Living Roots is a winery in both the Finger Lakes region of New York and the Adelaide Hills region of South Australia. It was founded by husband and wife team Sebastian, an Adelaide, South Australia native and sixth generation winemaker and Colleen, a Rochester, New York native and marketer Hardy. Our intercontinental label pays homage to family heritage while also branching out to new vineyards, styles and low-input techniques.
As an homage to our family history and our new[old] industrial home on University Ave, we’re making wine based on longstanding traditions, but with a sense of adventure and discovery. We source grapes from different vineyards and growers, the majority coming from the Finger Lakes and the Adelaide Hills where our families have vineyards.
We’re keen on sparkling wines and rich, aromatic whites like Riesling and Pinot Gris [which thrive in the cool climate of the Finger Lakes], as well as emerging and re-emerging hybrids that can produce high quality, low input wines. We work with Colleen’s family via Shale Creek Vineyard on Keuka Lake and other Finger Lakes growers, and monitor the vines closely throughout the growing season, sampling as ripening progresses.
When we’re happy with the sugar, acid and flavor levels, we schedule the pick [usually done by hand, sometimes by machine harvester]. In the vineyard, we help load the grapes into bins, picking out undesirable bunches and leaves as we go, and transport the grapes to our Rochester winery in our trusty truck, Buck.
For sparklings, we pick into small baskets and hand tip the whole bunches directly into our 1-ton membrane press, minimizing phenolics. After settling the juice with cold temperatures over a few days, we transfer it into older, French oak barrels or stainless steel tanks to ferment. Most of our whites go through a destemmer before being tipped into the press as mostly whole berries. The juice goes back into oak barrels or stainless steel to ferment. Our reds are destemmed into 1-ton picking bins for fermentation on skins.
We ferment all batches with wild yeast. Sparkling bases and whites are fermented at cool temperatures to preserve aromatics, while reds are fermented warm to extract the color, tannin and flavor from the skins. Once ferment is finished, reds are pressed off skins and we find appropriately sized vessels for all batches to exclude oxygen.
This happens while we’re in South Australia for harvest [February through May]. Our Associate Winemaker, Beth, holds down the fort in Rochester: topping tanks and barrels, checking sulphur levels and cold stabilizing the batches using the cold winter weather. As most of our wines in New York are fresher styles, we age them for ~nine months before blending and bottling.
When we return from South Australia in May, Seb jumps into tasting everything from the previous vintage in New York. Sounds like a dream job, but the pressure’s on to determine the best blends, while also minimizing waste and maximizing taste. The blending trials start broad and get increasingly particular. Some wines are single site and batch, but many wines are blends of different sites or winemaking techniques [i.e., different pressing, fermentation or aging approaches]. Once the blends are more or less dialed in, we organize bottles, corks and labels.
Our sparklings and some smaller batches are bottled on a little hand filler / hand labeler, while our ‘larger’ batches are bottled and labeled on a truck that parks alongside the Rochester winery, operated by a combination of their team and ours. Once bottled, some wines are released pretty much right away [Dry Rosé, for instance], though we hang onto others longer. Our traditional method sparklings age for up to three years in bottle before disgorging. Most of our Finger Lakes wines stay in the US, but we have started sending some to Australia by sea.
In South Australia, we focus on vibrant reds, working with classics like Shiraz and Grenache [managed with low sprays and, in some cases, organic farming in McLaren Vale], as well as emerging varieties like Teroldego and Montepulciano. The latter love a long growing season, retain their high natural acidity and can have more moderate alcohols. We source grapes from Seb’s family’s K1 Vineyard in the Kuitpo subregion of the Adelaide Hills and other growers throughout the Adelaide Hills and Mclaren Vale.
Like in the Finger Lakes, we sample the grapes as ripening progresses, schedule and help with the pick before bringing the grapes up to our Kuitpo winery in our old ‘83 Land Cruiser ute, Shaz.
We make almost exclusively reds in South Australia. Without a rotating head forklift, we hand shovel the bunches into our destemmer and destem either directly into other bins [for whole berries] or use the pump to macerate the berries while transferring to fermenters.
We ferment all batches with wild yeast. Without a chilling system in our Hills winery, the natural heat from the sun is used to warm ferments during the day, while cool nights and an air conditioned room help moderate temperatures to keep the ferments from overheating. Once ferment is finished, we drain the free-run wine and hand shovel the must into a basket press for extraction of the wine. Once pressed, we find appropriately sized vessels to exclude oxygen, mostly older French oak.
