First Hemp Winery to Open Tasting Room in New York State

A lot has changed over the past twenty years

A company called Sovereign Wines plans on opening its first tasting room near in Skaneateles, according to NYupstate. What makes this wine so unique its that it's the first of its kind to be fused with hemp.

With New York being one of the top wine regions in the world, plus with the state moving closer and closer to recreational marijuana being legalized, it makes sense. But this new hemp wine goes back quite a few years. And it had to clear a lot of hurdles to make it to the public.

Binghamton resident Jim Castetter first tried mixing hemp with wine in 1997. It didn't last long. By 1999, authorities had shut him down. Since then, hemp has been made legal. So by 2017, Castetter and his son decided to give it another shot. Now we have Sovereign Wines: 

"America’s only hemp-infused” wine producer, it blends wines produced in the Finger Lakes and elsewhere with terpene, an aromatic and flavorful extract found in the buds of the hemp plant.

Some of their blends include the Harvest Red Blend, Oasis Dry Rose, plus the limited edition Sweet Cayuga Reserve. NYupstate says the tasting room should be open summer 2019, just in time for a Finger Lakes trip.

At first, the father-son duo got their hemp from Colorado, but now they've set up hemp farms throughout the state, so everything is local. If the tasting room is successful, we could one day see the wines sold here in the Hudson Valley.