GENEVA — The Seneca Lake Wine Trial is welcoming a new member to the fold — in a long-vacant building across Route 14 from Geneva Country Club.

Cane & Vine Wine Cellars’ soft opening is set for 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday in space previously occupied by Ridley’s Roadhouse. The husband-and-wife team of Mike and Jayne Gibbs has refashioned the interior into an open, sunny, inviting tasting room. With fireplaces on opposite sides of the main room, it will be a cozy spot in the winter as well.

The Gibbses, who said they want guests to make themselves at home and stay a while, were thrilled when they found the location, and they seem genuinely delighted to be in the region for their new venture.

They planted themselves on the Seneca Lake Wine Trail years ago when they opened their first winery, Toast, in Schuyler County. It continues to enjoy great success on the southern part of the lake, the Gibbses said.

Jayne said the two wineries will remain distinct entities with different wine selections.

“I wanted this to be its own experience, its own wine, and its own sense of being,” Mike said.

Former corporate accountants, the Gibbses are living their dream and loving every moment of the adventure.

The couple started looking for a space seriously a couple of years ago. Mike continued to develop more wines than they had space or need for at Toast, which turned out perfectly for the new endeavor.

They found what they wanted just south of the city limits, buying the property from Bill Long, a Geneva resident and contractor who owned it for many years.

Cane and Vine will launch 12 new wines they have not sold before.

One wine that Mike is really excited about is a bone-dry Cayuga White. Typically, this wine can be on the sweeter side of the equation.

“The 2023 Cayuga White that I made was so good just bone-dry I decided to bottle it,” he said.

He also loves making petillant naturel, known as pet-nats for short.

“It’s the oldest way of making naturally sparkling wine,” Mike explained. “Carbon dioxide is a byproduct of fermentation when making a wine. The way you make a pet-nat is to bottle the wine before its done fermenting. It finishes fermentation in the bottle, and it creates a naturally sparkling wine.”

Cane and Vine will offer a Petillant Naturel Dry Sparkling Rose of Marquette.

Mike says that the Sauvignon Blanc is his current favorite, whereby Jayne said she loves the Grüner Veltliner.

The winery will offer flights of wine, as well as New York-made beer and cider. Mike has several sweeter varieties of wines that soon will be available for folks who like the sweeter side of wine tasting. This list will include a white wine called Orchid; a sweeter-style rosé called Pink Moon, a wine that “tastes just like Sangria right out of the bottle;” and a wine called Fun Island Time that has notes of pineapple and coconut.

Perhaps one of the surprises they are most excited about: a niche food item that the Finger Lakes hasn’t tasted yet. The duo is bringing chimney cakes to the region.

Chimney cakes are popular in Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, and Czechia. It is a kind of delicate pastry that can be made in sweet and savory varieties. The dough is particular to Europe, and, after some experimentation, Mike found an American substitute that produced the flavor and texture that makes the pastry so delicious.

The cake is made from yeast dough. Strips of dough are wrapped around a cylindrical baking roller, and then baked on a rotating spit. The outside layer becomes crispy and caramelized. Once baked, the cake is removed from the rolling pin. Fillings are added, with the end result resembling a chimney stack.

The couple took the time to get the recipe just right. After consulting with really helpful makers abroad, and buying the machinery from Europe, they experimented all winter long to perfect the recipe.

“We ate a lot of chimney cakes,” Jayne laughed.

“The dough is the key,” Mike added. “You gotta get the dough right.”

Cane and Vine will start producing these delicious cakes in a couple of months. For now, guests are invited to visit and taste the new wines on the block.

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