Seneca Lake Wine Trail interview with Brittany Gibson, Executive Director

We sit down with Brittany Gibson, Executive Director of the Seneca Lake Wine Trail, to explore what makes this Finger Lakes destination so special. From the trail’s history and its 27 member wineries to the evolving business of winemaking—including unique models like alternating proprietorships—we dive into the industry side that most visitors never see.

We also break down the wine trail’s most popular events like Deck the Halls, Chocolate & Wine, and Spring Wine & Cheese, and how they turn a simple tasting trip into a full weekend experience. Brittany shares insight into the marketing behind these events, how they drive tourism, and why collaboration between wineries is key to the region’s success.

Plus, we talk about seasonal tasting passes, behind-the-scenes vineyard experiences, the impact of climate on grape growing, and why the Finger Lakes continues to rank among the top wine destinations in the country.

If you love wine, travel, or discovering local gems, this episode is your guide to planning the perfect Seneca Lake getaway.

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Transcript

Intro: The Buffalo Bruise podcast.

Jason Ettinger: I'm just going to start with jump right into introduction.

Brittany Gibson: Yeah. Go ahead. I'm Brittany Gibson, executive director of the Seneca Lake Wine Trail.

Jason Ettinger: I thank you first of all, for, for having us here because we I mean, we've been looking forward to this conversation for a long time. What's that? Five years of Deck the halls. And then this is the first non deck the halls event that we've done this weekend.

Brittany Gibson: Nice. Yeah. Well welcome. I think it's really fun to experience things other than deck the halls. A lot of people know us because that's our big hallmark event. But the other events are so much fun and different.

Jason Ettinger: Yeah. And we're going to go into a few of those because I like the variety that you have. Um, first and foremost, the Seneca Lake wine Trail, maybe a brief history that you have and how many wineries are actually on the trail itself.

Brittany Gibson: Sure. So we were founded in nineteen eighty six, incorporated in nineteen eighty nine. Uh, so, you know, well over thirty years now we have twenty seven member wineries to join the trail. A lot of people will say, well, how come there's wineries on the lake that are not members of the wine trail?

Sabrina Redman: Oh, that was my big question. Yeah, I always wondered that.

Brittany Gibson: So we have some basic requirements. First you have to be a wine producer, obviously. Right. So you can't be a bar. You can't be just a pop up tasting room. You need to be making wine and you have to be making that wine from Finger Lakes and Seneca Lake fruit. And you have to either have five acres of vineyards, a production facility in the Ava, or you can produce your wines at an alternating proprietorship location, meaning you partner with a winery in the Seneca Lake Ava to produce your wines. We added that a couple of years ago because new people are coming into the wine business here, and the business model is absolutely changing. Right. So it used to be wineries really got started after the Farm Winery Act passed, because they had these grapes that they were growing for the big companies, right? Like Taylor and those kinds of things. And they said, well, now we have all these grapes. Taylor's out of business. And what do we do? So I said, let's make wine ourselves. So that's how wineries started, right? And that was kind of a nice, I don't know, coincidence. But not everybody getting into the business now has the money up front. It's very expensive to plant vineyards. There's only so much vineyard land left. So some folks are saying, look, I just want to make really good wine, but I don't want to own the vineyards. I don't want to manage the vineyards. I don't want to hire staff for that. So they partner with wineries that are already here in the area that have the space to lease out, and they make their wines still from Finger Lakes and Seneca Lake fruit, but they don't own the facility. That's called an alternating proprietorship arrangement.

Jason Ettinger: That's a huge thing to learn right off the bat because we, you know, we're friends with some of the owners and winemakers in the area, but we just never knew how it what, like, what makes you a vineyard? You know, what makes you a winemaker? What makes you right?

Sabrina Redman: Because you're always just talking about the wine. Yes. Not oh, what's the business side of it? I was just going.

Brittany Gibson: To say it's interesting really, to get into the business side of things because every winery really is structured differently. I would say like some of the OGs are structured pretty similarly. But as the years have gone on, people have really started to get creative and figured out what actually does work for us internally, but also what works best for our brand.

Sabrina Redman: Mhm.

Jason Ettinger: Very cool. Yeah. So then did so did we talk about total number of that were on the.

Brittany Gibson: Yeah. So we have twenty seven member wineries. Mhm. And that fluctuates a little bit year to year. We don't get tons of you know on and off. We did welcome two new members this year. So we were really excited about that. We primarily are a marketing organization. I don't position us as anything other than that. That's our mission is to build awareness for the Seneca Lake Wine Trail and our member wineries, and we stay in our lane. I'm a very strategic marketer, so I partner with organizations like the Finger Lakes Wine Alliance, whose job is to talk to the trade and media. I partner with organizations like the tourism promotion agencies in the area, but generally we try to stay in our lane. We stay pretty laser focused on consumer marketing, and our goal is to drive visitors to our member wineries.

Jason Ettinger: And then there was recently an article that came out that talked about areas in the country that were the most popular wine areas, and the Finger Lakes came in like fifth or sixth on that list in the nation.

Brittany Gibson: Mhm. That was a wine enthusiast poll, actually. Yeah.

