CORINTH, N.Y. - A host of new grape varieties have enabled a boutique wine industry to take root in areas of the country that were previously inhospitable.
One of them is Marquette, a red grape released for production by the University of Minnesota in 2006. It's now growing in vineyards in the upper Hudson Valley and southeastern Adirondacks, where new wineries like Ledge Rock Hill are producing award-winning wines.
Another success story is the white grape Traminette out of Cornell University. Wine made from the Traminette grape has been adopted as the "signature wine" of Indiana.
Cornell researcher Bruce Reisch says new varieties have spurred tremendous growth in the wine industry in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Illinois and Ohio as well as northern New York.
