Birds helping themselves in NY; state expects to top 300 producers by sometime next year

Saw a few notes in the latest weekly e-letter from the New York Wine & Grape Foundation, courtesy of executive director Jim Trezise, that warrented passing along.

2009 GRAPE HARVEST is slowly getting under way, with both similarities and some differences among the various regions. Every region is late in terms of ripening, but recent decent weather has helped, and flavors seem to be developing well, a key component in wine quality.

Each region has unique challenges, and one of those for Long Island is birds, which migrate annually and feast off the great grapes. Many growers have responded by covering their vineyards with huge nets—but now the birds have figured out how to eat the grapes through the nets!

Keep up with the harvest through Cornell Cooperative Extension’s great “Veraison to Harvest” newsletter at http://grapesandwine.cals.cornell.edu/extension.

NEW WINERIES just keep popping up all over the state, confirming that the wine industry is about the only growth industry in New York State. Today there are 273 fully licensed wine producers, 33 satellite stores (linked to wineries but in other locations), and 15 pending winery licenses, meaning we’ll probably top 300 actual producers next year if not sooner.

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While some of the pending licenses are in traditional wine regions, an increasing number are elsewhere, like The Saratoga Winery (www.thesaratogawinery.com) in that tony horse-racing and spa city north of Albany; and Elfs Farm (www.elfsfarm.com), a combination cider mill, farm stand, and now farm winery in the Lake Champlain region bordering Vermont, which has an increasing number of grape growers and wineries.

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We commissioned the New York State Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to conduct an updated New York Winery Survey using 2008 data (vs. 2003, the last survey), which should appear sometime in October. But even that will be outdated, given the way the industry keeps growing.

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(Vigna note: A story on the winebusiness.com site in February 2009 showed New York with 232 bonded wineries in operation, fourth highest in the country and the most outside the West Coast triumverate of California, Washington and Oregon. Virginia was sixth with 152, Pennsylvania was next with 127, and Maryland was tied with Arizona for 20th with 37).

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RIESLING keeps growing in acreage, according to NASS, which every five years conducts a vineyards survey (different from the winery survey). In 2001, there were 461 bearing acres, and another 30 planned; in 2006 there were 683 bearing with 103 planned; and based on my own anecdotal evidence, I would estimate there are now about 1,000 acres of Riesling, with 90% in the Finger Lakes region.

New York foundation trumpets upcoming Restaurant Week in Buffalo, Rochester

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Filing this item under the heading of things I'd like to see happen in various Pennsylvania and Maryland communities. This note comes from Jim Trezise, the head of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation:

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LOCAL RESTAURANT WEEK is slated for September 21-28 in Buffalo and Rochester, with over 200 restaurants featuring three-course menus for $20.09 along with an array of New York wines and beers.

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Spearheaded by Peter Longo, President of the Buffalo chapter of the New York State Restaurant Association, the program brings together farmers, chefs, suppliers and customers, highlighting the great local products available to consumers in these areas.

In March, 150 restaurants participated in Buffalo, with 75 Rochester restaurants in April. The fall promotion, which we support, will include more restaurants and will occur simultaneously in the two markets. For more information, go to www.localrestaurantweek

NY pitches Beverage Trail by Hall of Fame

Couple of notes off the New York Wine & Grape Foundation's e-letter. Have to spend some time reporting whether any other state does one with more frequency or more infromation. The author is executive director Jim Trezise.


WINE BOOK has a new meaning with the simultaneous release of a book and a wine, in this case commemorating the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s journey up the river that now bears his name. The Hudson River Valley Reader, edited by Edward Goodman and published by Cider Mill Press, is the perfect read with a glass of Hudson River Valley Red 2008, produced by the award-winning Hudson-Chatham Winery. This is the first time a wine has been licensed from a book, which combines the river’s history with excerpts from regional authors like Washington Irving and John Burroughs. The medium-bodied dry red wine is made from DeChaunac, Seyval Blanc and Cabernet Sauvignon grapes grown in the Hudson River Region. The book cover and wine label both feature the famous “Hudson River Scene” painting by John Bunyon Bristol, courtesy of the Hudson River Museum. Hudson-Chatham Winery, located in Ghent, is Columbia County’s first winery, nestled between the Catskill and Berkshire mountains. Owners Carlo and Dominique DeVito produce several different wines as well as natural maple syrups under their Sugarmaker’s Reserve label. Commemorative bood-and-wine sets are available for $30 from the winery (518-392-2598, email info@hudsonchathamwinery.com.)