Jason Ettinger: Yeah. In a in a great area. I mean, over the years I've visited a little bit of Cayuga, a lot of Cayuga and a, you know, well, now a ton of Seneca. And we just absolutely have fallen in love with, you know, everything from Geneva to Watkins Glen. And, you know, while everybody has, I'm sure coming into the area having their favorites, it's great to be able to come in. And now, as we're talking about getting into events, it's not just, you know, I'm going out to Seneca Lake and I'm hitting up a couple of wineries. It becomes, you know, a three day, you know, an event that that people take on, whether it's, you know, it's a weekend or they decide that they're going to add on the extra day. So, you know, in events wise, I've noticed that, you know, looking back at the history that some of the events change from year to year. But there's always there's always the consistent ones that you that you have.

Brittany Gibson: Chocolate and wine in February is huge. We would never mess with that spring wine and cheese in April, which you're here to get today. Their shirts say we go together like wine and cheese and I'm obsessed. They walked in and I was like, okay, I love these people already. And then of course, Deck the Halls, which is again, that's our hallmark event. That one Liz Stamp from Lakewood Vineyards actually came up with that event many, many years ago. Uh, and that event has been duplicated in some form or fashion by countless wine trails around the country. It is something that is really, really popular. People love it. And a lot of folks will ask, well, why do you do these events? And it's exactly what you just said, Jason. It is bringing people in. They're really designed as a lead generator, right? When you think about it from a marketing perspective, our goal is to bring new people in to the top of that marketing funnel, and those events provide a perfect way to do that. It's like a little toe dip in the water. You know what it's like to come here. And there's dozens of wineries on the lake, right? And how do you choose? Right. So these events are like, hey, here's a preset itinerary of seventeen wineries that are participating. We're going to get great food. We're going to get great wine and a really cool experience. And overwhelmingly, those folks, we survey everybody after our events. Satisfaction. How many times have you been here? Will you come back? Is this your first time? Those folks always plan a return visit.

Jason Ettinger: I always like that survey every every time I get it. After deck the halls.

Brittany Gibson: You'll get it tomorrow morning for spring wine and cheese. So heads up.

Jason Ettinger: Yeah, I've always commented over, over time that you could be driving around Seneca Lake, barely get back up to the speed limit before you're slowing down for the next option. Uh, whether, whether it's an event, um, winery or if it's just someplace that's like, okay, we want to, you know, check those and, and everyone is, has their own aesthetics that's pleasing to the eye. You know, that's one of the things that always draws appeal to us is like, you know, location and what they're, how they present themselves as well. We were talking about Deck the Halls and then talking about Liz down at Lakewood. Yeah. One of the things I love to note on that is because people wonder why ornaments and why wreaths. Because as we understood in the. In the very early days, they made wreaths.

Brittany Gibson: Monty Stamp was making grapevine wreaths. That's her father in law. And he was the founder of the winery. Yes.

Jason Ettinger: Yeah, yeah. Making these, these wreaths. Um, and I think the first year they expected like, oh, you know, yeah, this might be an okay event. And they just got overwhelmed.

Brittany Gibson: They did.

Jason Ettinger: And they made good on every single promise that they did. Yeah.

Brittany Gibson: And honestly, I, if there is, I cannot think of a more trademark Lakewood Vineyards thing than that right there. And Liz is actually our current trail president and she's been instrumental. She's our special events chair. She's an amazing person who has given so much to this industry. And she really just prefers to totally fly under the radar. You will never see her out in public tooting her own horn, so darn it. Any chance I get? I'm gonna toot that woman's horn because she is incredible. She's incredible.

Jason Ettinger: And they seem to all be that way too. Because what we find out is not only one winery. If we talk about another winery at a winery, they have nothing but positive things to say about everybody. You know, going to I think it was Fox Run. And then they were heavily promoting Conan Vine. Yeah. Just who just.

Sabrina Redman: Yeah. They actually had like advertisements out and everything. And, you know, we know the people who were good friends with them and told their own toasts. And so they were opening. So we went up there and we said, hey guys, there's actually like an advertisement.

Brittany Gibson: So nice.

Sabrina Redman: Right? Like, here you are, this new place. Go check it out.

Brittany Gibson: And I feel like even we talk a lot about collaboration and cooperation in the Finger Lakes. And that's kind of like a uniquely Finger Lakes thing. But I feel like it's even more true on Seneca Lake. We get together every quarter just for a fun happy hour as a wine trail, and just to see people come together. These are friends and neighbors. This is not something we just talk about in public because it's a nice little talking point. You know, it's good marketing, right? This is really how it is. And you, like you just said, you can feel that when you go to these wineries. Absolutely. And that makes all the difference. They totally understand. One winery is a point of interest, right? You might go once, but a collection of twenty plus wineries. That's a destination. Exactly. So it's worth a weekend or three days or five days. There's a lot of people coming here making longer visits, so we're excited to see it. But I think it's one hundred percent a result of that, that vibe, that community.

Sabrina Redman: Yeah, I think that could be one of the reasons why we love it. I mean that and we also love to have beer. So sure, this lake is so big. You have wine and beer.

Brittany Gibson: And spirits.

Sabrina Redman: And yeah, there's.

Brittany Gibson: All kinds of non-alcoholic beverages too. I mean, you go to three brothers, which is sort of like the OG of the variety, right? And they have craft soda that is just their craft. Root beer got me through my pregnancies. I'm here to tell you.

Sabrina Redman: What was the place that we went to at Deck the Halls that I got all those apple juices that they made.

