The Heart Of New York's Finger Lakes Region Hides An Artsy Locale With Award-Winning Wines

At 35 miles long and 3 miles wide at its widest point, Seneca Lake is the largest of western New York's fabled Finger Lakes. The lake combines wineries, outdoor adventures, and endless beauty to become one of the best locations in the Empire State to visit for nature, charm, and culture. And along its shores, the city of Geneva captures these attractive features more than any other.

Situated on the northern shores of Seneca Lake, Geneva is a wonderful artsy locale with award-winning wines and a European vibe befitting of its name. Incorporated first as a village in 1806 and later as a city in 1897, Geneva hosted a wide variety of industries like agriculture, nurseries, manufacturing, and furniture makers. Thanks to its scenic location along the lake, as well as the presence of Hobart and William Smith Colleges, today's Geneva is a lively city filled with everything you could possibly want from a Finger Lakes getaway. Only an hour or two's drive from nearby metros like Rochester and Buffalo, Geneva is an exceptionally easy place to get to. Driving through the town's amazing landscape will make you understand why this is one of the most overlooked small towns in upstate New York.

The Finger Lakes region has no shortage of beautiful towns like fall foliage destination Hammondsport and charming college city Ithaca. Geneva offers as many amenities as the best of these towns, from coffee shops and restaurants to hotels. The arts especially thrive in this little corner of the Finger Lakes. Downtown Geneva hosts several art spaces and galleries showcasing work from local, national, and international artists. The Dove Block Project on Exchange Street offers exhibitions, adult painting workshops, and summer art camps for kids and teens. If you're looking for a more formal gallery experience, the Davis Gallery at Hobart and William Smith Colleges showcases a wide collection of modern art in painting, photography, and sculpture. It also presents a faculty show at the beginning of the academic year and a student show at the end.

No visit to Geneva is complete, however, without visiting the historic Smith Center for the Arts. Set inside a stunningly restored 19th-century opera house, the Smith Center showcases plays, concerts, films, stand-up comedy, and improv throughout the year, and it's the hosting space for the annual Finger Lakes Film Festival in February.

One cannot visit the Finger Lakes without sampling some wine. As New York's premier wine-growing region, the Finger Lakes are home to some of the most prestigious wineries in the Northeastern U.S. As part of the Seneca Wine Trail, a beautiful driving route that takes you to many incredible participating wineries, the vineyards and wines of Geneva are hands-down some of the best you'll find in the area. 

Ravines Wine Cellars is the best example of Geneva's amazing wine culture. Selected as one of the top 100 wineries of 2022 by Wine & Spirits, Ravines offers tours of its beautiful vineyards and tastings of its dry Riesling, chardonnay, and pinot noir. Trestle Thirty One is another vineyard specializing in producing wines grown from the region's grapes. Offering a blend of reds like cabernet franc, whites like chenin blanc, and a soft-on-the-palate rosé, its tasting room in downtown Geneva is a cozy, welcoming space to enjoy a good afternoon.

Then there's Belhurst Castle. An amazing, grand structure built on the shores of Seneca Lake, this hotel-meets-brewery-meets-winery offers the best possible lakefront experience in Geneva. Its award-winning estate wines are matched with local area cheeses, all while looking over beautiful Seneca waters. It's an amazing place to cap off your Geneva experience.