From the Wagner Farms Cayuga White block on the east side of Seneca Lake, planted in 1978, this wine comes from a flat site with Lansing gravelly silt loam soils—formed from calcareous glacial till derived from sandstone, limestone, and shale. Cayuga White, a French-American hybrid developed by Cornell University in the 1940s, is grown almost exclusively in the Finger Lakes and here is planted on its own roots and trained to a high-wire cordon system. No sulfites were added at bottling. Bottles were disgorged in winter 2024, with just 450 cases produced. Fragrant pear and white peach aromas mingle with almond and white flower notes, blooming on the palate into tropical tones of pineapple and coconut cream. There’s something oddly evocative here—like a dry, acid-driven Pina Colada conjured by a bartender at Death & Co, served poolside at a Hawaiian resort. Why it takes you there, you won’t be able to explain. But it will—and that’s part of its charm.