This generally happens while we’re in New York, while our Winemaker, Anthony, holds down the fort in the Adelaide Hills: topping tanks and barrels, keeping them warm enough to go through malo during chilly Kuitpo winters and checking sulphur levels. We age most of our reds for ten to eighteen months before blending and bottling.
When we return from New York, Seb jumps into tasting everything from the previous vintage in South Australia [a very similar process to in New York].
Our Aussie wines are bottled at a commercial bottling hall used by many wineries in the area. Once bottled, we ship a container with a mix of our wines, new and old, to our Rochester winery. This takes ~45 days by sea.
We’re keen on sparkling wines and rich, aromatic whites like Riesling and Pinot Gris [which thrive in the cool climate of the Finger Lakes], as well as emerging and re-emerging hybrids that can produce high quality, low input wines. We work with Colleen’s family via Shale Creek Vineyard on Keuka Lake and other Finger Lakes growers, and monitor the vines closely throughout the growing season, sampling as ripening progresses.
When we’re happy with the sugar, acid and flavor levels, we schedule the pick [usually done by hand, sometimes by machine harvester]. In the vineyard, we help load the grapes into bins, picking out undesirable bunches and leaves as we go.
For sparklings, we pick into small baskets and hand tip the whole bunches directly into our 1-ton membrane press, minimizing phenolics. After settling the juice with cold temperatures over a few days, we transfer it into older, French oak barrels or stainless steel tanks to ferment. Most of our whites go through a destemmer before being tipped into the press as mostly whole berries. The juice goes back into oak barrels or stainless steel to ferment. Our reds are destemmed into 1-ton picking bins for fermentation on skins.
We ferment all batches with wild yeast. Sparkling bases and whites are fermented at cool temperatures to preserve aromatics, while reds are fermented warm to extract the color, tannin and flavor from the skins. Once ferment is finished, reds are pressed off skins and we find appropriately sized vessels for all batches to exclude oxygen.
This happens while we’re in South Australia for harvest [February through May]. Our Associate Winemaker, Beth, holds down the fort in the Finger Lakes: topping tanks and barrels, checking sulphur levels and cold stabilizing the batches using the cold winter weather. As most of our wines in New York are fresher styles, we age them for ~nine months before blending and bottling.
When we return from South Australia in May, Seb jumps into tasting everything from the previous vintage in New York. Sounds like a dream job, but the pressure’s on to determine the best blends, while also minimizing waste and maximizing taste. The blending trials start broad and get increasingly particular. Some wines are single site and batch, but many wines are blends of different sites or winemaking techniques [i.e., different pressing, fermentation or aging approaches]. Once the blends are more or less dialed in, we organize bottles, corks and labels.
Our sparklings and some smaller batches are bottled on a little hand filler / hand labeler, while our 'larger' batches are bottled and labeled on our new bottling line. Once bottled, some wines are released pretty much right away [Dry Rosé, for instance], though we hang onto others longer. Our traditional method sparklings age for up to three years in bottle before disgorging. Most of our Finger Lakes wines stay in the US, but we have started sending some to Australia by sea.
In South Australia, we focus on vibrant reds, working with classics like Shiraz and Grenache [managed with low sprays and, in some cases, organic farming in McLaren Vale], as well as emerging varieties like Teroldego and Montepulciano. The latter love a long growing season, retain their high natural acidity and can have more moderate alcohols. We source grapes from Seb’s family’s K1 Vineyard in the Kuitpo subregion of the Adelaide Hills and other growers throughout the Adelaide Hills and Mclaren Vale.
Like in the Finger Lakes, we sample the grapes as ripening progresses, schedule and help with the pick before bringing the grapes up to our Kuitpo winery in our old ‘83 Land Cruiser ute, Shaz.
We make almost exclusively reds in South Australia. Without a rotating head forklift, we hand shovel the bunches into our destemmer and destem either directly into other bins [for whole berries] or use the pump to macerate the berries while transferring to fermenters.
We ferment all batches with wild yeast. Without a chilling system in our Hills winery, the natural heat from the sun is used to warm ferments during the day, while cool nights and an air conditioned room help moderate temperatures to keep the ferments from overheating. Once ferment is finished, we drain the free-run wine and hand shovel the must into a basket press for extraction of the wine. Once pressed, we find appropriately sized vessels to exclude oxygen, mostly older French oak.
This generally happens while we’re in New York, while our Winemaker, Anthony, holds down the fort in the Adelaide Hills: topping tanks and barrels, keeping them warm enough to go through malo during chilly Kuitpo winters and checking sulphur levels. We age most of our reds for ten to eighteen months before blending and bottling.
