Kyle Mizuno traded Napa Cabernet for cold-climate hybrids—and found himself learning winemaking all over again.
When we talk about New York wine, the Finger Lakes and Long Island usually get most of the attention. I, of course, will always remind you about the Hudson Valley.
But there's another New York wine region that deserves a spot on your radar.
You just have to travel a little farther north.
Okay—a LOT farther north.
For this episode of Uncork Your Mind, I sat down with Kyle Mizuno, Director of Winemaking and Head Winemaker at Rolling Hills Estate Winery in Westport, New York, in the Champlain Valley.
We're talking way up there, near the Canadian border, in a part of New York surrounded by the beauty of the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain.
Kyle's journey to this corner of New York wine country is almost as interesting as the grapes he's working with.
Because Kyle came to Lake Champlain from Napa Valley.
And he didn't come north to make Napa wine.
He came to discover what the Champlain Valley could become.
Wine Wasn't Even the Plan
Kyle's path into wine began almost accidentally.
He studied biochemistry at UC Davis and thought he was going to become a pharmacist.
During his senior year, he attended a job fair filled with students looking for careers in science. Around the outside of the fair were more than 100 wineries.
Kyle walked up to the first winery table—Franciscan Estates—and asked a pretty simple question:
Did they need anyone with a science background?
They did.
They were hiring for the lab.
And just like that, a biochemistry major who hadn't planned on becoming a winemaker found himself entering the wine industry.
From there, Kyle built a career in Napa and had the opportunity to learn from and work around some pretty impressive names in the wine world.
He also became very familiar with what Napa does best: big, powerful Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet-based wines.
Eventually, however, another opportunity came calling.
This one was more than 2,500 miles away.
Why Leave Napa?
This was one of the things I really wanted to understand.
Why would someone leave one of the most famous wine regions in the world for a region where many consumers don't even realize wine grapes are being grown?
Kyle's answer fascinated me.
In many ways, he felt that Napa's story had already been told.
Napa has history. It has prestige. It has established styles. When consumers pick up a Napa Cabernet, they generally have an idea of what they expect that wine to be.
The Champlain Valley doesn't have that same history or set of expectations.
And to Kyle, that was exciting.
He described arriving in the region as being handed a brand-new palette of colors and a blank canvas.
Instead of being asked to paint the same picture with deeper blues or brighter reds, he suddenly had the freedom to ask:
What should these wines be?
That's a pretty exciting question for a winemaker.
Cabernet Out. La Crescent and Marquette In.
Forget Cabernet Sauvignon and Chardonnay for a moment.
At Rolling Hills, Kyle is working with grapes designed to survive a very different world.
Among them are La Crescent, Frontenac Gris, Marquette, Petite Pearl and Frontenac, along with other cold-hardy varieties.
And when Kyle arrived, he wasn't an expert on these grapes.
That's another part of his story I loved.
After years of making wine, he suddenly had to become a student again.
He's learning how the vines grow, when they ripen, how their acidity behaves and what happens when you give the fruit a little more hang time.
Even the vineyard itself challenges what he knew from California.
Instead of the VSP-trained, lower-growing vines Kyle was accustomed to in Napa, he's working with top-wire-trained vines suited to the much colder conditions.
Then there's harvest.
In Napa, Kyle had worked with fruit coming into the winery anywhere from July through December.
In the Champlain Valley?
You better be finished by the end of October.
Kyle admitted he initially thought he'd have November and December to work with.
The locals essentially told him: just wait.
Then the temperatures dropped, the snow arrived and the California kid discovered they were right.
Acidity Changes Everything
One of the biggest adjustments has been acidity.
These cold-climate grapes can retain significantly higher levels of acidity than the Napa fruit Kyle was accustomed to.
That meant he had to recalibrate his palate and even rethink some of his instincts about ripeness.
He had people telling him that when the grapes reached 22 Brix, it was time to pick.
Coming from California, his initial reaction was basically, "No, it's not."
But that's exactly why this project is so interesting.
Kyle isn't blindly applying Napa rules to New York grapes.
He's using what he learned in Napa while allowing these grapes and this climate to teach him something new.
In fact, he estimates it may take him about five years just to truly understand the vineyard and its growing seasons.
Think about that.
An experienced winemaker willingly putting himself back into learning mode.
I love that.
Applying a $200-Bottle Mindset to Hybrid Grapes
This might have been my favorite part of our conversation.
Kyle talked about using many of the same artisanal skills and attention to detail that he once applied to Cabernet Sauvignon and Cabernet-based wines selling for more than $200 a bottle.
Only now he's applying them to grapes like Marquette and La Crescent.
Not because he wants them to taste like Cabernet or Chardonnay.
Quite the opposite.
Kyle wants to see what happens when these varieties are treated with that same level of care.
What characteristics can he coax from them?
What makes each grape distinctive?
And how can he elevate grapes that truly represent the Champlain Valley?
That's a conversation I think we need to have more often about hybrid grapes.
Instead of asking whether they taste like the vinifera varieties we already know, maybe we should start asking what they taste like when they're allowed to be themselves.
