Finger Lakes Riesling Festival

I was super-​psyched to go to this festival but was disappointed after attending in the afternoon on Saturday, August 9^th.
So we started at the wine/​beer area and paid $ 20 each for unlimited tastings in the wine & beer tents. «Designated Driver» tickets were still $ 5, which I thought was crazy as it’s not like there was food or non-​alcoholic drinks or even water inside for the DDs. They should be encouraging folks to have DDs, not charging them $ 5.
With our $ 20 came a cute 6-​bottle wine bag (similar to the ones Century gives out but with the festival logo on it), a nice magazine about food/​wine in the FLX, a wine glass emblazoned with the festival’s logo, and a beer glass with the festival’s logo. Honestly I’d rather just have a plain wine glass at this point as I’m over having tons of logoed stuff in my kitchen cabinets.
There was no water bottle in your bag or even cups of water inside the wine & beer tents. Instead they had signs saying that water was available inside the NYWCC for $ 2 per bottle (aka crazy). If you’re having thousands of people paying $ 20 each to drink lots of alcohol on a very hot summer day you should at least give them some water. It doesn’t have to be bottled water, simply having water stations in the tent would have sufficed.
The wine tent was total chaos. The wineries that attended also weren’t the best in the FLX, so that was also a bit disappointing. After seeing the setup I can see why they chose to not attend. The wineries that did attend often didn’t bring their full range of wines to the festival, which I was bummed about but sort of understood. Everything tended to be quite sweet, while I know FLX produces some amazing dry & semi-​dry wines. The wine pourers also weren’t even that knowledgeable about their products or that willing to take the time to speak about them, which was a bummer for us. It seemed like the event was heavily geared towards massive alcohol intake without as much wine education. When we asked one winery about the grapes in a blend he was pouring he said he had no idea and said «who cares — it’s wine» as if that was the only thing that mattered to us. Also, literally only one winery had water on the table to rinse out glasses, so there were lots of issues when switching between reds & whites and lots of drunk, hot, dehydrated people in the tent.
The tent spaces given to wineries were also a problem. It seems like they could buy a single spot or a double spot. In all cases the tables were too small and then there were pretty large gaps between some of the tables. This led to weird clumping of people in hot bunches at tables and not a fun atmosphere for guests.
There were a few standout wineries at the event including Raymor Estates, which had a very knowledgeable pourer, Damiani, which brought a larger range of wines besides the sweet ones, and to some extent Anthony Road, which had a pretty good selection.
To be fair, there were hourly Wegmans-​sponsored wine education events that I did want to attend, but couldn’t convince all members of my group to do so. Attending one of those might have enhanced the experience for me.
The beer tent, sponsored by Wegmans, was much better than the wine tent, and I’d give it 3 stars. The pourers seemed organized and there was even a central area with a few full pitchers of water for cleaning out your beer glass between tastings (or drinking the water if you might have gotten thirsty in the heat/​dehydrated by the alcohol). My husband was pleased with the breweries that were represented and the beers they poured. He wished there were more, but was overall happy. The beer tent also needed a larger space as it was SO PACKED and hot the whole time, you could barely move. Still, it gave that tent a fun vibe that the wine tent was lacking from our perspective.
Overall we probably wouldn’t go back as we definitely didn’t think it was worth $ 20 and were frustrated by the chaotic atmosphere in the wine tent, didn’t appreciate the small range of wines available, and were annoyed by the lack of water. If higher quality wineries attend next year I might consider going back.

A small but fun little festival on the shore of Canandaigua Lake. Primarily this is a a big tent with 18 wineries set up to offer tastings of their selections and to sell by the bottle if you find what you like. There is also a tent with Craft beers from some local (all New York) breweries, nine total, also offering samples.
If you enjoy Riesling, this is can be fun, consider it a micro condensed wine tour. The samples are considerably smaller than I have experienced at winery tasting rooms and that may have been because the wineries are really pouring a lot of glasses over the two day event and because almost no-​one was tasting and spitting. While there a few non-​Riesling offerings they were very few. So while a winery wine tour would have more range overall, this was about the depth and subtle variations within a specific varietal. Over at the beer tent the samples were about ¼ pint each. This was a great idea to have both tents and both were enthusiastically visited.
The process was that you walk in (your ID may be checked) and for $ 20, you get a wrist band put on, you are handed a wine glass and beer glass, and a «passport» with a list of wineries and breweries, and 10 tear-​off tabs to exchange for tastings samples. In theory you are meant to choose your ten taste-​samples from the choices available, you can do beer and wine, and to sample in some modicum of moderation. Good theory. In practice, no-​one asked for the tabs and people only offered them at the first couple of tables. Which did not really matter since you could ask for another «passport» if you desired, as this was printed clearly inside.
Only a few food vendors and although there were nice and interesting offerings from Simply Crapes and a restaurant, who’s name escapes me, that had a portable wood fired pizza oven, most of the choices were typical carnival stuff.
There are lots of peripheral activities over the two day event, in the immediate and nearby areas; twenty or so tents with vendors and some crafts for sale, a 5k run, a few bands, a small farmer’s market, and some related events at the NY Wine & Culinary Center which is a close drive.