By Scott Scanlon
(Image above: Jonathan Oakes, former winemaker at Leonard Oakes Estate in Lyndonville, has been the part-time winemaker at Schulze Vineyard and Winery in Newfane since 2010. In September, he also took over for Ryan Sidoti as the new head of winemaking operations at Freedom Run Winery in Cambria. Photos by Scott Scanlon)

Johnathan Oakes created quite a buzz two decades ago after he started making wine and cider.

His family’s LynOaken Farms, outside Medina, became one of the first along Lake Ontario to plant apples for hard cider and grape vines for wine in the early 2000s.

Oakes won his first New York State gold medal in 2008 for Vidal ice wine and the awards kept coming.

Then came his Steampunk cider, which a panel of experts judged second-best in 2013 among American dry ciders in a tasting for The New York Times.

“It was fresh and tangy with a honeyed character that reminded me of chenin blanc,” wrote Times chief wine critic Eric Asimov. “It was also, at $11, our best value.” 

Things changed for Oakes in late 2024, when most of the 105-year-old family farm, focused mainly on apple production, was sold by the third-generation family owners.

Apple prices had been stagnant for decades, Oakes said, and that generation, scattered across the country, wanted to sell most of the farm’s 300 acres in Lyndonville while they still held good value.

Albion-based Panek Farms, the new owner, pulled out the grape vines and most of the apple trees in favor of more lucrative vegetable crops.

“It was a heartbreaker,” said Oakes, one of several fourth-generation family members who hoped to keep the Orleans County farm afloat.

The sale effectively ended Leonard Oakes Estate Winery – named for Oakes’ great-grandfather, who started the farm – and Steampunk. Seventeen people, including five family members, lost jobs, along with 40 seasonal harvesters.

Controlling family members still own a shuttered apple processing warehouse, tasting room in Medina and several acres in apples on the old farm. All are for sale.

Christopher Oakes, Jonathan’s brother, along with Christopher’s wife, Katie, and Wendy Oakes Wilson, an aunt to the brothers, continue to operate about 5 acres of apples as a U-pick orchard at 10609 Ridge Road. It’s open each fall.

Jonathan Oakes, 44, bought the family homestead in Lydonville amid the disruption. He still believes a bright future exists in the region for wineries in a climate akin to French Bordeaux and parts of Germany.

It’s why he continues to immerse himself in his trade.

“You’re keep learning, which is probably the most rewarding portion of this job,” said Oakes, who – fresh out of the Niagara College Wine School in Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ont., in 2006 – became one of the winemaking groundbreakers along the southern edge of Lake Ontario, with assists from Christopher, also a winemaker, and their father Darrel, who encouraged them to diversify the family business.

“Everybody that went through that wine school program had a lot of affection for the region, even more so for the capabilities and the potential for the future of the region,” Oakes said last month during an interview at Schulze Vineyard and Winery in Newfane, where he has served as the part-time winemaker for the last 16 years.

Freedom Run Winery, in Cambria, hired him last month as the new head of winemaking operations.

Oakes continues to run a winemaking and vineyard management consulting business and is a past president of the New York Cider Association.

“The other side of the border has run away with the ball,” he said. “They’ve really set themselves up on an international stage. They’ve linked arms and brought folks from all over the world to come see their operations and actively become a part of their efforts. They do conferences which are top notch. I’m hoping to bring a lot of that over here.”

This is some of what else Oakes had to say during our conversation, condensed and lightly edited.

Q: Do you keep in touch with some of fellow wine school graduates?

Yes. A lot were members of legacy families over in Ontario. Some of them went back to their family farms. Some of them are winemakers around Ontario. One is in Australia. One or two are in Toronto working at high-end restaurants as beverage directors.

Q: Does a winemaker make a pretty good living?

It is rewarding in more established regions, where positions and specific titles may be more standalone. Maybe you have one task in your career, and that is what you are trained for, whereas on the East Coast, you tend to do a little bit of everything.

I love being elbow deep in some red grape skins, with stained hands, and then clean up that night and go off to a fancy wine dinner and talk about wine. Being out in the field versus being in the cellar versus being in front of people is a well-rounded experience It touches on a lot of different things: chemistry, biology, mathematics, accounting, regulatory issues, mathematics, public speaking. It’s very rewarding. I would like to see more people getting into the business.

Q: Do you have enough bandwidth to make wine at two wineries?

The gig at Schulze is at most probably 20 hours a week. I’m directing them, and they’re the nicest people in the world to work with. We’ve been friends and we’ve grown our businesses together. I’m going to be much more involved at Freedom Run. I’ll be more involved with public engagement. They’ve developed a really great wine club that we’re going to continue to grow. They also do some fun stuff, like First Fridays, a monthly night of tasting on a specific wine variety or a specific region and go into depth.

Q: Your heyday, so far, was during the last decade. How has upstate New York fruit farming in general, and the grape industry in particular, changed since?

Covid was the biggest issue in the room (on the financial side). Consolidation has not necessarily helped small farms. There’s also now a bit of exhaustion with the state of the economy from growers, especially those who don’t market and sell their own products directly to end sellers. Schulze and a lot of other growers of the Niagara grape had their contracts canceled in February because of the Refresco debacles. (A major international juice processor canceled wholesale contracts to buy Niagara and Concord grapes from roughly 130 WNY vineyards). I think you’ll see a lot of those grapes end up on the ground this year, and if there is no market next year, you’ll probably see those farm owners rip those vines out.

