Checking In at Airy Acres

Some of you might have read my blog post about Airy Acres last year (link here). At the time I believed that the young family enterprise held a lot of potential, so when Noah (son of Fred and Pam Bassette, owners) offered to meet with me to do a follow-up, I got my recorder and camera and went for a visit to check in on their progress.

New wines: “When we spoke in January of 2022, we only had two wines that we were selling: a 2020 Riesling and a 2020 Cab Franc. Now, we offer 11 different wines, the majority of them from the 2021 vintage, a few from 2022 and a blend of both vintages” Noah tells me. “We were very much in the beginning phases of starting a winery, and now we have a full portfolio of offerings and offer drop-in tasting to the public three days every week.”

Airy Acres has won six medals recently at the 2023 New York Wine Classic competition:
2021 Lemberger (94pts) Gold Medal, 2021 Osprey Red Blend (89pts) Silver Medal, 2021 Crosswind White Blend (88pts) Silver Medal, 2021 Semi-Dry Riesling 2% rs. (88pts) Silver Medal, 2021 Cabernet Franc (84pts) Bronze Medal, and 2021 Dry Riesling (84pts) Bronze Medal.

I have a few standard questions that I always ask, one of them is about pleasant surprises that have happened: “We didn’t necessarily have plans to make blends or carbonated wines, but the ‘21 vintage gave us a lot of fruit, and we decided that we just had too much Gewurztraminer for only a still varietal. Hearing of the success other wineries have had with Gewurztraminer blends and carbonated versions, we carbonated some of our Gewurztraminer and called it Glide. We also make a bubbly Glide Rosé. In keeping with the airport theme, we called our Gewurztraminer / Riesling blend Crosswind. Those three wines have become our best sellers this year. I never expected that”.

This year the family will start harvesting Saperavi and Rkatsiteli that was planted in 2021. “We’re planting three more acres of vines this year: Riesling, Rkatsiteli and Saperavi. We have vineyards by the grass strip runway which we call the Runway Block and here by the old family farmhouse, aptly named the Farmhouse Block.”

Wine club: “Back in July of 2022, we had our first wine club member sign onto our club, I’m hoping and expecting we have more than 100 members by the end off this year.” In additional to getting 20% all bottle purchases, wine club members enjoy free tastings (for 4 people), access to pre-release and library wines, participation in exclusive wine club events, and a sense of being part of an excisting family adventure from the ground up. Wine club members get two 6 bottle shipments per year.

New Tasting Room: “My mother’s family moved into the old farmhouse on Footes Corners Road in 1918. Originally it was a chicken farm with 12,000 chickens at one time. Back then you could make a decent living by selling chicken eggs. They crop farmed for feed. Lemuel Bassette moved to the area from Connecticut in 1810, which makes Noah and his siblings the 8th generation to live in the area.“ Fred told me previously. Back when I interviewed them in January of 2022, they knew there was going to be a tasting room, but they weren’t sure if they were going to build a new one or fix up the old family farmhouse.

“My father loves to crunch the numbers, so after doing a through analysis, we decided that the best option was to refurbish the family farmhouse” Noah tells me as we looked at the building supported on steel beams while a new cellar was being excavated. “Part of the Airy Acres brand is the family connection: we’ve got the old airstrip, the farm that’s been in the family for generations, and it’s priceless for us to be able to doing tastings for people in a house that all the family has great memories of growing up.”

When the building opens for tastings in early 2024, the first floor will be the main tasting area for the public. Wine storage is planned for the cellar and special events will be held on the second floor. Eventually outside tasting spaces will also be developed. “We’re planning on displaying a lot of the nice family artifacts we salvaged from the house, it’ll be a nice space to enjoy our wine.”

For the remainder of the season, “drop-in” tastings will be available from 11am-6pm Thursday – Saturdays and by appointment Monday – Wednesday. As always, check online or call prior to going. If you can’t visit soon, check their website for the many locations where you can buy their wine, but It’s worth the visit!

Website: https://www.airyacresvineyard.com/
8011 Footes Corners Rd, Interlaken, NY 14847
office@airyacresvineyard.com
607-342-0265