Brittany Gibson: Oh, Fulkerson.

Sabrina Redman: I had no idea. So my youngest does not drink alcohol at all. And I was like, oh my gosh, look at these. So I was I brought home like six.

Brittany Gibson: Apple juice, grape juice. That's actually where I got my start in the industry was at Fulkerson's.

Sabrina Redman: Yeah. And so we were like looking at it. And then Kieran was like, oh, is this wine? And I said, no, but it's made with the grapes that they're gonna make the wine with, but it's not. It's just juice.

Brittany Gibson: And it's so.

Sabrina Redman: Like, and he loved.

Brittany Gibson: It. Nothing against mainstream grape juice, but it's sort of like comparing store bought tomatoes to ones you grew in your backyard, right? Yeah. Once you've had Riesling grape juice or himrod grape juice or Niagara grape juice, you're like, whoa!

Sabrina Redman: Wow. Yeah.

Jason Ettinger: From from somebody who grew up a town over from a Welch's plant. Yes.

Sabrina Redman: Yeah.

Jason Ettinger: Far superior.

Sabrina Redman: Yeah. So that was.

Brittany Gibson: Jason said it, not me. People. You heard it here first, right?

Jason Ettinger: Um, so yeah, we're we're so we're again, wine and cheese this weekend here. Actually, we're getting we're going to our starting place is actually toast just down the hill here. So we'll when we're done here, we're going to be heading down to do that for this weekend. The Seneca Lake Wine and Experience auction.

Brittany Gibson: Yes.

Jason Ettinger: Now is this. Now this is not new.

Brittany Gibson: It's not. So this is our fifth year. This was our fifth year, I should say. Okay. Uh, so that's an annual it's one hundred percent online so people can bid from anywhere they want to. We always do it usually the same week and that third weekend of March. Okay. And we partner with Seneca Lake Pure Waters Association and share some of the proceeds with them. So we actually, I just presented a check to them earlier this week, two thousand and thirty three dollars seventy five cents.

Sabrina Redman: Nice. I don't know why we had.

Brittany Gibson: To throw that seventy five in there. That just made us feel funky. But yeah. Yeah. So we love that because that's an opportunity for our wineries to really roll out the red carpet. They come up with really creative things. Like at Lakewood, you can do a harvest experience where you go out into the fields, you help harvest the grapes, you have lunch with the with the vineyard crew. You get to stay overnight. There's such a variety of experiences. It's really, really cool.

Jason Ettinger: I love that already. Yeah, we were just talking about, you know, because just there was just a social media post yesterday talking about winery and vineyard experiences where you can like get a map and walk the vineyards. We've always liked things like that. Even like during the fall, when you go to an apple orchard, you get to walk, pick apples or whatever. Take pictures. It's what a great experience because it's the outdoors. Even though you're really close to a business and then you can take in what's around you and really appreciate the roots of the product.

Brittany Gibson: Yes. Quite literally. Right. That's we, I mean, obviously you guys pay attention, follow us on social. I love it, but it to me, that's really powerful, right? Because we can stand in a tasting room and talk all day about the grapes and how they're tended. And until you really go out there and look at them and you realize every one of those plants is touched by human hands multiple times a year. And with grapes, that's what I think is so amazing is we get one chance, right? Nothing against beer, folks, right? But like beer, you can basically make an eight weeks. You can buy the hops from anywhere. Obviously, craft beer is a different story. Um, by the way, there was just what New York State craft beer week, right? Uh, craft beer.

Sabrina Redman: Beer day.

Brittany Gibson: Craft beer day, month, day year.

Sabrina Redman: We made it into a whole weekend.

Brittany Gibson: I love what the Craft Brewers Association is doing. I love their marketing. But the cool thing about grapes is, yeah, I mean, talk about you put all your eggs in one basket, you get one chance. Yeah, you better make it count. Right. And I mean, you're also at the mercy of Mother Nature. So you really.

Sabrina Redman: I was just going to say we've heard that over all the years, talking like how things have changed because of the rain that changed the soil, that changed the routing because of how much water, how less water, if it's dry, like.

Brittany Gibson: Well, things like warmer winters, right? Where the grapevines go into a dormancy after harvest. And once things cool down. And if it warms up too soon, for too long, the sap inside of those vines gets flowing again and you could potentially start to damage the vine if you get a hard freeze, which is what happened a few years ago. Um, so that kind of climate change really affects us. I would argue that in the world of climate change, we're probably better positioned here in the Finger Lakes to adapt to that than arguably anywhere else in the world. Because we have grown hybrids for many years. We know what it takes to grow those grapes. Vinifera actually is in our area is benefiting from slightly warmer, longer seasons. So that's honestly a net positive for us. Uh, drought grapes really are not terribly affected by drought. They're very drought tolerant. So that's not a huge issue. But as you said, rightly so. Uh, rain is really a has a big impact. Too much rain is not good. You end up with just water filled berries instead of concentrated sugars, and then it can't ripen and all that good stuff. So but again, like back to your point, right? You wouldn't really, you can appreciate that in a story, but it's different when you walk.