COOPERSTOWN BEVERAGE TRAIL is open for business, with a winery, a cidery and two breweries within 20 minutes of the Baseball Hall of Fame. An offshoot of wine trails created by legislation from Assembly Agriculture Committee Chair Bill Magee, the Cooperstown Beverage Trail has just released its new magazine (titled “Quench”) and rack card complementing a nice web site (www.cooperstownbeveragetrail.com). The trail includes Bear Pond Winery, Fly Creek Cider Mill, Cooperstown Brewing Company, and Brewery Ommegang. Recently, “Mallow Wine” from Fly Creek Cider Mill got a lot of publicity on Utica TV and many NBC affiliate stations including the Morning Show in New York City. On its opening day for 2009 celebrating the mill’s 153rd season, they harvested the soft white crop from mallow trees, transferred part of it into fermenters for mallow ice wine and the rest into small oak barrels for toasted mallow wine. The TV program provided live proof that marshmallows do grow on trees, but can only be harvested on April 1.

DIRECT WINE SALES to consumers grew 7% to over $3 billion in 2008, according to a survey just released by VinterActive (www.vinteractive.com), reflecting a mixture of positive and negative trends and a clear message that adapting to a changing market will be the key to survival. The survey involved more than 275 wineries from 36 states, and also showed some interesting variation in regional strengths and weaknesses. Within the overall 7% increase were 1% declines in both tasting room and winery event sales, 2% growth in phone orders, and major growth in other categories: direct mail 24%, online 26%, and wine club 28%. In other words, last year there was a noticeable shift from the face-to-face transactions at wineries to remote sales through the internet and other means. While this may very well have been attributable to record gas prices and the dismal economic outlook as the year went on, it’s also likely to become a long-term trend. The good news about tasting rooms last year is that while visitor counts declined, increased sales per visitor softened the negative impact. Of the wineries surveyed, average direct sales varied greatly from $99,000 for the smallest producers to over $7 million for the largest, with the relative importance of direct sales clearly linked to size: without them, smaller producers would not survive. While the economy was the major negative factor affecting tasting room sales, complex government regulations are by far still the major impediment to increased interstate shipment. (In other words, the strong growth is occurring despite burdensome government regulations, and could be increased by simplification—bringing the government more excise and sales taxes. You’d think that would be an incentive during this era of budget woes.) Over the years, an increasing number of wineries have come to use the internet for sales, with 92% having a web site, 70% a secure online store, 72% email marketing, 53% online wine club enrollment, and 14% with a computer kiosk in their tasting room. Direct sales to consumers represent only 10% of total U.S. wine sales (as opposed to those through the three-tier system), but is the most widely used sales method at wineries—with 99% selling directly, the average winery selling $1 million directly (55% of total case volume), and 59% expecting direct sales to be the fastest growth area this year. And despite lingering concerns about the economy, most wineries project continuing growth of 5% or more in direct sales.

More thoughts from the NY Wine boss

Followers of this blog have frequently read the weekly thoughts and opinions of executive director Jim Trezise of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation. Sharing a couple other that seem to me to have some relevency no matter what state you live in.

FLOWER SHOPS may sell wine in Iowa for an annual license of only $25, and Iowa wineries report brisk sales along with the bouquets. This is one of many ways in which that supposedly conservative midwestern state is far more liberal than the “Empire State,” and as far as we know Iowa doesn’t have major problems with underage purchase, drunken driving or related issues. At this week’s WineAmerica meeting in Washington, North Carolina’s Margo Metzger made the great suggestion that a summary of all states’ laws and regulations be compiled for the sake of comparison so enlightened public policy could be proposed. This will take some time, but it will happen.

