Cornell preserving East Coast wine history

A historic poster in the collection.

• From the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle

ITHACA -- From historical records to bottle labels, an archive at Cornell University is quietly collecting and preserving materials related to the East Coast wine industry.

Established in 1998 as part of the university’s rare book and manuscript collections, the Eastern Wine and Grape Archive contains documents, records, marketing collateral and ephemera from wineries and vineyards dating back to the 19th Century.

Presently, Cornell is the only American university with an ongoing program to document wine production and consumption in the United States.

Finger Lakes materials in the archive include 19th Century documents from Pleasant Valley Wine Co. in Hammondsport, Steuben County. The winery, which remains open and operational, was founded in 1860 and first invested in equipment to produce sparkling wine during the Civil War.

The materials do not circulate and must be viewed in the library’s reading room.

For more information about the archive, go here.

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