Wineries & Cideries

Fifteen minutes north of the lake the ground changes. The Warwick Valley is orchard country, and beyond it lies the black dirt — the bed of a drained glacial lake, and some of the most fertile farmland in the state. What that means for a weekend is an unusual concentration of places making something out of what grows here, rather than shipping juice in and putting a label on it.

The black dirt

It is worth knowing what you are driving through, because it explains the whole valley. Ten thousand years ago the Wallkill flowed into a glacial lake that filled this basin. The lake silted up and became a swamp, the swamp laid down peat, and when Polish and German farmers drained it at the end of the nineteenth century what they uncovered was several feet of black muck soil sitting on the old lake bed.

That soil is why Orange County grew a large share of America’s onions for most of a century, and why the fields north of Warwick are jet black in spring while the hillsides either side are orange clay. The drained lands are flat, treeless and slightly eerie, and they are ten minutes past the last winery on this list. A brewery named itself after them.

What the ground puts in the glass

This is apple country before it is wine country, and the honest ranking follows: the ciders here compete nationally and the wines are a regional pleasure. Warwick has grown apples commercially since the eighteenth century, the orchards are on well-drained hillside above the muck, and every one of the five stops below either presses its own fruit or buys it from a neighbor who does.

The grapes are a different story, and the reason is winter. This is a cold valley, so the vineyards lean on hybrids bred to survive it rather than on the varieties a supermarket label has trained you to expect. Seyval Blanc, Traminette, Cayuga and the like: crisp, aromatic, lower in alcohol, and better with a plate of food than on their own. Somebody hunting for a big Napa red will be disappointed, and somebody who orders the dry Riesling-ish white will not be.

Where they are

The five worth your afternoon

How we would actually do it

Two stops is the right number. Three is ambitious and four is a different kind of afternoon. The classic pairing is Pennings first for the view and the cider, then Warwick Valley for the spirits, with dinner in the village afterwards — which puts you fifteen minutes from home rather than thirty-five.

If somebody in the group does not drink, Pennings and Warwick Valley both have enough farm and orchard around the tasting room to make the trip worth their while, which is not true of every stop here.

And the obvious one, since this is a driving valley with no taxi rank: sort out who is driving before the first tasting rather than after it.

In poor weather the order reverses. Warwick Valley and Brotherhood are the two with somewhere proper to sit inside — a distillery tasting room and two hundred years of underground cellar respectively — while Pennings is mostly about a hillside you cannot see in rain. Brotherhood in particular is a better wet-afternoon plan than a sunny one, because the part worth seeing is below ground.

Taking some home

The kitchen here is the argument for buying rather than tasting. Every stop sells bottles and most sell cider by the growler, and a case of local cider in the fridge does more for a weekend than a fourth tasting flight would have. If you are cooking, the farm markets attached to Pennings and Warwick Valley sell the same apples and produce the tasting rooms are built on, which is a shorter drive than the supermarket in Warwick and a better shop.

Somewhere to go when it rains · Where to eat in the valley · The rest of the valley

When

Autumn is the valley’s season and everyone knows it, so weekends in late September and October are crowded. Late spring is the underrated window — everything is open, nothing has a wait, and the orchards are in blossom rather than in fruit.

Hours move with the season at all five. These are working farms as much as tasting rooms; call ahead if you are building a day around one of them.