A brief history
The pursuit to craft world-class Riesling has brought Paul Hobbs back to New York to create site-specific estate wines from the emerging Finger Lakes region. Named after his parents who first met while attending nearby Cornell University, Joan Hillick and Edward Hobbs, Paul founded the winery with the vision to create Riesling that rivals its European brethren by pushing the boundaries of modern viticulture in the Finger Lakes.
When growing up with his 10 siblings on the family farm in Niagara County, his father Edward would travel to the Finger Lakes region and return with stories to share. Upon attending UC Davis Paul naturally developed an interest in Riesling, particularly those from Germany, which he considers his first love. After solidifying an international winemaking career, Paul began actively searching for a site in the Finger Lakes and discovered a property south of Hector Falls that drew notable similarities to the Mosel.
In 2013, the purchase of the property was finalized and the labor intensive process of developing a vineyard from scratch began. Now Hillick & Hobbs is planted to 25 acres and is dedicated entirely to Riesling. The vines are planted to high density and grown on steep slopes in predominately hard slate soils, making machine work nearly impossible. Each year the vines are tended to by hand from pruning to pick.
