Forty-five years ago, when I was in graduate school and we wanted to splurge we would spend a couple of dollars on a New York state wine called Lake Niagara. I got to thinking about it the other day and for old times sake tried to find it in a local Washington, D.C. liquor store. No luck. I googled it and couldn’t find it there either. Does anyone know if it is still being produced?
According the New York Times it was around in the late '90s.
It certainly is. I just bought some a week or two ago. There are wine stores in the Boston area that carry it, but you have to know where they are. I’ve picked it up in New Jersey, as ell. And, of course, you can get all you want in Naples, N.Y., where it’s made. Widmers’ is the name of the company.
My wife still can’t believe tht I drink this-- she knows that I do have some taste in wine. Lake Niagara is a very fruity, “foxy” wine. It’s not as sweet as some (Manischewitz, for one), but it’s definitely not what any connoiseur would aprove of. I like it because:
a.) It reminds me of the Concord Grapes my grandmother used to grow.
b.) I used to drink a lot of it when I lived in upstate New York (you could get it very easily in Rochester and Binghamton when I lived in those cities). And toured the wineries, of course.
Not sure if this is the same thing, but Bully Hill, a New York state winery sells a Niagara wine, which is rather nice. Read up on Walter-he was a colorful man, but they didn’t get his goat. 
Bully Hill is another winery we loved to tour. I’ve written about Walter and his feud with Coca Cola several times on this Board. Walter’s dead now, I understand.
I’m surprised they make a Niagara. They didn’t used to. Even when I visited a few years back I don’t recall them selling a Niagara wine. Bully Hill specialized in New York wines that went out of their way to avoid the “foxiness” stigma that haunts so many New York State wines, and their stuff tended to be on the drier side. I suspect that either this is a much drier Niagara than Widmers’, or else they’ve decided to change course since Walter’s demise.
Aside from a handful of varieties (most notably the Fish Market and Goat wines), Bully Hill wines are really tough to get outside their area. A great many of their odder varieties you have to order direct from them or buy at their stores.
Oddly enough, the PA state stores began carrying Bully Hill products a number of years ago and have 5 or 6 different items on the shelf at any given time.
I don’t get to PA stores. I’ve fopund Bully Hill in New Jersey and Massachusetts, but only a very few well-stocked stores, and they never have the more exotic varieties. Same with Widmer’s