general manager of Damiani Wine Cellars on Seneca Lake. “We have this cool climate that lends itself perfectly to creating high-acid grapes. The region produces these wonderful high acid flavorful grapes because of the climate.”

“If you try sparkling from just about any producer here you can find one that’s quite exceptional,” says Allen. He points to some of Damiani’s contemporaries, including Dr. Konstantin Frank Winery and Hermann J. Wiemer Vineyard, as examples of wineries that make truly world-class sparkling wine.  

Damiani also makes world-class sparkling wine, and now it has a New York Wine Classic win in the category.

A Sparkling Wine from a Classic Vintage

Damiani Wine Cellars 2017 Brut Méthode Champenoise took home the honor of Best Sparkling Wine in the 2024 New York Wine Classic. The annual event celebrates a diverse selection of world-class wines from producers within the state. Rated 95 points and deemed “exceptional”  by the Beverage Tasting Institute, the 2017 Brut was born from what Allen says was a “classic vintage.”

“2017 was a classic year, as I like to say,” says Allen. “There was no extreme weather event.”

The region enjoyed a mild winter after the 2016 drought year so there was no additional stress on the vines and they had time to recover. Spring was early and there was plenty of water through the summer. 

“What really brought it around to be perfect was we had a dry fall and a wonderful hang time through the fall. We had a wonderful hot August and September that pushed all the grapes to full maturity,” he says.

Those conditions allowed for an early harvest of the grapes that went into the 2017 sparkling wine, 55% Chardonnay, 25% Pinot Noir, & 20% Pinot Meunier. The Chardonnay and Pinot Noir were estate grapes. Damiani purchased the Pinot Meunier from another grower on the East Side of Seneca Lake. The winery has since planted its own Pinot Meunier to use in future vintages of its traditional sparkling wines.

Making an Award-Winning Finger Lakes Sparkling Wine

“We go through primary fermentation in separate lots per grape,” says Allen. After blending trials, the tank-fermented grapes that have been left on the lees for 5 months are blended and bottled. The wine went into the bottle for its secondary fermentation in February 2019 and was left in tirage for five years. 

Disgorgement started in July 2023, but not all the bottles were disgorged at once. 

“It takes maybe six months from first to last disgorgement,” says Allen. “It depends on the sell rate. We believe in leaving it in tirage as long as possible.” 

In all, about 100 cases of the celebrated 2017 Brut were produced, and by the time the award came out, the winery was sold out. While there will be a release next year, it may be a very different wine.

“We do decide the blend based on the vintage and what the grapes are telling us. There are times when we’ll make a  Blanc de Blanc, a Blanc de Noir, or a Brut, or sometimes we’ll do more than one type. We’ll do that when we have enough grapes to celebrate the differences. We love celebrating what the vintage gives us,” says Allen.

Damiani has two other sparkling wines in its portfolio. Bollicine is a fresh, fruity bubbly made from Cayuga and the extra traditional Champagne grapes cuvée, made in the transfer method. Allen says it’s Prosecco-like in style and profile. Vagabond Farmer Fizz comes from a project Damiani is incubating with its assistant winemaker, Alex Bond. The Piquette is produced from Chambourcin, Chelois, and  Marechal Foch and is reminiscent of Italian dry Lambrusco. 

We’re people who are passionate about wine, we’re pursuing whatever is the best wine for that vintage, and that goes across our portfolio,” says Allen. “Every year’s a little different. That’s one of the great things about the Finger Lakes, every vintage has a different character.” 

And 2017’s vintage had the right character to create an excellent, award-winning sparkling wine.

“We’ve been doing this since 2004 so it feels really good to be awarded best in category because we know the state produces fantastic wines,” says Allen of the wine’s New York Wine Classic win.