A Long Road to Exceptional Riesling
From the Start
Established in 2017, Cato Vineyards emerged from an abandoned concord vineyard on a wind-swept hilltop a half mile from the eastern shore of New York's Seneca Lake. The site proved to be an ideal location to cultivate Riesling with its deep, well-drained gravely silt loam and moderate slope resulting in good drainage with little risk of environmentally detrimental surface runoff. Moreover, the site has an ideal mesoclimate due to its elevation and proximity to Seneca Lake.
A Major Undertaking
Converting the old concord vineyard was a major undertaking. The site was prepared for high quality wine grape production between 2017 and 2021. The old concord vines were dug out, pressure-treated trellis posts were removed, and the soil was ripped with a subsoiling plow to alleviate soil compaction resulting from decades of heavy equipment use. Century-old, hand-dug wells were filled in, tons of stone was extracted, and drainage tiles were buried throughout the vineyard to help us cope with increasingly heavy summer rainfall. Cover crops were grown and tilled into the soil year after year to increase its organic matter content and improve its physical characteristics, and tons or nutrients were returned to the soil to ensure our Red Riesling vines thrives for generations to come.
Planting Complete
The vineyard as of June 2024 (left). Nearly 8000 Red Riesling vines were planted from 2022 through 2024.