Jason Ettinger: Yeah. It's because you don't, you don't understand the sciences of it. Sure. You know, we've even learning as we went again, going back to Fulkerson, we learned with Dr. Vincent Wine. Uh, and then we had this talk with, um, Derek Edinger over at, um, our Den, uh, yesterday, we're talking about the work that they're doing at the local colleges to create more, more hardy grapevines and hop vines and to be able to produce product that can withstand more fierce weather. Yes. Uh, so, and, and it was great to us just to learn that science, to know that, that, who knows that, that, that something like that's even possible, right?

Brittany Gibson: Well, and it's happening right in our backyard was you have an institution like Cornell University in California. They talk a lot about UC Davis and the work that they do in terms of vineyards and viticulture. We have Cornell University literally in our backyard, and they have an experiment station up in Geneva, New York, where they do all sorts of not just grapes, apples, all sorts of veggies. Also just the science they do there is incredible. And you really get an appreciation for it when you start learning more about what. Wait a minute. A grape vine is not a grape vine is not a grape vine, right?

Sabrina Redman: It's cool stuff, right?

Jason Ettinger: Right. It's cool stuff. Everything. It's like I, when I first got into craft beer, I didn't know what a xiem was. So then I was like, okay, well, how does this become this in two to three years with a hearty, you know, with a hearty harvest on it? Yeah. And it can create something that you might, you know, homebrew in your kitchen or, you know, or if you get banned to the garage or.

Brittany Gibson: Whatever the case.

Jason Ettinger: Because your operation gets too big.

Brittany Gibson: He's asking for a friend, for a.

Sabrina Redman: Friend.

Jason Ettinger: Asking for a friend. Um, yeah. So, uh, you know, our spring wine and cheese. We talked a little bit about deck the Halls as well. Um, you just started your sip the sip into spring tasting pass. Yeah. Now I, I have to ask the question foremost because I noticed like seasonally, do those names change.

Brittany Gibson: A little bit? So we previously called that rosé in May.

Sabrina Redman: Even though I know that one. Okay.

Brittany Gibson: Even though it was more than just rosés, uh, the idea was you would get at least one rosé at each place. And the thing is, like typically rosés come out in the month of May. And that's why we and it's a nice little rhyme rhyme. We liked it. But folks, I think from a marketing perspective, felt a little bit fenced in. So we that's how we opened it up to SIP into Spring and that was. Michelle Smith from Glenora Wine Cellars came up with that name. Okay. Um, so that is selling really well. It's nine, I miscounted actually, it's nineteen wineries for fifty bucks. Yeah. It's a steal. Right. So that's a great way for people to just come out for the it lasts eleven days. So we wanted to kind of open it up, encourage those weekday visits for maybe folks that are local and need a little staycation, or folks that are a little bit more, you know, far afield and want to come for the weekend, but it's really a great deal. It is wonderful because we have such a variety of wineries participating in it. Um, I know one of the questions you had mentioned in our email was, why do some wineries participate in events in other wineries don't? And really, it's because we leave it totally up to the wineries, what they want to participate in. Some wine trails are so small that if you're a member of the trail, you have to do their events. And our thing with the events is we and really all of our the things that we do, we want wineries to be able to carve benefit out of it. That works for them. And as you know, with twenty seven wineries and the ones you've been to alone on Seneca, you know, there's such a dramatic variation between what kind of wines they make, what their brand is. And so there is not a one size fits all on Seneca Lake. And I would never be a proponent of that. So we choose to we have a dues structure, right? And so you can pay a full shot of dues in the form of a check, or you can participate in our events if you find them to be valuable. And you can deduct what we call participation credits off your dues based on. So because those events generate. A lot of people think proceeds from event ticket sales are shared with our member wineries. That's actually illegal because we're a five hundred one C six. So in the IRS, you can't laws you cannot profit share with your members.

Jason Ettinger: It's a conference. It wasn't a conversation with Brie, but I've had a conversation in the past with some folks that I was always curious in that question. And then they're like, I don't think they can do that.

Brittany Gibson: No we don't. And a lot of our customers think the wineries already get money from this ticket sales. No, we take that money and plug it directly back into marketing, and we use it to market everything other than our events. So we don't we hardly do any paid marketing for our event series. We put most of our marketing dollars into just generating new customers out in target markets, further afield than, than here.

Jason Ettinger: Insert buffalo here.

Brittany Gibson: Yes.

Sabrina Redman: Oh, we love Buffalo. You know, we love Buffalo. It's really not that far. It's far enough where you feel like you're going on a mini vacation, but it's close enough where you could just do it on a weekend and not feel like you're in the car driving for hours and hours and hours. Exactly.

Brittany Gibson: It's kind of that perfect little space. Yeah, we love Buffalo, and frankly, Buffalo loves Seneca Lake and we are so appreciative of it. We are so appreciative.

Sabrina Redman: So I think that the events, what must generate everything is what people are tasting and buying and taking home. So that's the goal. And things like the goal is, I mean, I know we go home with boxes.

Brittany Gibson: Oh yeah.

Jason Ettinger: We have a spreadsheet that keeps an inventory of our wine.

Brittany Gibson: It's good to be organized. It's good to be organized.

Sabrina Redman: Especially because during the holidays I do it because I think, okay, we're going to here for dinner for here for brunch. Oh, I can mix this with champagne or oh, do do do do do, and then gifts. And so then you're just leaving with so much stuff.

