TOAST SKANEATELES, WINE COUNTRY.(News)

Byline: John Mariani Staff writer

*****

CORRECTION: July 30, 2001

A map that accompanied a story Sunday on new vineyards on Skaneateles Lake mislabeled Lake Ontario as Oneida Lake.

*****

When it comes to growing grapes, Nature did not bless Skaneateles Lake as it did its sister Finger Lakes.

Higher in elevation and poorer in drainage, Skaneateles Lake never attracted the vineyards that long have draped the hilly margins of Cayuga, Seneca, Canandaigua and Keuka lakes.

Until now.

A mile south of the village of Skaneateles, businessman Michael Falcone and his son, Michael P., are growing grapes on the elder Falcone's west shore estate for what they hope will develop into fine, private-label wine.

Their vineyard, tentatively dubbed Two Goats Vineyard, is believed to be the first ever on the hillsides overlooking Skaneateles Lake.

The vines they planted three years ago are expected this year to yield the first grape crop suitable for wine. They plan to sell the grapes to a winery to be crushed and bottled.

Two miles south of the Falcones, Auburn resident James Nocek this year planted the first 5 acres of a vineyard that he hopes will someday support a winery. The winery would be another first for Skaneateles Lake.

Falcone's venture is the culmination of a lifelong passion for everything wine. Nocek's enterprise is more a return to his roots, which are planted deep in the soil of his family's vineyard near Fredonia.

Either way, experts say vineyards are long overdue on Skaneateles Lake.

There are climatic differences between Skaneateles Lake and the rest of the Finger Lakes, and Skaneateles land is probably more expensive than land surrounding the other lakes, said Thomas Henick-Kling, director of Cornell University's Wine Re

search and Extension Program.

But Henick-Kling cites another reason why no one before has tried cultivating vineyards around Skaneateles Lake. "My third theory," he said, "is nobody …