When we return from New York, Seb jumps into tasting everything from the previous vintage in South Australia [a very similar process to in New York].
Our Aussie wines are bottled at a commercial bottling hall used by many wineries in the area. Once bottled, we ship a container with a mix of our wines, new and old, to our Rochester winery. This takes ~45 days by sea.
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Another busy harvest season is wrapped in AUS, and it was a fantastic one! Aside from making wine [old favorites and LOTS of new ones], we also worked on launching Living Roots in Australia.
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If New York State’s so-called vinifera revolution had its main instigator in German-born Dr. Konstantin Frank, it could be said that another revolution, happening now, is also a product of equally passionate migrants.
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Another busy harvest season is wrapped in AUS, and it was a fantastic one! Aside from making wine [old favorites and LOTS of new ones], we also worked on launching Living Roots in Australia.
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After returning from Australia in May, we hit the ground running. Here’s a bit of an update:
• Our associate winemaker Beth held down the winery while we were away for vintage in the Adelaide Hills
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Sebastian Hardy, along with his wife Colleen, started Living Roots, a winery melding the best of their hometowns in the Finger Lakes of New York and the Adelaide Hills of South Australia. The Living Roots story can be traced to Thomas Hard
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Hello friends! We’re currently in Australia for our 13th vintage for Living Roots [can you believe it?!], and we wanted to give you a little sneak peek into what’s happening on this side of the world.
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We’re *almost* ready to wrap up harvest in the Finger Lakes! There’s still late-harvest Riesling and Vidal hanging on the vines and a bit longer, but the rest of our batches are at various stages of ferment in the winery.
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You might plan to attend a raucous Thanksgiving with an array of relatives and chosen family, or carefully curate a party of one. No matter the size of your celebration, with so many hearty foods around the table, it can be difficult to cater to every taste.
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Labeling wine as a “healthy” beverage has stirred up a hornet’s nest recently of vocal objection and indignation.
Although the research is well-documented that drinking a glass of red wine provides antioxidants and can help protect against heart disease and inflammation
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Nancy Irelan once told me that Americans torture themselves by not drinking bubbly every day. She’s the owner and winemaker at Red Tail Ridge, and she’s not wrong. In the past, I’d save my sparkling wines
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Another busy harvest season is wrapped, and it was a fantastic one! Aside from making wine [old favorites and LOTS of new ones], we also worked on launching Living Roots in Australia. We’ve been making our wines
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Sebastian Hardy’s favorite book is titled The Obstacle is The Way. He often listens to audiobooks or podcasts for a mindful way to unwind after his busy days making wine. Colleen, his business partner and wife,
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Rieslings from New York are among the best examples of the variety in the country, with those from the Finger Lakes region leading the charge. About 1,000 acres are planted to the grape in the area, making it a relatively small affair
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We landed in South Australia at the end of January [just as we came out of the orange zone in Rochester and our tasting room was once again permitted to be open for service] to allow for two weeks of hotel quarantine.
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2020. What a year, right? We’ve found ourselves without wine dinners, in-store tastings, and Club events, but have stayed busy adapting front-of-house operations for COVID safety and continuing to make your favorite wines behind-the-scenes.
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Sebastian and Colleen Hardy make wine in both Adelaide and Upstate New York, a wildly ambitious project rooted in the love of their home towns and families.
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The origin story of Living Roots Wine & Co., Rochester’s first urban winery, begins a bit like a modern day fairytale: Girl leaves big city job, moves to a new continent to pursue a dream, mets an eligible bachelor
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Once upon a time, in a land down under, there lived a grape so unpopular that winemakers would often pretend it didn’t exist. They tucked it into blends. They hid it behind its more famous big brother, Shiraz.
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Written by Katie Spain for Fritz Magazine. May, 2018.
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On a wall inside the production facility at Living Roots Wine & Co., two clocks hang side by side: one shows the local time in Rochester, the other the time in Adelaide, Australia.
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An hour from the famed Finger Lakes wine region, Rochester, New York’s third-largest city, boasts a successful craft beer industry and, now, an emerging wine culture of its own. Exemplifying that is Living Roots Wine & Co.
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Pay attention wine lovers! Help us welcome the newest kids on the block to Rochester’s food and drink scene, Living Roots Wine & Co. Owners Colleen and Sebastian Hardy are opening the city’s first urban winery and it does not disappoint.
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