Brittany Gibson: And who knows what sort of wine drinkers you're now introducing to Seneca Lake wine or Finger Lakes wine, that they haven't had it before. So yeah, that's how that's the connection of it, right? Like you're sharing something that you enjoyed and loved and you're saying here, I want you to try this too.

Sabrina Redman: Yeah. And I mean, I love local, right? I mean, it's not right in our backyard, but it's still local. You're not going one hundred percent big liquor store and buying California wine that's been shipped from a, you know, across the US. You're bringing something home that was just, you know, made two hours away.

Brittany Gibson: I drove by those grapes. I saw those vineyards. Yeah, yeah. So we do change those up seasonally, but we generally will always do sort of a tasting pass in May and a tasting pass in, in August.

Sabrina Redman: All right.

Jason Ettinger: Okay. Yeah. And I say like the the August one last year was gone to the dogs.

Brittany Gibson: Yep. Yep. So we because we know that dog people love wine and they love to come out to wineries because as you guys said, the outdoor space and just an opportunity to be able to bring their dog with them. So that's really designed for folks that are going to bring, bring their four legged friends. And I just.

Sabrina Redman: Love to pet all the dogs.

Brittany Gibson: Yes. Right. And so they get a really cute little dog bandana. I wish I had one hand. I don't think I have one. Um, but they're super cute. It says will beg for wine. Um.

Sabrina Redman: Adorable.

Brittany Gibson: And they get little dog treats and water at each place. And then, of course, the owners with the tasting pass get a standard flight of wines at each place. So.

Sabrina Redman: Oh. Very cute. I borrow a dog.

Brittany Gibson: The tasting tasting passes are fun, right? Because like, if you don't, if you aren't into the food and wine pairing necessarily, there are a lot of people that will go to the events and they're like, I am so full.

Sabrina Redman: So yeah.

Brittany Gibson: Some people just want to like kind of especially locals. We get a lot of locals and I mean Rochester, Elmira, Corning, those areas, uh, who come in and because you can use it over the course of several days or, you know, ten to twelve days, it's nice to have a tasting pass like that.

Jason Ettinger: I always, I always like, I like the idea of an escape, you know, it's just a, you know, especially for locals midweek, like you said, staycation where it's just like, you know what? Um, you know, this, this Wednesday night, this Thursday night will go out and do. Yeah.

Brittany Gibson: Yeah, yeah. Or maybe if you're local, you don't want to compete with the traffic on a Saturday. But you say, oh, I'm going to take half a day on Friday. Let's go to a couple wineries. Tasting. Pasta's perfect.

Sabrina Redman: For that. We notice even when we do the deck the halls, the Friday is our favorite day. Yes, yes, from twelve to five. Yeah. Because Friday not everybody comes out. And so you actually have more room, more space, more. I don't know, I don't want to say enjoyability, but it's just not as busy. And I feel like when Saturday comes, you get to a point in the afternoon where no matter where you've planned, it somehow is where everyone else is.

Brittany Gibson: And you're like, peopled out. I need a break.

Sabrina Redman: Yeah we do. We take a little time out. Either we hit a brewery or like some place that you can just kind of, like, hang out outside that's not doing the event.

Jason Ettinger: I feel like, and again, I keep we keep bringing up Fulkerson. I, I think a few years ago that happened at Fulkerson where their lot was just so jam packed. Yeah. Like, well, let's do this. And.

Brittany Gibson: And we encourage people to do that. Right. Like, even though the wineries are listed in a certain order, don't you don't have to go in order. Right. Like you can bounce around a little bit if you pull in make.

Sabrina Redman: A plan just because I don't want to be dry. The lake is huge. Yeah it is. So you can't really just drive everywhere willy nilly, but you definitely can go past one, come back. And it's really not that far out of the way.

Brittany Gibson: Especially in the like you said, if you plan ahead and you just take a quick peek at the map and you go, oh, well, geez, Lakewood and Toast are pretty much next door neighbors. You know, we're Fulkerson and Glenora. Our next door neighbor.

Sabrina Redman: So you can just swap them and come back. Yeah. For sure.

Jason Ettinger: But and then one of the things that we also talked about in fall, spring, fall that we pinned in between there is the, the smoke and summer kick off. Yeah, yeah. You and I have had some talk over email with that one.

Brittany Gibson: That is one that we actually phased out. We were going to phase it out because we, it just wasn't it was selling out, but people didn't really seem excited about it. And as soon as we started talking about potentially phasing it out, it was like, whoa, wait a second.

Jason Ettinger: So cancel our favorite TV show.

Brittany Gibson: Golly.

Sabrina Redman: So we didn't even know people were watching.

Brittany Gibson: So I can't remember. It was a handful of years ago and we were going to just take it off the schedule altogether. And we had one member winery who came to a meeting and said, why don't we just see who wants to participate? So the way that we have event signups for our wineries is in the fall. Well, late summer really, we send out our membership renewal forms and with that is the events contract. So you opt in to whatever you want to do for the next year. And there was so little interest that we said, geez, nine wineries, we really can't carry this forward. So we were again, we were sort of like basing it off of consumer feedback and then the wineries saying like, yeah, we're not really excited about this when, you know, we brought it to a trail meeting after we had already decided what the twenty twenty, whatever that year event was going to be. And a winery said, I just want to see a show of hands who would do smoking summer kickoff if we brought it back? And darn it, twelve wineries raise their hands. And we said, all right, let's try it. Yeah. And gosh darn it, it's like it had a total revitalization of interest. And so that one is selling like hotcakes. We do have it just Saturday and Sunday. That's a unique one. Usually we do the two and a half days. Um but there's, there's a small enough number of participating wineries that we feel like it's doable for two days. And frankly, to try to stretch it out to Friday puts a lot on the wineries. Um, you guys seem to appreciate it, but not everybody understands how much work the events are for the wineries.

