“I was overwhelmed,” says Cameron Hosmer, about the news of the Jim Trezise Lifetime Achievement Award he and his wife, Maren, received this year from the New York Wine & Grape Foundation. “What a thrill! It was truly an honor to be recognized by our industry.”
Maren was equally taken by surprise and delighted.
“I couldn’t believe it,” she recalls. “It really was completely unexpected.”
That kind of joyful, calm humility has guided the pair through their lives and careers. It’s also been foundational in the slow, steady rise of Hosmer Estate Winery in Ovid, which just happened to coincide with the ascent of the Finger Lakes wine industry writ large.
The New York Wine & Grape Foundation created the Unity Awards in 1990 to recognize, encourage and celebrate cooperation among grape growers, wineries, researchers, retailers and other members of the growing Empire State wine industry.
Ten awards are given out every year. The Jim Trezise Lifetime Achievement Award recognizes people who have demonstrated a lifelong commitment to the New York wine and grape industry, and in the process, have made impactful contributions that advance the industry. Trezise, of course, is a legend in the industry. He was named executive director of the New York State Wine Growers Association in 1982 and created the New York Wine & Grape Foundation a few years later in 1985; today, he serves as president of WineAmerica.
Planting a Vineyard
Cameron and Maren, who transformed Cameron’s family farm into a small but mighty winery that’s beloved by both critics and wine lovers alike, certainly qualify.
“Our farm has been in my family for 100 years,” says Cameron of the Cayuga Lake estate, which now encompasses about 250 acres, 70 of which are under vine. “Originally it was a summer home for my family. They’d come up here, mow the lawn, plant a garden, what have you.”
The family would rent out cropland to neighboring grain farmers. But in the early 1970s, Hammondsport’s Taylor Wine Company came calling.
“They were seeing enormous growth in interest in their red wine,” Cameron says. “They would approach people with appropriate sites in the Finger Lakes and encourage them to plant grapes. They made it easy, telling people where and what to plant.”
That was 1972.
“My dad hired a local fellow whose family had vineyards, Jim Knapp,” Cameron says. “He handled all of the planting, and his family, of course, founded Knapp Winery. They planted vineyards for Taylor, too, and so did Cayuga.”
For about a decade, the deal worked well. Every August, Taylor would tell the Hosmers how much they’d pay them for the grapes, and then the Hosmers would pick the grapes and deliver them. But then in the early 1980s, the Taylor Company told the Hosmers they could only take half of their grapes, at a cut-rate price.
From Growers to Makers
“It was a shock, and it wasn’t just us,” Cameron recalls. “I studied grape-growing at Cornell at my father’s suggestion, so I’d started experimenting with making wine. I’d make big batches at home, and in the beginning, it was just really trying things out, seeing what worked, and what didn’t.”
Meanwhile, he and Maren had gotten serious, then married—they’d met because Cameron played lacrosse with her brothers—and she moved to the Finger Lakes. They became not just husband-and-wife, but business partners.
“We were kind of forced into founding the winery officially because there was nothing for us to do with the grapes,” Cameron recalls. “A lot of people were in the same boat. And honestly? It ended up being for the best. The Finger Lakes wouldn’t be what it is today, with so many successful small family-run wineries if that hadn’t happened.”
They bonded their winery in 1985 and opened the doors to their tasting room in 1986.
“Timothy was four months old when we opened the doors,” Maren recalls. “I’ll never forget. What a crazy time! Cam had built a lot of our equipment himself, and everything we did was by hand. I remember having a baby monitor with me in the middle of the night on the bottling line, running upstairs and checking on him if I heard a peep.”
Timothy, now 37, was joined by his sister Anna, now 35, a few years later. In many ways, Maren says, their children ensured the growth and success of Hosmer.
“Before our kids were born, Cameron and I were ski bums,” Maren recalls. “We would grow the grapes and then take off for the winter. But the kids rooted us, and we really focused on building Hosmer.”
The pair did everything themselves for years, from pruning to winemaking to bottling, with Timothy hot on their heels.
“From the beginning, Timothy was all in,” says Maren. “Even in Kindergarten, he talked about running the winery one day.”
The Next Generation
In many ways, both children are now carrying on the pair’s legacy: Anna on the slopes, and Timothy amid the vines.
Anna lives in Park City as a sports education coordinator for U.S. Ski & Snowboard, and Timothy is essentially running the show at Hosmer.
“He was born to do this,” Cameron says. “He loves everything about the growing of wine, and he and our winemaker Julia [Hoyle] work one-on-one together. Maren and I have taken a step back and are really just working in an advisory capacity.”
Timothy’s fiancé, Brooke Morsch, is the winery’s general manager.
“When we hired Brooke I remember Timothy suddenly being very interested in checking in on the office,” Cameron recalls. “It’s so great to see them manage the winery, and I feel blessed to be able to pass on the winery to the next generation.”
Not that Cameron and Maren are ready to just sit back and enjoy the accolades that are increasingly streaming their way.
“My project right now is redoing the house across the street from the winery,” Maren says. “And Cameron is still very involved. There’s always something to do, and that keeps life interesting.”
Interesting for them, delicious for us.
