From Napa to Cayuga Lake: Our Wine Story

Some wine stories start with a vineyard. Ours started in a liquor store.

Back in the late ‘90s, Scott was a college student at the University of Rochester working at White House Liquor, a store in Rochester owned by Danny Wegman’s sister. He stocked shelves, got to know distributors, and quietly started learning about wine while I was spending my days in court as a public defender. We were young, newly married, and navigating big jobs and tight budgets, but we both fell in love with wine together.

When we honeymooned in Napa in 1998, Scott used his liquor world connections to set up private tastings at places like Beringer and a handful of lesser-known gems. We kept a journal of that trip, each of us writing our version of the day. I still have it, along with the wine labels we carefully collected from wineries we visited and pinned to a bulletin board. It was before Napa became Napa™, and we soaked in every moment. Long lunches, vineyard strolls, handwritten tasting notes, and dinner at restaurants like Mustard's Grill. It was more than a little magical.

We didn’t know then how much wine would come to mean to us. Over the years, we explored the Finger Lakes on long weekends, rented lakeside cottages with our kids, and slowly got to know the region’s wine scene, first as fans, then as regulars. In the fall of 2020, in the middle of the pandemic, we made the very unexpected decision to buy a lake house on Cayuga. It wasn’t planned, but it felt right. And it’s become our summer home ever since.

These days, Scott’s an ICU nurse at Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester. And he’s no longer just tasting wine—he’s making it. After taking winemaking and viticulture classes at FLCC, interning in the vineyard at Boundary Breaks, and working two crushes at Silver Thread, he made his first solo batch of Riesling in 2024 using juice from Fulkerson Winery . (More on that soon—it’s heading to the NY State Fair this year as an amateur entry. Wish us luck!)

This blog is a story and a journey. About a love of wine, a place that feels like home, and a guy who decided to spend his free time making the stuff himself.

Thanks for joining us here. There’s a lot more to come—old tasting notes, vineyard visits, winery recs, and maybe a few fermentation experiments along the way.

This post, about how we found our lake home in the Finger Lakes, is a great place to start!

If you’re following along, thanks for being part of the ride—more stories (and wines) to come. If you want to stay updated on the latest posts, make sure to subscribe to our blog. And don’t forget to check out our Facebook group, Finger Lakes Food and Wine Adventure.

Cheers from the lake,
— Niki & Scott