Sabrina Redman: For.

Brittany Gibson: Sure. Um, especially the ones that do not have an on site kitchen or chef. Exactly. So you're like working with a caterer. So you have to choose a food that's going to be able to be kept for two and a half days. Yeah. Kept warm, kept cold, whatever it is. Right. So that's why we kind of shorten that one to just two days. But it's selling like crazy.

Jason Ettinger: Oh, we're looking forward to that because I think we're starting up at Canaan Vine just rolling into town Saturday morning and just going right at it. Uh, you know, one of the things you're talking about, like Friday, Saturday, Sunday as well. Uh, we've met and talked to a lot of people over the last five or so years doing Deck the Halls. And there are some serious people out there that are, they sprint this thing in like a.

Sabrina Redman: Day, one day.

Brittany Gibson: Oh. They're crazy. Uh, yes. Um, I don't understand why you would do that to me. That doesn't even sound remotely enjoyable experience. Yeah.

Sabrina Redman: Also, I feel like if you're drinking that much wine, I don't even you're not going to be able to remember what it was that you enjoyed where.

Brittany Gibson: I don't think they're drinking the wine. We do have a it's a very small portion.

Sabrina Redman: That are just picking up sort of.

Brittany Gibson: Like race and grabbed the ornament and leave. And I'm like, that's not even the point. The ornament is just like a nice little memory thing, you know, it's the food and wine that you want to come for, right? Yeah, but different strokes for different folks. It's a judgment free zone, but I'm still sort of like, wow, really? One day.

Sabrina Redman: Who did the Christmas tree that was full of them? We did a Christmas tree.

Brittany Gibson: Cayuga Lake, my girl Cathy Chase over there.

Sabrina Redman: We did our Christmas tree this year with all of them from all the.

Brittany Gibson: Gnome ornaments, right.

Sabrina Redman: And well, we did every all the ornaments from all the years that we've been so far on a tree. And that's what they had. They had them. I was like looking at all these different ones.

Brittany Gibson: I'm sorry. I thought you were referring to. So over on the Cayuga Lake Wine Trail they do there. It's a holiday shopping spree and it's, um, like a discount program. Um, they're great friends of ours. We love the lake wine trail, and they did this super cute wooden tree frame. And each winery, they have a similar ornament. So each winery had its own gnome themed ornament. But you displayed them on this little really cute, like green wooden Christmas tree. That's what I thought you were talking about.

Sabrina Redman: But yes, it was. Yeah. No, we saw the whole Christmas tree with all the years of all these ornaments. And then a funny thing was, is I saw this little jar dill one, and it was the pickle like pickle guy. And we had them all five years, five years that we have gone in a row.

Jason Ettinger: And but this was outside of the five years.

Sabrina Redman: Yeah. So then we went to J.R. Dill and I was talking about this little pickle guy, and then she said what year it was. And she was like, oh, we were selling them because we found a bunch of them. And I was like, oh. And then all of a sudden she comes out and she said, I found something.

Brittany Gibson: I was gonna say. If I know the folks at J.R Dill, they found you. Your darn pickle.

Sabrina Redman: Yes, she did. And I was like, oh, you just made my day. I was like, can I hug you? And she's like, of course. So I was like, that's the best little Christmas present ever.

Brittany Gibson: I love.

Sabrina Redman: That. It was awesome. That was literally I put that one right in front.

Brittany Gibson: That's right. It's got the place of honor on the Christmas tree.

Jason Ettinger: That's like a big, I don't know, a big Christmas thing.

Brittany Gibson: It's almost like you hide the pickle in the tree.

Jason Ettinger: I gotta figure out where that one started.

Brittany Gibson: If you come back for Deck the Halls this year, if you love sort of like that historic, you know you want to see all the ornaments. Lakewood has got a display of every.

Sabrina Redman: Yeah, they.

Brittany Gibson: Do all the wreath from the beginning.

Jason Ettinger: And I love the laser light show. They do.

Sabrina Redman: I just can never see everything from the top. I'm always like, whoa, look at that.

Brittany Gibson: You want one of those like library ladders you can climb up? Yes. Yeah.

Jason Ettinger: Look, start looking at the intricacy of every one of them.

Sabrina Redman: And what was pretty cool is we noticed there wasn't too many duplicates.

Brittany Gibson: Yeah. They people generally try to come up.

Sabrina Redman: With like different ones. I feel like there were very few that were the same as the year before.

Brittany Gibson: Leidenfrost is one of my favorites because Liz Leidenfrost and her team hand-make every ornament. So this year I don't think they were the.

Sabrina Redman: Ones was the one with the the.

Brittany Gibson: Little capsule and the grapevine inside the little capsule.

Sabrina Redman: That was so cool. They let.

Brittany Gibson: Us.

Sabrina Redman: Have one. They were like there too.