POLITICS is a fascinating game, as I was reminded last week shuttling between Albany (final budget negotiations) and Washington (federal issues) and meeting with the game’s “players”—politicians who for some reason subject themselves to hard decisions, media scrutiny, and voter outrage. For most people, “March Madness” means basketball, but in Albany it’s the annual drama of negotiating a State budget by the April 1 deadline, a process commonly known as “three men in a room”—the Governor, Senate Majority Leader, and Speaker of the Assembly—shaping roughly a $126 billion budget, this year in the face of a $16 billion deficit. To his credit, Governor David Paterson raised a red flag about the impending fiscal crisis last August and presented his budget proposal a month early in mid-December to get the process going, yet has received widespread criticism in the months since then. Among the issues affecting the grape and wine industry are his proposals to allow the sales of wine in grocery stores, a tripling of the wine excise tax, and funding for the New York Wine & Grape Foundation. The first issue has been particularly nasty—World War III, as I predicted in the Wine Press last December—with the liquor lobby and wholesalers pitted against the grocery store lobby, while New York wineries are caught uncomfortably in the middle. On the federal level, immigration reform (AgJobs) has long been an equally inflammatory issue rarely mentioned during the Presidential campaign and still treated like a hot potato because of the “A” word (Amnesty), a red herring. These are not simple issues, nor are they fun for our elected officials to tackle. But fortunately they do, and to the best of their ability in shaping policies for the greatest good, for which we should be grateful. Over the years, I have come to know many public officials on many levels and on both sides of the aisle, and most are truly fine human beings doing a tough job under a microscope. Yes, there are exceptions, and the occasional scandal, but “public servant” describes well who they are. This was reinforced for me on Thursday when I flew on the same plane home from Washington with Congresswoman Louise Slaughter, who sponsored the New York Wine & Grape Foundation legislation 25 years ago and now chairs the powerful House Rules Committee. She is one of the most dedicated, intelligent, and hard-working people I’ve ever known, and even when technically off the job was asking people how they felt about key issues and what she could do to help them. It wasn’t about her, it was about them. She wasn’t looking for votes, she was looking to help. These are tough times, and politicians get bashed a lot. Maybe we should consider saying “Thank you” instead.

NY: 98 new wineries open in past 5 years

Among the items dotting the weekly e-letter of the New York Wine and Grape Foundation, there's this note from director Jim Trezise:

NEW WINERIES keep popping up all over New York State, with two more recently licensed: Angelica Winery in the Hudson Valley, and Coyote Moon in the Thousand Islands region, which I expect will grow strongly during the next few years in grape acreage (Minnesota varieties), number of wineries, and reputation. They also have a champion in Senator Darrell Aubertine, who chairs the New York State Senate Agriculture Committee and is a strong advocate of agriculture. During the past five years, 98 new wineries have opened in New York State, exceeding the 20-year period of the 1980’s and 1990’s and in effect quadrupling the growth rate. What other New York industry is growing at that rate? And what other industry brings so many value-added benefits to rural New York in terms of agriculture, tourism, manufacturing, transportation, and quality of life? The $3.4 billion that our industry generated for New York State’s economy in 2004 is now probably $3.8 billion or more, and we hope to update that study next year. Meanwhile, we’ve already commissioned the New York Agricultural Statistics Service (NASS) to conduct an updated New York winery survey so we can compare 2008 with 2003 in certain areas. As of today, we’re at 261 licensed wine producers (not including satellite stores), with about 20 more licenses pending. I expect we’ll top 300 by the end of this year, despite the horrible economy. Wine—the ultimate value-added product.

and let me add these notes, too

THINK LOCAL…DRINK LOCAL…UNCORK NEW YORK! is the message that will play every 20 minutes for the next three months on the mammoth (26 x 20 foot) CBS “Super Screen” in the heart of Times Square Plaza. The three successive calls to action are accompanied by a three-part “pour sequence” of red wine flowing from a bottle into a glass, photographed by Randall Tagg in conjunction with our own Susan Spence, along with the web site URL (www.newyorkwines.org). The message will run 6,588 times and generate more than 1,500,000 impressions daily, or 183 million over three months.

UNCORK NEW YORK radio campaign will also run throughout the month of April in all markets except New York City (where the Times Square ad is running) and Long Island (where we’re investing in print because it make more sense than radio in that market). The overall message: Spring is here, it’s time to get out, wine country is just around the corner no matter where you live in New York, and visiting nearby wineries is a great day trip or wonderful weekend. Tourism is the lifeblood of the New York wine industry, which in turn is the major catalyst for tourism in rural New York. Last year’s visitor counts and spending mirrored gas prices—when they hit $4 a gallon it was like someone threw a switch (to “Off”)—and now that they’re back down we want consumers to take a “gas-tank holiday” that’s fun, educational, and tasteful. Budget permitting, we’ll also revive our funding of New York’s dozen wine trails, which have been so successful in boosting tourism over the years.

