About Us

Lot 10 Vineyard – owned and operated by Skaneateles Lake Vineyards LLC – was founded in 2015 with the express purpose of establishing a premiere vineyard of the “right” Vitis vinifera that would make world-class wines. All of the vines are sourced from Hermann J. Wiemer Nursery, and the vineyard is managed by Doyle Vineyard Management.

The property has ideal attributes for growing wine grapes, including its soil (a combination of Honeoye and Lansing gravelly silt loam that provides for superior drainage), slope, lake effect, row orientation and latitude. In counsel with Hermann J. Wiemer Nursery and our vineyard manager, the clones and rootstock for each varietal – which consist of Grüner Veltliner, Riesling, Pinot Noir and Cabernet Franc – were specifically selected to take advantage of the terroir and other attributes of the site.

“All that tract or parcel of land, situate in the Town of Spafford, County of Onondaga and State of New York known and distinguished as part of Lots Nos. ten (10)….”[1]

Lot 10 Vineyard’s name is derived from the plot of land on which the vineyard is located. In 1776, as bounty for serving in the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress guaranteed that, “Each noncommissioned officer and soldier should be entitled to 100 acres... and other officers to proportionate amounts of land up to 500 acres for a colonel.”[2] This resolution resulted in the creation of 28 separate Townships with each having 100 “lots” of land surveyed and divided accordingly in what became known as the Military Tract of Central New York.

In 1791, soldiers returning from the Revolutionary War drew their respective lots. Colonel Nicholas Fish, born and buried in New York City, and having served and befriended both George Washington and Alexander Hamilton during the war, drew Lot 10 within the Township of Sempronious, becoming the first owner of the site following its ceding by the Iroquois Indians under the Pickering Treaty. The inset map shows Lot 10 in the Township of Sempronious and Hamlet of Borodino where the vineyard resides. It is this rich and historical connection to the land for which the vineyard is named.

[1] Warranty Deed abstract for the property.

[2] National Archives and Records Service General Services Administration, Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land-Warrant Application Files, p. 5.