Winners of the New York Wine Classic embody the incredible diversity, ambition, and quality of the 400+ wineries producing wine from the Empire State’s 1,600+ vineyards.
Just consider CK Cellars and its win for Best Fruit Wine for the NV Earle Estates Apple Enchantment Semi-Sweet Apple Wine, which earned 93 points from the judges, and Inspire Moore and its victory for Best Pétillant Naturel (Pét-Nat) for the NV Unsupervised Pétillant Natural, which earned 91 points from the judges.
The New York Wine Classic is an annual event that celebrates the best-in-class wines from producers across the Empire State. To evaluate the 715 entries from 92 wineries across the state, the NYWGF partnered with the Beverage Tasting Institute to judge the competition. In total, 2 Platinum, 190 Gold, 397 Silver, and 116 Bronze medals were awarded.
Inspire More Honors Roots, Forges Ahead
Nathaniel Moore just turned 26, and he already has a win under his belt for Best Pét-Nat. He also just completed his sixth vintage at Inspire Moore Winery & Vineyard in Naples.
It wasn’t supposed to be this way, but Moore still wouldn’t have it any other way.
“I was getting ready to enroll at Cornell to get my degree in enology when my dad got sick,” Moore recalls. “If you ask anyone in the Finger Lakes about Tim Moore, they’ll have a story, and it will be a good one. He was the best dad anyone could ask for, and I always planned to go back to the family winery and make wine, and when he got sick, it just ended up happening way sooner than we planned.”
Tim Moore died of cancer at age 52 on June 29, 2019, on his wedding anniversary.
“My mom [Diane] always supported my dad in everything, and actually was the one who prompted him to open the winery in 2007,” Moore says. “My father was 20 when he fell in love with wine, and he worked harvests in Austria then came back and went to U C Davis [University of California, Davis] to get an enology degree.”
The pair, who fell in love in California, moved out east together, where he got a job in 1998 at Constellation working on their grower-relations team.
“Then he turned 40, and my mom basically said, ‘you’re not getting in younger,’” Moore says. “So he decided to just do what he always said he’d do, which is open a winery. He and my mom did everything. They started with just Riesling and Syrah, then expanded.”
When Moore took over, he was 20, but he’d graduated from Finger Lake Community College, under the stern direction of Paul Brock, a former chemical engineer and the owner-winemaker at Silver Thread Vineyard, who taught him “everything he needed, even if I didn’t realize it at the time.”
So while Moore couldn’t drink the wine, he knew how to make it delicious, utilizing Brock’s tutelage, his father’s strict paradigm which was drilled into him starting at age 10 vis a vis o pick dates, techniques, their shared love of all things Austrian (“we work with Gruner Veltliner, Zweigelt, Blaufrankisch and even St. Laurent) and his abhorrence of high-alcohol wines.
But he also started experimenting, while still respecting his roots—which led to the creation of the Cayuga Pét-Nat.
“The first Pét-Nat I made was from Pinot Gris in 2021,” Moore recalls. “I did things a little differently than my dad may have. It was our first Pét-Nat, but it was something that I made based on my experience trying them in Austria. I tried to really honor the ancestral method, using native ferments and opting to not disgorge, filter, or fine.”
That experimentation gave Moore the courage and knowledge to continue to carve out his own niche at the winery. He now uses mostly native yeasts and is as non-interventionist as possible. The win for this wine felt like a coup.
“I was sitting on the couch with my wife when the announcement was made,” he recalls. “We fully freaked out. We had a full-on celebration. And my mom was so proud. It’s really just us doing absolutely everything. We’re a tiny winery with 1,800 cases a year. My hands are in everything. And I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
CK Cellars Makes Something for Everyone
“My wife and I started this project because it was a hobby that became a passion that became a reality,” says Paul Curcillo, co-owner of Seneca Lake’s CK Cellars Winery with his wife, Stephanie King. “And we continue to do it because we enjoy the customers and we enjoy the experience.”
Curcillo, a surgical oncologist by day, and King, also an oncologist, spent decades as home winemakers before their little hobby grew into a 150-case operation and they realized it was time to go pro. Feeling deep kinship with the Finger Lakes and an appreciation of the region’s penchant for “offering something for everyone,” they seized the opportunity in 2015 to purchase Torrey Ridge Winery, Warthog Cidery, and Earle Estates Meadery.
“This trio had been around for more than 25 years and they were known for their sweet wines, ciders, and meade,” Curcillo says.
The pair, who operate the brands under the CK Cellars umbrella (the C is for Curcillo, and the K is for King), maintained the spirit of the brands while adjusting recipes and filtering techniques through their own paradigm.
But Curcillo explains that even with sweet, semi-sweet, plus cider and mead under their umbrella, he and King felt something was missing.
“Most people think they like dry wines, but they actually like sweet wines,” Curcillo says. “I think part of that is that they really want to taste the fruit. It’s not the sugar they’re after—it’s the fruit! We decided to create a line of wines that honor New York’s signature grapes like Concord and Vignolles and is made dry, but tastes like fruit.”
The pair created 11 wines in 2016 under the name CuKi Fine Wine (again in a nod to their last names), and aged them for five years until they were completely dry.
Their efforts in honoring were recognized in 2017 when they won Winery of the Year from the New York Wine & Grape Foundation. And their CuKi Traminette snagged Best in New York at the 2023 New York Wine Classic.
In 2018, they felt compelled to round out their offerings completely and embrace their passion for dry wine, purchasing Rooster Hill Vineyards on Keuka Lake.
This year, Curcillo says their win for Apple Enchantment felt especially sweet.
“The first apple wine I ever tried, was in the Finger Lakes,” he says. “I love how it tastes like apple juice, but softer and more complex because of the alcohol. I love that all of the apples are grown right here in Penn Yann. It’s low alcohol, about 8% to 9%, with 6% to 7% residual sugar. It’s great with white meats, and to me, it really embodies the Finger Lakes.”
Winning another New York Classic award, this time for a fruit wine, “really made us think about what we’d been able to do and how much fun we have doing it in New York.” Curcillo continues. “It was a reality check, and it really made us feel good. It’s such a special industry.”
One made even more special by the creativity and vision of the people behind the labels.