La Crescent: "Sunshine in a Bottle"
Kyle has developed a particular affection for La Crescent.
He's tasted it made sparkling, off-dry and in other styles, and he sees tremendous versatility in the grape.
For him, it can have some of the freshness he associates with Sauvignon Blanc, along with bright fruit and lively acidity.
His description that stuck with me?
"Sunshine in a bottle."
Let La Crescent hang longer, however, and the profile can change, bringing out characteristics that move toward banana and apricot.
Same grape. Same vineyard.
Different harvest decisions can produce dramatically different wines.
For a winemaker who came from a region where stylistic expectations can be firmly established, that's one heck of a playground.
Marquette, Petite Pearl and a Cellar Full of Strawberry
On the red side, Marquette caught Kyle's attention.
He finds it has density, weight and power and sees some stylistic similarities to Cabernet Sauvignon.
Petite Pearl takes things in another direction.
Kyle described it as more rounded and plum-driven, with less cassis, currant and dark fruit. He sees it as an easygoing, versatile wine that could work with a wide variety of foods.
Then there was one of my favorite stories from the interview.
When one of the lesser-known red hybrids first came into the cellar, Kyle had only experienced the grape as finished wine.
Then the fruit arrived.
Suddenly, the cellar smelled like strawberry jam.
And there was only about a ton of fruit.
The color was so brilliant and intense that it stained everything—including Kyle's hands.
Those little moments are what make listening to a winemaker talk about unfamiliar grapes so much fun.
You get to experience their discoveries along with them.
Lake Champlain Isn't Just a Pretty View
Of course, none of this can be separated from where the grapes are growing.
Lake Champlain plays an important role in moderating the climate.
This far north, winters can be brutally cold. The large body of water helps temper those extremes and can also provide cooling breezes during summer.
Kyle shared a great example involving a spring frost that swept through parts of New York, Pennsylvania and Virginia.
While some areas dropped into the low 20s, Westport remained closer to the upper 20s and around 30 degrees.
That difference mattered.
Move 15 or 20 miles away from the lake, Kyle explained, and growing conditions can change dramatically.
Traditional vinifera that might survive elsewhere in New York can struggle to survive those winters.
That's why Rolling Hills isn't trying to force Cabernet Sauvignon into a place where it doesn't belong.
They're planting grapes adapted to the place.
And then they're figuring out how to make the best wine those grapes can produce.
That's terroir.
Twenty Acres and a Big Vision
Rolling Hills didn't exactly dip its toe into the water.
The property originally contained a one-acre Cornell trial plot used to study how different varieties responded to the region.
That experimental vineyard ultimately helped inspire what would become Rolling Hills Estate Winery.
And when the owners decided to go for it, they went big.
Not half an acre.
Not one acre.
Twenty acres.
Kyle said their planted acreage is larger than the combined vineyard acreage of several neighboring wine operations in the area.
But what impressed me even more is that Kyle doesn't see their neighbors as competition.
He wants more vineyards.
He wants more wineries.
He wants more people experimenting with what can grow here.
Is This an Early Napa Moment?
Kyle used the word pioneer during our conversation.
Rolling Hills wants to help pioneer an undiscovered wine region.
He told me about a neighbor who wanted to plant a half-acre vineyard and make wine. Rather than keeping information to themselves, Kyle and the Rolling Hills team connected him with their grower and helped him understand everything from equipment to planning a crush pad.
Why?
Because one winery doesn't create a wine region.
A community does.
Kyle compared what's happening today in the Champlain Valley to an early Napa moment—farms, small producers and people experimenting, learning and helping one another.
Someone has to become the catalyst that gets things moving.
Could the Champlain Valley eventually become one of those New York wine destinations people specifically travel to explore?
That's exactly what Kyle hopes will happen.
And I wouldn't bet against it.
The Best Part? They're Still Figuring It Out
That's probably what I enjoyed most about my conversation with Kyle.
There isn't a neat ending to this story.
There can't be.
They're still writing it.
Kyle is learning the vineyard.
He's learning the grapes.
He's experimenting with harvest dates, blends and styles.
He's discovering what happens when techniques learned in Napa meet grapes bred for an entirely different climate.
And the Champlain Valley itself is still figuring out what kind of wine region it wants to become.
For wine lovers, that's exciting.
We spend a lot of time talking about established regions and established grapes.
But how often do we get the opportunity to watch a wine region develop almost in real time?
Watch or Listen to My Conversation With Kyle
There is much more to Kyle's story than I can fit into one article.
If you love discovering unfamiliar grapes, learning about emerging wine regions or simply listening to a winemaker geek out about figuring out what a vineyard is capable of, you'll enjoy this episode of Uncork Your Mind.
Watch the webinar or put in your earbuds and listen to the podcast.
And remember those names:
La Crescent. Marquette. Petite Pearl. Frontenac.
The next time you see one on a wine label, don't walk past because you don't recognize it.
Pick up the bottle.
Taste it.
Because sometimes the most interesting wines aren't the ones whose stories have already been told.
They're the ones whose stories are just beginning.
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