Vaughan to Watkins Glen and the Finger Lakes: the gorge and the wine trail by chauffeured car

The Finger Lakes, and the chauffeur's logic

The Finger Lakes are the American wine region three hours closer to Vaughan than Niagara-on-the-Lake is to New York: eleven long glacial lakes running north-south between Rochester and Syracuse, with Seneca and Cayuga the deepest and longest, a hundred and forty wineries on their slopes — the Seneca Lake trail alone has thirty-five — and a cool climate that makes Riesling the region's grape and its ice wine and sparkling the rest. At Seneca's southern tip, Watkins Glen State Park's gorge trail climbs past nineteen waterfalls on eight hundred stone steps in three kilometres — the most-visited state park in the region and the reason families come — and above the village the Watkins Glen International racetrack runs the NASCAR and IMSA weekends. The chauffeured version is the trip's logic: a wine trail is a day of driving between tasting rooms, and the SUV or Sprinter with a chauffeur is the designated driver the region's own signs ask for. The Finger Lakes Tourism Alliance's site has the region; the border guide has the Lewiston bridge.

The road

From Woodbridge the QEW, the Lewiston–Queenston Bridge, I-190 and I-90 east to Rochester's exit 46, I-390 south through the Genesee valley, and — for Watkins Glen — I-86 east to Horseheads and Route 14 north up Seneca's west shore; or, for Geneva at the lake's head, I-90 to exit 42 and Route 14 south. Five hours by the estimate and five and a quarter with the booth; the Letchworth gorge is a forty-minute detour from I-390 for a family that wants a waterfall on the way.

The gorge trail

Watkins Glen State Park's Gorge Trail begins at the village's main street and climbs three kilometres through the glen — Cavern Cascade, which the path passes behind; the Spiral Tunnel; Rainbow Falls, where the trail passes under a waterfall's curtain; the Narrows; Central Cascade — on stone stairs and bridges built in the 1930s, with eight hundred and thirty-two steps to the upper entrance where the park's shuttle or the chauffeur waits. It is ninety minutes up with photographs, wet in places, closed in winter, and the state park's site has the season; a family walks up and rides down, and a family with a stroller does the Indian Trail on the rim.

The Seneca Lake wine trail

Thirty-five wineries ring Seneca Lake on Routes 14 and 414, and a Vaughan couple's Saturday is five of them with the chauffeur driving: the west shore's Hermann J. Wiemer, the region's benchmark Riesling; Fox Run; Anthony Road; Glenora, with its inn on the slope; the east shore's Red Newt, Hazlitt's 1852 Vineyards with the Red Cat that made the region's reputation for the sweet, Wagner with its brewery, and Ravines at the lake's north end for the dry. The Seneca Lake Wine Trail's site has the map and the passport; tastings are paid, small and generous, and the SUV's driver does not taste, which is the whole arrangement.

Geneva, Hammondsport and Skaneateles

Geneva at Seneca's head is the region's town — the lakefront, the Belhurst Castle's inn and winery, Hobart and William Smith Colleges on the hill, Linden Street's restaurants — and the night for a family doing Seneca; Hammondsport at Keuka Lake's tip, forty minutes west, is the prettiest village in the region, with Dr. Konstantin Frank's winery on the hill above it — the Ukrainian immigrant who proved European grapes could grow here in the 1950s — and the Glenn Curtiss aviation museum for the children; Skaneateles, on the eastern lakes, is the Syracuse post's night. The travel desk holds whichever the weekend's shape wants.

The racetrack

Watkins Glen International, the road course above the village that hosted the United States Grand Prix from 1961 to 1980, runs a NASCAR Cup weekend in late summer and IMSA's Six Hours of the Glen in June, with the Vintage Grand Prix festival in September bringing the old cars through the village's streets on the original 1948 course; a Vaughan racing group of eight does the NASCAR weekend as a Sprinter trip with the campground or a Corning hotel, and the track's site has the schedule. The village's Seneca Harbor is the group's dinner between.

The weekend, in shape

Friday at noon from Woodbridge, the Lewiston bridge at 1:40, I-390, Geneva's Belhurst by 6, dinner with the lake; Saturday the gorge trail at nine before the crowds, lunch at Seneca Harbor Station in Watkins Glen, the east shore's wineries — Red Newt, Hazlitt, Wagner — until five, Hammondsport for dinner and Dr. Frank's last tasting; Sunday the west shore — Wiemer, Glenora's brunch, Fox Run — and the Route 14 run to the Thruway, the Lewiston bridge at 5:30 with the wine within the 48-hour exemption's alcohol limit (1.5 litres per adult duty-free, the rest declared), and Woodbridge by 7:30. Two nights, the SUV as a return with a Saturday on daily hire, one number in the booking engine.