CONCORD GRAPE JUICE will also be advertised heavily on radio during April, an extension of our campaign to promote the many health benefits it brings to people of all ages. (Fortunately, it is legal to promote the legitimate health benefits of grape juice, while federal law prevents the same practice for wine despite the many benefits from moderate consumption documented by worldwide medical and scientific research.) Concurrently, Welch’s has launched a major new advertising campaign featuring Alton Brown which is available for viewing at www.welchs.com/altonbrown. Juice made from Concord grapes is, like red wine, rich in polyphenols which promote cardiovascular health, long-term cognitive function, and a healthy immune system, leading Welch’s to label it The Original Super Juice ™. Concord grapes are also vital for New York’s agricultural economy, representing about two-thirds of all the acreage and tonnage of New York grapes. During the past few years, the New York Wine & Grape Foundation has had sufficient funding to maintain a major Concord promotion program, including a special web site (www.healthyconcordgrapes.com). Depending on the outcome of the State budget (presumably in a couple weeks), we hope to continue it this year.

Florida in news for more than spring training

Again, here are two items off this week's e-letter from the New York Wine & Grape Foundation and director Jim Trezise. He reports on how his state's wines performaned in a competition in Florida and then spends a bit of time offering his views of Florida wines.


NEW YORK GOLD was mined in the Sunshine State last week at the super Florida State Fair International Wine Competition, where New York wineries came home with 186 medals including 6 Double Gold, 26 Gold, 73 Silver and 81 Bronze awards. Topping the list was the Casa Larga 2006 Fiori Vidal Ice Wine which won “Best Dessert Wine” of the competition, with other Double Golds going to Arbor Hill Rhine Street Red, Dr. Konstantin Frank 2007 Semi-Dry Riesling, Imagine More Passion Ice Wine, Swedish Hill 2007 Dry Riesling and Svenska Blush. Gold medals went to Atwater 2007 Vidal Blanc, Chateau Frank 2002 Brut, Cobblestone 2007 Cherry, Dr. Frank 2007 Gewurztraminer, Fox Run Sable, Fulkerson Red Zeppelin and Airship White, Goose Watch Renaissance Red, Hazlitt White Stag, Heron Hill 2007 Semi-Sweet Riesling and 2007 Late Harvest Vidal, Hosmer 2007 Dry Riesling and 2007 Pinot Gris, Keuka Spring 2007 Lemberger, Lakewood 2007 Gewurztraminer and 2007 Dry Riesling, Peconic Bay 2005 La Barrique Chardonnay, Penguin Bay Tuxedo Red and 2007 Rosé of Chambourcin and Percussion, Swedish Hill Natural and Spumante Blush and 2007 Cayuga White and Blue Waters Chardonnay, Torrey Ridge Blue Sapphire and Diamond. In this competition with 1,382 entries, New York wines won 3 out of the 5 Gold medals in the sparkling wine category; the only Gold in the Lemberger category; 1 of 2 Golds in the unoaked Chardonnay category; both Golds in the Dry Gewurztraminer category; all 3 Golds in the Dry Riesling category; the only two Golds in the White Hybrid Blends category; 2 of 4 Golds in the Red Native American Blends category; the only Gold in the Native American Blush/Rosé category; the only Gold in the Stone Fruits category; and the only 2 Double Golds in the Ice Wine category. This clear quality throughout many different varietals and categories, combined with the broad diversity of New York wines, is a major strong suit for the industry.

DR. KONSTANTIN FRANK 2007 Gewurztraminer Reserve won Best New York White and Best Overall White on the national level at the recent Beverage Testing Institute Wine Competition, along with three other Gold medals for 2007 Gewurztraminer, 2007 Dry Riesling and 2007 Semi-Dry Riesling, which also earned a Best Buy Award. All four wines rated 90 points or higher with the Gewürztraminer Reserve taking the highest score of 93 points. The vintage Gewurztraminer secured 90 points and the two Rieslings each got 91 points. Standing Stone Vineyardsalso got racked up some impressive scores from BTI for its 2007 Vidal Ice Wine (93), 2006 Cailloux (91), and 2007 Cabernet Franc (91). Wine & Spirits magazine gave a 93 to Hazlitt 1852 Vineyards 2007 Homestead Reserve Riesling; and Wine Spectator a 90 to Wagner Vineyards 2007 Riesling Ice Wine.