Brittany Gibson: I mean, they're made with so much love. Can you imagine stuffing that little vine inside that thing and sticking the cork? Times two thousand.

Sabrina Redman: Right?

Jason Ettinger: Yeah.

Brittany Gibson: Yes.

Sabrina Redman: It was really.

Jason Ettinger: We've actually, I think on the Saturday a couple of years ago, we shot them like literally just shut them down.

Sabrina Redman: We were just having a whole conversation. I was like, oh, should we leave? And they're like, no, no, no.

Brittany Gibson: We're the people, right?

Sabrina Redman: They're like, we're cleaning up the difference. You don't even worry about their.

Brittany Gibson: Exceptional.

Sabrina Redman: There. Yeah.

Brittany Gibson: They are exceptional.

Jason Ettinger: You know. Yeah. People people amaze. I mean, like, like j.r. Dill does their breakfasts.

Brittany Gibson: Mhm.

Jason Ettinger: We drive all the way out for just their breakfast.

Sabrina Redman: We drive out for brunch.

Brittany Gibson: I love their breakfast. I actually was just meeting with Jeff two weeks ago, I think, and I got talking about the breakfast and I said, Jeff.

Jason Ettinger: Who.

Brittany Gibson: Cooks that? And he said, I cook everything.

Jason Ettinger: Yeah, it was Jeff.

Sabrina Redman: Oh yeah. They let us walk back there to go like.

Jason Ettinger: We should have a out by.

Sabrina Redman: The station and the grill. I see you, Jeff.

Brittany Gibson: So good.

Sabrina Redman: Yeah, I know, I was like, are we crazy? Driving like two hours and fifteen minutes for brunch?

Brittany Gibson: No, I'll meet you there. I'll meet you.

Sabrina Redman: There. But it's so delicious.

Brittany Gibson: Jason can bring up the real. He'll pack up all the stuff and we'll meet you there.

Sabrina Redman: Oh my gosh. It's just. It's so good. And then we just spend the rest of the day out here. Yeah. You know.

Brittany Gibson: Why did you.

Sabrina Redman: Not. It's just the sun. Like a Sunday. It's just a random Sunday. I don't even know what day or what they usually do.

Brittany Gibson: One in June and one in September, I think. But I said to him, are you bringing back breakfast? He said, we're thinking about it. I'll let you know you better.

Sabrina Redman: Yeah, they do that all you can eat thing with the whatever. What what was he teaching us how to. Was the French.

Jason Ettinger: It was that French.

Sabrina Redman: Toast.

Jason Ettinger: Casserole.

Brittany Gibson: Yes.

Jason Ettinger: They chop it up on the on the flat top. Yep.

Sabrina Redman: And we just went to a brewery brunch, um, for Easter. And they did a French toast casserole. And I said, this is not the same.

Brittany Gibson: Oh.

Sabrina Redman: Oh.

Brittany Gibson: She writes down Jeff Doles numbers. She's like, will you take this, please?

Jason Ettinger: We're snooty.

Brittany Gibson: She's a French toast Aficionado over there. Okay.

Jason Ettinger: Well, so to move this on, to be able to wrap it up because you got other things to do on a busy day and.

Brittany Gibson: Well, you have lots of cheese to.

Jason Ettinger: Go eat. I know, and.

Sabrina Redman: We.

Jason Ettinger: Appreciated. Definitely appreciated this time with you. Like, you know, even starting at the beginning, we learned so much here, but I so on a personal level, when you're looking at it and the work that you do here for the wine trail season, what's the best time of year for you folks.

Brittany Gibson: In terms of visitation? Yes. July through October. Okay. Yep. That is when it really starts to kick off, obviously. I mean, even this time of year though, as soon as things start to green up, people get itching. They want to go out and see the lake and see the vineyard. So weekends for sure start to pick up, especially later in April, early May. But in terms of peak visitation, it's July, right through the end of October.

Jason Ettinger: Yeah, you're in the autumn. Colors out here is always something to take in. Um, yeah, definitely. You know, late summer. I mean, we've made.

Brittany Gibson: Harvest to I think harvest, you know, brings in a lot of interested people. Like you said, the foliage is just gorgeous. So the two biggest weekends typically are Columbus weekend, and then the weekend after that is actually one of the busiest in terms of foot traffic.

Jason Ettinger: Interesting.

Sabrina Redman: Okay. Okay. Well, that could be a long weekend for some people.

Brittany Gibson: It is. Yeah, very much so.

Jason Ettinger: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're. Oh, that's. Yeah. Yeah. You're usually out of, out of town with your.

Sabrina Redman: Camp every year. Nice.

Brittany Gibson: That's fun. I love Letchworth.

Sabrina Redman: And some years it's beautiful. And some years you're like, it's kind of a dud. Yeah. Especially if it's been dry. Eighty. And I said, why am I wearing shorts and a t shirt? And the leaves aren't really changing. So I was a little bummed.

Brittany Gibson: But and those hot, hot summers where it's like the leaves just dry and fall off and they don't change. That's a bummer.

Sabrina Redman: I know, but I feel like we've been out here almost every month except for January and February. We have been out to the Finger Lakes for something.

Brittany Gibson: Oh that's awesome.

Sabrina Redman: Not necessarily. Events.

Brittany Gibson: January is hard. Everyone's kind of broke from the holidays.

Sabrina Redman: Well, January.

