Guilderland winery opens

An engineer who owns a company that builds hydroelectric plants recently opened the tasting room for Clover Pond Vineyard in Guilderland, which has been producing wines for several years but is only now making them available to the public.

“The story is that I told my wife I was buying 100 (grape) vines, but I actually bought 2,000. That’s not exactly correct, but it’s how we tell the story,” said James Besha Sr., who owns the winery and tasting room with his wife, Joyce. The first vines were planted in 2014. Set back from Route 20 about 2 miles west of the intersection with Carman Road, the property’s address is technically 100 Acre Wood Lane.

Open noon to 6 p.m. on weekends, with Thursday and Friday hours projected in the coming months, the tasting room offers, by the glass, bottle and flight, the eight red, white and rosé wines that Clover Pond currently makes, from 2018 and 2019 vintages. The company’s 2020 and 2021 wines are about ready to be bottled, Besha said. Food at the moment is limited to a tasting plate with local cheese, crackers, fruit and chocolate. Walk-ins are welcome, and online table reservations may be made through a link on the Clover Pond website, cloverpondvineyard.com.

The building is about 8,000 square feet total, with 2,900 square feet devoted to the tasting room. The seating for 80 overlooks the 16-acre vineyard. Half of the plot is growing now, with the remainder due to be planted next year. The approximately 8,000 vines are divided among eight or nine varieties of grape that are bred for colder climates and to be resistant to draught and disease, including marquette, frontenac blanc and gris and Marechal Foch.

Referring to the vineyard’s name, Besha, who owns Albany Engineering Corp., said, “We already had a lot of clover, and we planted more. We don’t have a pond yet, but we’re building one.”

Clover Pond wines are for now available only at the winery. Online sales are forthcoming, Besha said.