Many people didn't think it would work. It's too cold and snowy for wine making to succeed in the North Country. But as our Brian Dwyer reports, a handful of wineries later, including one having major success, and those people are being proven wrong.

COLLINS LANDING, N.Y. -- It wasn't always this good. It took a lot of hard work.

Eventually, the 1000 Islands Winery got to a place where it was bottling up to 400 bottles an hour. It was a sure sign wine production could work in the North Country.

"I think it shows that this business continues to increase," 1000 Islands Winery owner Steve Conaway said. "We've got the wine trail here in Jefferson County which now includes four wineries."

But no one, except maybe a handful of people, knew just how successful it could be. It wasn't long before 400 bottles an hour wasn't enough.

And now with the product in such demand, Conaway has spent about a quarter of a million dollars upgrading. The biggest part, this bottling machine, the GAI model. It can do 2,000 bottles an hour.
Not to mention it does both corking and screw tops, as well as sanitizes all the bottles and pulls out all of the oxygen, which can destroy a good wine. All with the touch of a screen.

"It's one of the most famous machines in the world," said Richard Turner, Operations Manager of Prospero Equipment, which sells the equipment. "Two out of three wineries in the world are bottling on this machine. It's got the highest technology of any machine on the market."

"The other machine that we had worked fine," Conaway said. "It was able to grow the winery into its current size. This line is really appropriately sized for a winery that produces 50,000 gallons of wine a year."

One other thing this new bottling system does is allow the 1000 Islands Winery to expand its market. Not only in the country, but overseas as well. In fact, Conaway is heading to Germany later this week to see about drumming up some international business.

"We're just exploring possibilities at this point," Conaway said. "The machine itself is from Italy, so it would be a nice gesture for the Europeans to buy some of the wines we're manufacturing with their equipment."

As for the old bottling machine, Conaway says he's selling it. The buyer is in of all places, to a winery in the Finger Lakes.

On his trip to Germany, Conaway says he's representing several upstate wine markets. He says wine production in the state has gotten so much better that it wouldn't shock him to see several major international sales.