The Adirondack wine industry, and a local family, took a hit over the weekend when fire gutted Plattsburgh’s Elfs Farm Winery & Cider Mill.

The winery, owned by Tom Frey and his two sons, produces apple wine and hard cider, as well as wines from cold-climate grape varietals. Frey spent the past seven years renovating a former motel to create the winery, and 2010 was its first full year of operation.

The building and all the wine on the premises — about 1500 cases in bottles and tanks — were lost, according to local reports. Many of the grapevines survived undamaged, and no one was injured.

This article appears in Aug 3-9, 2011.

Corin Hirsch was a Seven Days food writer 2011 through 2016. She was also a dining critic and drinks columnist at Newsday from 2017 to 2022, and contributes to The Guardian, Wine Enthusiast and other publications. She’s spoken often on colonial era drinking and is the author of Forgotten Drinks of Colonial New England, published by History Press in 2014.