Some of those vineyards are over a century old, but the value of the fruit has not increased. The price has gone up only about 20% in the last 50, 60 years, and that is just not sustainable. Federal lawmakers helped open up some markets for Concord juice to schools, which I think is great, but in the intermediate, there’s been oversupply and overproduction, and production facilities don’t really have room to bring in new fruit. We’re going to continue to see some fallout on the juice side of things, and even some because of changes in tastes on the alcohol side of things.

Q: How do Western New York winemakers and winery owners feel right now? Would they rather have a family winery with a regional feel, but maybe a little bit of a statewide or international reputation, or a big production winery that requires lots of grapes, lots of staff and major financial investment?

If we can grow awareness of regional identity through giving people better access to some of our products, that’s great. I don’t know anybody right now that wants to ship everywhere in the world. There’s beauty in scarcity as well. You know your customers by name, and it makes a big difference. Instead of chasing pennies, you’re trying to be profitable while staying accessible to your community.

Q: Would you like to make and sell Steampunk or another form of hard cider in the future?

I am in talks with my family in hopes to retain the Steampunk brand, but I will be forging ahead soon either way. I am currently consulting for two cider producers in Western New York: Stolen Apple Estate Ciders in Barker (formerly Donovan Estate Orchard, creator of BlackBird cider, which is now owned by Resurgence Brewing Company in Buffalo) and Blue Barn Cidery in Hilton.

Q: What wine grapes grow best in Niagara County vineyards near Lake Ontario, including Schulze, and those several miles south along the Niagara Escarpment, including Freedom Run?

I think of the bookends around us, Lake Ontario in southern Ontario and the Finger Lakes. We have a lot in common with both places. Varieties that maybe need to be a little more protected by Lake Ontario – because the closer you are to the lake, the better grapevines are with surviving winter, since the lake doesn’t freeze – is different than up on the ridge of the escarpment, where you’ve got much more limestone-based soils.

The soils here at Schulze and tied to the lake are much sandier. I wouldn’t try to grow Pinot Noir along the lake, but we grow great Pinot Noir on the escarpment. Cabernet Franc can do well in both areas. Riesling can do great in both areas, Chardonnay, I think, in both areas. Cabernet Sauvignon? I’m still on the fence on that but last year’s from the escarpment was freaking fantastic.

As far as the state’s grape being Riesling, I echo that. This terroir is better for Reisling than any grape and it can be made in multitude of styles: sweet, sparkling, off-dry, dry, dry disaffected, late harvest.

Cabernet Franc is my favorite red grape, and there are very good Cab Francs across the state, with differences. The Hudson Valley and Long Island are totally different than what the Finger Lakes and our area are doing.

Q: What is Cab Franc like in Niagara County?

We carry our acidity well. Our alcohols are a little bit lower. We have moved beyond the very herbaceous Cabernet Francs of yesteryear. Things run in the spectrum of cherry and mulberry fruit profiles, with very subtle tannins. It becomes more about subtlety. If it does move into the herbaceous territory, we tend to get into the black tea realm. If I had to compare it to another region in the world, it would be more Loire-like in its expression.

Q: How have the last couple of harvests been compared to years ago?

2020 was one of the hottest years on record. It was great, and 2025 was one of the hottest years on record. It was great in terms of growing grapes and bringing them in for wine. We’re used to living in the extremes in Western New York but in recent years it’s just been a different type of extreme, whether it’s extreme heat, extreme flash flooding and rain. This year has been atrocious in and around Lockport. I think we’re probably going to have a record number of inches of rain. Storms have dropped a ton of water, and they’ve done a lot of damage. We’re seeing high levels of humidity now with the rising heat, with the rain. It requires you to be more deft at handling what you have and making some changes.

Q: This year’s harvest started two or three weeks late because of the weather, during the third week in September, when some of the Niagara and Chardonay grapes were ready. What happened?

We’re trying to delay things as long as possible. We didn’t have the quite the ripeness of where we would like grapes to be at that point. Our acids are still a little bit high. We’ve had a lot of overcast days, so our sugars haven’t climbed quite so much. The warmth has been good, but the humidity has been horrible, so we have seen a ton of disease pressure as far as the fungus that grows in the leaves. And as you look around, you’ll be able to see all vineyards across the state with some browning and crisping of the leaves already.

Q: What can you do to deal with that?

Most people use fungicides to try to protect the vines, but it’s tough when you go out and spray, and then the next day rain washes it all off. There has been some really good development of chemicals that are effective, yet very non-toxic. Sometimes that means you have to spray more often. That costs more.

Q: How does the job change with the seasons?

Fall is chaos season, when fruit starts coming in and everybody wants to do things around here, which is great. We love people coming out, seeing what’s going on, being a part of it. It is our high-stress time of year. You only get to do this once a year and do it right, so these are long-hour weeks. We’ll be processing through the next several weeks and shift to production and tastings through the holiday season. Then we get to January 1, when things settle down. Every winery in the area would love to see more people out doing more winter-oriented events. We would welcome all ideas. Western New York is notorious for hibernating. Those are our hardest months financially. The winter is when we prune the grapevines as well. We move to clarification and maturing our wines, whether that’s in a tank or barrel. We end up in the second round of bottling in August, right before we go to harvest. The reds, if they’re going to go into barrel, they’ll spend one to two years in barrel from that point on, which will require topping that barrel every month, making sure that everything is clean and healthy. And then spring and summer, it’s back on the fields, a new growing season all over again.

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