What the chauffeur replaces

The designated driver on a wine trail, which is the trip's central problem in a family car; five hours each way through the Genesee valley; the bridge; the gorge's upper lot after eight hundred steps; and the wine's arithmetic at the border, which the chauffeur's envelope keeps straight. For a couple the SUV is the weekend's indulgence and the point; for two couples or a family it divides.

Seasons

October for the vineyards' colour and the harvest, the region's best and busiest; June for the gorge at full flow and the Six Hours of the Glen; summer for the lakes' swimming and the wineries' patios; the December wine-trail weekends when the tasting rooms decorate and the roads are quiet; the gorge trail is closed from November to May, so a winter weekend is the wine alone.

Pairing it

The Finger Lakes pair with Ithaca at Cayuga's tip for Cornell and Taughannock, with Corning thirty minutes south of Watkins Glen for the glass museum, with Letchworth on the way, and with Rochester for the family whose children want the Strong while the parents taste.

The Saturday wine trail, in order

Two couples from Kleinburg in the SUV, from Geneva's Belhurst at 10: the gorge trail first at 10:30 before the wineries open — up in ninety minutes, the chauffeur at the top — then Seneca Harbor Station's lunch at 12:30 on the lake; Hazlitt at 1:45 on the east shore for the Red Cat and the dry Riesling both, Red Newt at 2:30 for the bistro's cheese and the Riesling that wins the awards, Wagner at 3:15 with the brewery's beer for the one who has had enough wine; the drive across the lake's south end and up the west shore to Hermann J. Wiemer at 4:15 for the region's benchmark — the tasting room in the old barn, the dry Riesling, the sparkling — and Glenora at 5 for the sunset from the deck; dinner at Glenora's Veraisons with the lake below, the SUV back to Geneva at 8:30 with four cases in the back and nobody who drove. Five wineries, one gorge and a day the couples repeat every October.

Keuka Lake and Dr. Frank

Keuka is the Y-shaped lake west of Seneca, quieter and steeper, with Hammondsport at its southern tip — the village green, the lakefront's Depot Park, the Glenn H. Curtiss Museum of the aviation pioneer's aircraft and motorcycles for the children — and Dr. Konstantin Frank's winery on the bluff above, where the Ukrainian immigrant proved in 1962 that Riesling and Chardonnay could survive the Finger Lakes' winters and started the region's modern industry; the tasting on the terrace with the lake below is the trail's best view and the winery's site books it. Heron Hill and Keuka Spring are the lake's other stops, and the Keuka Lake wine trail is the second day for a family that has done Seneca.

Costs, plainly

The Finger Lakes weekend is a return with a Saturday on daily hire in the booking engine — the SUV for two couples, the Sprinter for three or four — and the tastings, the inn and the wine are the family's own, with the 48-hour exemption's 1.5 litres per adult duty-free and the rest declared. Against the fare are five hours each way as a driver, the bridge, and the wine trail's central problem — a designated driver who does not taste — which is the whole reason the weekend is chauffeured; for a couple the SUV is the indulgence and the point, and for two couples it divides.

The gorge, for the family with young children

Watkins Glen's gorge trail is stairs — eight hundred and thirty-two of them — and a family with a child under five walks the first section to Cavern Cascade and the Spiral Tunnel from the main entrance, turns around, and does the rest by the rim's Indian Trail or from the upper entrance down with the chauffeur at the bottom; the park's Olympic-size pool at the upper end and the Seneca Lake beach at Clute Park in the village are the afternoon's swim, and the state park's site has the pool's hours. The Corning glass museum thirty minutes south is the rainy day.

Geneva, for the night

Geneva's lakefront is the Seneca's north end — the Belhurst Castle's 1889 stone mansion with its inn, winery and restaurant on the shore; Geneva on the Lake's villa resort; the Ramada on the pier; Linden Street's restaurants downtown (FLX Table's communal dinner is the region's most-booked reservation); Hobart and William Smith Colleges' campus on the hill for the walk — and the town a Vaughan family sleeps in for a Seneca weekend because it sits at the top of both shores' wine trails. The Visit Geneva site has the inns, and the travel desk holds the Belhurst.

Booking it

Book a return from your Vaughan address with a Saturday on daily hire, or a daily hire for the weekend; tell us the wineries, the gorge, the racetrack's weekend if it matters, the inn, the seats and every passenger's citizenship for the bridge, and the chauffeur confirms the trail the evening before.

Book the Finger Lakes weekend