Miles away

Legend has it that Miles Wine Cellars on Seneca Lake in Himrod began making wine sort of by accident. They started as a premier grape grower for the area in 1978, but they were later approached by a French Champagne house that was impressed by their grapes and wanted to buy a lot of them to make sparkling wine on the premises. So Miles made a deal and the French came over with their equipment and got started. At some point during the process, the French learned from their distributor in NYC that their budget had been cut and they had to pack up and go home. They hadn't yet paid Miles for the grapes, and they didn't intend to. The night before they were going to sneak off, one of the Frenchies was at Lloyd's in Penn Yan talking to the bartender. He told him the whole story, not knowing that the bartender was friends with Miles. So then of course the bartender told Miles about how the French had their plane tickets and were going to leave the next morning, so Miles thanked him, went home, and chained himself to the French winemaking equipment with some bottles of wine to get him through the night.

The next morning, the French came to retrieve their equipment and found Miles attached to it. Miles asked them repeatedly, are you going to pay us? Finally they admitted that they would not, and Miles said then that the equipment would be his. The Frenchies weighed their options and ultimately relented. Thus, Miles now had the equipment to make wine and a wine cellar was born on this beautiful lakefront property.