Brittany Gibson: Is usually not great.

Sabrina Redman: We cruise normally.

Brittany Gibson: Well, that's pretty smart.

Jason Ettinger: Because here, if.

Sabrina Redman: You want to get out of the snow and you just want some.

Brittany Gibson: Sunshine. That's what kills me. I love the change of the seasons. I don't mind the snow at all. I don't mind the cold, but the sun, the sun. Could I just see the sun a little bit more from like January through March? I think I'd be.

Jason Ettinger: Better.

Brittany Gibson: With it.

Jason Ettinger: Yeah. Sometimes we feel like we get summer from like July fourth for about a week, and then it's just like now it's variable through August and I'm like, come on, it's right. Can we just get something that we. Because it's either it's, it's an extreme. It's either we're getting rain or it's ninety degrees for. Yes, fifteen days straight.

Brittany Gibson: Is that changeable weather again? You know, it's terrible. Mhm. Right.

Jason Ettinger: Well, as we wind down here because I wanted to let everybody have you let everybody know how they can follow, get in touch with because I know you have a mailing list. We do very active on social media.

Brittany Gibson: We are super active on social. Yep. So we have Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok and YouTube accounts, Pinterest, Pinterest. Lots of folks do trip planning and itinerary building through Pinterest. So we get lots of great feedback there. We always, uh, repin all of our blog posts and we get tons of feedback that way. So most of our handles are at Seneca Lake Wine. You can join our mailing list on our website, which is Seneca Lake wine dot com. We have about fifty thousand subscribers and growing. Um, so we love that people love to hear from us. That's really positive. And we, I, I manage those emails myself. We do not inundate people with emails. We email generally once a month, maybe more than that. If there's something seasonal coming up like Mother's Day or Father's Day or one of our events or, but we don't, we don't ever just like email people just to email them.

Jason Ettinger: Yeah. That's how I found out about.

Brittany Gibson: The sip into spring one.

Jason Ettinger: In the spring.

Brittany Gibson: Nice.

Jason Ettinger: That's how I found out about it was going through the email.

Brittany Gibson: People read our emails.

Jason Ettinger: The wine trail. Yeah, yeah, that's that's great. And then yeah, so then, um, you can go onto the website then. Yeah. To be able to join the mailing list.

Brittany Gibson: Yep. Seneca Lake wine dot com is our website and we house tons of information there. We have a current winery offerings page that we actually, we started that way back in Covid when wineries had to jump through all these hoops just to be open. So it was. So we found that it was too complicated to update every single winery landing page on our site. So we developed this overview page where all of our wineries, A to Z are listed. And it's just a brief paragraph, like three to five sentences of what are your hours of operation? What's your maximum group size? How do people make reservations if you take them? And that is our most heavily trafficked page on the website. Okay. Right. And right behind that is Winery events calendar.

Jason Ettinger: That makes sense. Um, there, you know, we find that as time goes on, there are wineries who you may be less receptive to bus traffic, but other ones are like, yeah, we have the capacity. And, and, you know, if you call ahead of time, you know, you know, we're okay with it. Mhm. Yeah.

Brittany Gibson: Well, and rather than click around and have to research every winery, isn't it handy to just be able to go to one page and be able to see everybody's hours? And even on that page, we actually took all that information and put it into a spreadsheet. So that way, if you are planning like a bachelorette trip or a larger trip, then I'm talking like more than eight people, but less than thirty. There's all the information on that spreadsheet of who does take groups of that size and how can we come and where do we find the reservation form and what number do we call instead? Again, of bouncing around Google and trying to search it like a needle in a haystack.

Jason Ettinger: So, you know, we've we've joked for a long time also that, you know, like Kevin McCallister protecting the house, he's rolling out the map. That's right. And then it's like, literally like, you know, wore helmets and battle plans, right? To be able to put together the perfect giant.

Sabrina Redman: Yes, paper map with.

Brittany Gibson: Everything.

Sabrina Redman: We have, like opened that so many times to just be like, oh, look at this. Oh, look at that. Oh, hey, we could go over here. We didn't even know. Oh, this place is close to this place. Like, yeah, I feel like we've tried more places looking at that giant map than just kind of driving and pulling it.

Brittany Gibson: Yeah, yeah. Well, it's just handy to have a snapshot to know where you are and to see what's around.

Jason Ettinger: The old Rand McNally.

Speaker 5 I know.

Sabrina Redman: And maybe that shows our age, right? That we're just like pulling. Everyone loves that.

Speaker 5 Map.

Brittany Gibson: And Randy Freeman is the guy who puts that map together, and he's been doing it for almost twenty years. It's got to be. But yeah, so our primary focus and everything we do is to try to be as helpful to consumers as possible. Our guest is possible.

Jason Ettinger: Wonderful. Brittany. Thank you so much for having us.

Brittany Gibson: Thanks for making the drive to Little Dundee here. This is we just. So we were a fully remote office because I. We have a staff of one point two. My point two is Liz Salamander, who's our office assistant. She's only here a few hours a week. So we were, I was working out of my home and it just got to the point that I said, okay, I need, I need an office, I need a little separation. So we rent this really great space and little old Dundee and it works wonderful for us. So thanks for making the drive.

Jason Ettinger: Thank you very much.

Sabrina Redman: Thank you.

Speaker 6 Yeah.