FLORIDA WINES are lots of fun, just like the people who make them. After last week’s competition I met with representatives of the state’s Viticulture Advisory Council and Agriculture Department to discuss organizational structure, program development, and regional branding (they have a decent-sized annual budget based on a portion of the wine excise tax). There are now 16 wineries spread around the state, and the meeting was at Florida Orange Groves Winery in St. Petersburg with its copyrighted slogan “Finally, Wines that Taste Good”. Its selection of over 30 different tropical, citrus and berry wines include sparkling wines made from grapefruit, tangerine, mango and blueberry, complemented by table wines made with banana, passion fruit, pineapple, kiwi, key lime and tomato, capped by the best-selling Hurricane Class 5 White Sangria blend which has won Double Gold medals in Florida and Indiana (and deservedly so—it’s real good!). There’s even a Finger Lakes transplant in the industry, Peter Schnebly of Schnebly Redland’s Winery in Homestead south of Miami, who is making an avocado wine to add variety to his carambola (star fruit), guava, lychee, and other varietals. And yes, there are even some grape wines—muscadine varieties like Carlos and Noble—which have unique aroma and taste characteristics, along with high levels of healthful resveratrol due to the humid growing conditions. Muscadine, like the labrusca varieties in New York and other eastern states, are very different from Vinifera wines, particularly in terms of a more pronounced aroma (flowery for muscadine, fruity for labrusca), so you need to shed your prejudices to appreciate them. Like wines of all types, it really comes down to balance: the interplay of sugar and acid, and the varietal character of the grape. For more information, go to www.fgga.org.

Director laments lack of wines in NY eateries

This, from Jim Trezise, director of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation, in this week's e-letter. It's a complaint I hear from a number of winery proprietors in Pennsylvania and Maryland. Instead they'll carry a list that include a mix primarily from Europe and the West Coast. Not that they aren't feeling th economic pinch out there. Daniel Donohue, of TEIRA Wines in Sonoma County, Calif., worte in an e-mail that "everyone has inventory piled high in the warehouses because of the meltdown and a much slower holiday season. It’s not pretty. Everyone is working harder and selling less – and on the road doing so!"

Anyway, here's Trezise's rant:

WHY DON’T NEW YORK RESTAURANTS FEATURE MORE NEW YORK WINES? Frankly, it’s pitiful, as I witnessed in a fine seafood restaurant this week in our state capitol of Albany. The menu is great, as is the wine list, with one exception: there is NOT ONE New York wine on it, despite the compatibility of many of our wines with the menu. So after ordering a glass of superb Chateau Ste. Michelle Riesling from Washington, I asked to speak to the manager and gave her my business card. I asked: Is it a matter of quality? No, she said, New York wines these days are great, and have improved tremendously. Price? No, many are within the price range we serve. Promotion? No, we always participate in your “New York Wine Month” promotion, and we don’t know of promotions by other states or countries that drive customers to our door like that. (Note: I ate at this same restaurant in October, and they did in fact feature New York wines at that time.) Recommendations? No, the New York State Restaurant Association strongly encourages our participation in the promotion, and to feature New York wines beyond that. Wine Magazine Ratings? No, in a restaurant setting they don’t matter. So what drives your decision to buy, and to have ZERO New York wines on an extensive wine list in our state capitol? Wholesalers, she said. They’re the ones who come in with the specials and offer to print up our lists. It makes my life easier. So there your have it—New York businesses and New York jobs losing out because it makes someone’s life easier. I told her we (NYWGF) work with several good and supportive wholesalers—Elmira, Empire North, Opici, and Southern—who do a great job recruiting retailers and restaurants for New York Wine Month, and asked if she would consider adding New York wines if they called on her. She said yes. Meanwhile, every time I’m in Albany (which right now is more than I want), I’ll to go that restaurant and ask for the wine list before they seat me. If there are no New York wines, I’ll go someplace else and let the manager know why. I’m a big proponent of consumer choice—letting people have the option of wines from around the world—but I’m also a big proponent of the New York economy, and this situation is outrageous. Unfortunately, it’s also the rule rather than the exception: New Yorkers hurting other New Yorkers just at a time when we need to help each other.

Sustainability among symposium's key words

Saw these items on the weekend e-letter from the New York Wine & Grape Foundation and editor Jim Trezise, and felt they had the most regional interest:

CHANGE, SUSTAINABILITY, VALUE, AND MILLENNIALS are four themes that have resonated strongly during several recent industry symposia, starting at mid-January’s Wine Market Council presentations in New York City and last week at the incredible Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento, which drew over 11,000 attendees. Whether it’s change you can believe in, like, or don’t like, change is the one constant in our lives, with the rapidity and scale of change multiplying at dizzying speed. In terms of politics, economics, communication, and generation gaps, the decades-old “Future Shock” prediction of best-selling author Alvin Toffler has come true: It’s not change itself that is unsettling, but rather the pace of change that’s impossible to keep up with. Sustainability has gone from a back burner topic to a front burner priority in just a few years, as evidenced by virtually the entire first day of Unified devoted to various aspects of sustainability from grape growing and winemaking to marketing and social responsibility. With retail giant Wal Mart leading the charge toward products made sustainably and therefore others sure to follow, the message is clear to wineries and others that this will be a big deal in years to come. The importance of value to consumers was also evident during several presentations over the past month, perhaps most starkly in two slides by John Gillespie of Wine Market Council which showed that $10 = $20, and $20 = $100—in other words, for consumers during this recession, buying a bottle of wine at $10 feels like what used to be $20, and paying $20 feels like $100 when times were good. This is most evident in the on-premise (restaurant) segment, which has basically evaporated. That price pressure also makes potential wine excise tax increases even more devastating for our industry, as dramatically illustrated by Jon Fredrikson (more on that next week). But there’s hope: The Millennial generation (basically aged 15-32), also called Echo Boomers because they’re the millions of children of Baby Boomers like me (45-63). This is a huge population of young people who, for whatever reason, have taken to wine in a big way, are interested in exploring different wines, want to learn about them, and remain relatively optimistic about the economy. They consume more wine per occasion (about 3 glasses), frequent wine bars, and have remained wine-loyal more than any other age group during these challenging times. And there are still 23 million of them who haven’t yet reached the legal drinking age! Finally, while no one claims that wine is recession-proof, the preliminary statistics from 2008 show consumption growth of about 1%--certainly below recent years but still on the positive side and much better than many other products, especially during the year-end holiday season. Cheers!
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NEW YORK GRAPE CROP in 2008 increased in both volume and value over the previous year, according to recent statistics from the New York office of USDA’s National Agricultural Statistics Service. The 172,000 tons (up 4%) were valued at $58.4 million (up 8%), with 4,000 tons marketed as fresh fruit and 168,000 processed (73% for juice, 27% for wine). New York is a clear but distant third to California (6.7 million tons) and Washington (350,000, or double New York’s total). Fortunately, grape quality in New York was also excellent last fall, breeding expectations of superb wines. While 2008 was a good year for New York grapes, our friends in the apple and other fruit sectors did not fare as well, with all experiencing decreases from 2007. We sincerely hope 2009 will be better for all.

N.Y. farmers' markets brave the cold

Dropping this note on New York farmers' markets, from the weekly e-letter of the state of the New York Wine & Grape Foundation and director Jim Trezise.

FARMERS’ MARKETS throughout New York State are a great way to “buy local” and get great food and wine, even in the winter. A couple decades ago, Bob Lewis (now with the Department of Agriculture & Markets in Brooklyn) and Barry Benepe started the ball rolling by creating the Union Square Greenmarket, which transformed a dangerous, drug-riddled neighborhood into a bustling market where regional farmers sell directly to New York consumers. For well over a decade, Anthony Road Wine Company’s John Martini has appeared there every Saturday where, he says, “the money’s good, and the show is great”, and he often outsells the winery’s tasting room back in the Finger Lakes. This fall, a Pride of New York Winestand, now sponsored by the New York Wine & Grape Foundation and run by Wine & Food Associates, has allowed many other wineries the chance to showcase their wines each Friday; and the program has now expanded to Brooklyn’s Grand Army Plaza on Saturdays. Agriculture & Markets Commissioner Patrick Hooker is encouraging New Yorkers all over the state to patronize the local markets, numbering more than 50 during the winter months, with some having moved indoors but others braving the elements. For a listing of New York farmers' markets, including a link to just the winer ones that are open, click here.